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A Fox Tale

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This and Other Realities:

A Fox Tale

“You are being cunningly deceived” said the sly fox with the cunning smile. I silently laid the Russian Gypsy divining cards down and wondered…

Mother Nature had gifted me with many surprises of beautiful foxes appearing in my life. I always welcomed them with love and gratitude whenever they appeared. There was the curious, friendly fox at Round Lake, the patient red fox that waited at the edge of the road by Kenogami Lake as Roger and I approached in our car, the very large and different (Arctic?) fox who sat quietly as I picked blueberries near the Esker Park lakes, and other foxes too… I felt thrilled and honoured to see them.

I wondered what the cards of the fox were trying to tell me as I put the deck of cards away. I kept this all to myself.

The following evening, my young teenage son, Aaron, returned home, wide-eyed and breathless. He said, “Mom, you won’t believe this, but a fox just followed ma as I was walking home… all the way from downtown to here!”

I looked at him with a motherly, sly smile and asked, “Do you have something to tell me, son?” He hesitated but a few minutes later reluctantly revealed that he’d been smoking cigarettes with his friends. I almost laughed, remembering the peer pressure to smoke that I also experienced at about his age. My friend’s Grandmother caught us smoking in her shed. She’d seen clouds of smoke coming out of the shed and thought it was on fire. Then my Mother found a smelly cigarette butt in my coat pocket.I think my sickly green face gave me away, despite the fact that I’d grown up with clouds of cigarette smoke in our family home every day. A few years later when sitting with another friend in a restaurant, both smoking to pretend that it made us look ‘glamorous’, my friend said, “You look ridiculous! You don’t even know how to hold that cigarette!” I looked at her, thought a few seconds, then said, “You know, you’re right!” I crushed my cigarette out and that was the end of it for me. She continued to pay for the addiction for years and I often thought of her words with gratitude.

So, Aaron stood before me, clearly expecting to be ‘grounded’ and, worse still, not be allowed to play basketball at the school in the evenings for a while. I didn’t add a strict punishment to those feelings I understood and read so clearly on his face. Back then, our home was a ‘smoke free’ zone. My husband, Roger, smoked outside in all weather. Doing that was a rarity in those days. Our daughter, Alissa, had asthma. Anywhere near any cigarette smoke in the air, since she was a toddler especially, her physical reaction would mean going immediately to the Emergency Room of a nearby Hospital. Smoking was then a ‘life and death’ situation.

There was no parental reprimand to Aaron that night. I just spoke softly. “Please don’t smoke around here, son”, and left him to learn from his choices. There’s a fine line between parental guidance and parental tyranny.

Then I silently thanked Mother Nature and her Fox who had cunningly revealed a secret to me.

(A true story from Englehart, Ontario and retold in Victoria, BC- November 2, 2021)

Thanks again Mother Nature!

Shelley Wilson

Beaver Tale

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This and Other Realities:

Beaver Tale

Mother Nature has gifted my family and I with many cherished memories through the years, often presented as pleasant surprises.

It was Canada Day, July 1st. My husband, Roger, and I decided to bring our two less-than-enthusiastic, pre-teen children, Alissa and Aaron, on a day trip of boating and fishing with our aluminum boat and outboard motor. We drove to an access point near Matachewan on the Montreal River. It’s a 220 km (137 mi) long tributary, with its own tributaries, of the Ottawa River stretching another 1,271 km (790 mi).

There, we loaded the boat with all the essentials , including the children.

It was a long ride to our destination during which Roger manned the outboard motor, I watched for the thrills of seeing wildlife and potential hazards, while the children watched the water- the waves, the ripples, the sprays- and the sky- the passing clouds in the bright sunlight, the birds flying by- and the shoreline of rugged Northeastern Ontario trees, shrubs, rocks and driftwood, all of which lulled them to sleep. While Roger and I were mapping, they were napping.

Part of our journey included a challenging portage. We all had to get out of the boat and slowly winch it up, with our gear and heavy motor, using a vintage winch pulley kept there to aid travel up the overland incline. It was a strenuous, exhausting task made more uncomfortable with the hot temperature, mosquitoes and blackflies. Like explorers and pioneers, we were on our determined way again.

Finally, we reached our chosen spot for fishing. Baited lines were all thrown in the water, not caring whether we actually caught any fish. The time of day, hot temperature and cooked bait were ignored as minor details. I recall that we were all focused on the contents of our cooler more than anything else.

Once satiated, we all drifted into silent reflection on our surroundings. That’s when Canada’s Totem Animal, a Beaver, swam up close to our boat, then loudly slapped its tail on the water. Some folks would say it was the Beaver’s territorial warning but we called it “The Canada Day Salute”.

( A true story retold November 1, 2021)

Thank you Mother Nature!

Shelley Wilson

Bunny Tale

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Thank you Mother Nature!

This and Other Realities:

Bunny Tale

When our two children were ‘wee folk’, my family had a special visit one magical Easter morning.

That day, the snow was still about 5 comforters thick on the garden and surrounding ground where we lived in a cozy, two-storey ‘doll house’ in Northeastern Ontario.

As I drew back the heavy curtains covering our large living-room windows, I delighted to see the snow sparkling brightly in the morning light. White lattice panel inserts added ‘old world’ charm to view through those modern windows.

Laughter filled the house. Alissa and Aaron were up early that morning to hunt for the Easter Bunny gifts of sweet chocolate eggs hidden in, under and around so many objects in every room. Soon, little hands and faces were smeared with chocolate happiness.

Looking out the window, we discovered a wondrous, timely sight. There, in the freshly fallen snow were the distinctive tracks of a ‘Bunny’ who had sometime earlier hopped out of the nearby wilderness, then crossed the frozen garden to stop directly in front of our window. The tracks then turned back in the direction of the wilderness. Why it went to that spot was not evident. A delicious little mystery to savour…

If there’d been any doubt as to their Easter chocolate benefactor, it melted away as the children peered out at those clearly unmistakeable tracks.

A little voice said, “How did it get inside, Mommy?”

“That’s a secret,” I said with a chuckle as my husband chuckled too.

(A true story retold October 28, 2021)

Thank you Mother Nature!

Shelley Wilson

A Story of Religions

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We have long revered, idolized and worshipped the ‘People of the Stars’ who brought their many Religions to this Living Library Planet. Many different Ancient Aliens- Alien ‘Angel’ Messengers recreated their diverse Belief Systems here. They created the gods of Egypt, India, Persia, Greece, Rome, Central America and elsewhere. They created Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other Power Structures of Religion. It was also Ancient Aliens who created the worship of Baal, Moloch, Satan, Kali and a global pantheon of death cult gods. They even inspired the creation of ‘Hollywood Stars’ worshipped by believers and atheists alike. There is a constant stream of reinventions of Ancient Beliefs brought here to this Living Library Planet by this diversity of Ancient Aliens- the ‘People of the Stars’.

(June 24, 2020- Shelley A. Wilson)

The Ant

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The Ant
The battle-fury now dissipated into the usual calm
miseries and slowly savoured spoils of scavenging pride
such conquests bestowed on the ranks of his species.
Theirs was a long history of unchecked gluttony
for conflict, combat, and conquest
making them the most feared aggressors of their kind.
Their militant society continually advanced
in steps marching beyond survival instincts
into zealously fanatical, constant acts of aggression.
They were a vast army of ants,
a single-minded soldierly race of beings,
each working in a frenzy of duty and self-sacrifice.
They were empowered by their numbers
and unquestioning obedience
to serve the dictates of the common purpose
of their robotic insect lives.
They abhorred the mutations of individualism
which rarely surfaced in their troops,
considering such manifestations
as treacherous treason— as dangerous
as the weaponry of weak mandibles.
He knew he was somehow a mutation,
but had hidden his secret
with desperate cunning and desperate courage.
He successfully fulfilled frustrating demands
to act out his life in the expected ways,
ways tolerated and accepted by his social order.
All eyes were the eyes of spies.
He looked about the battlefield of this new territory,
disgusted by the weakness of this particular enemy.
Their bodies were now grotesque statues
spread everywhere in rigid poses,
some with missing limbs and heads
like the statuary of fallen ruins he’d once seen.
He observed the scene with analytic fascination,
his large protruding eyes unblinking
in their detailed examination of the carnage scene.
The mutated sensitivity of his vision
artfully brushed every raw edge of severed body parts,
carefully noting every angle of captured gesture,
studying the chiaroscuro of light and darkness.
The scene was endlessly repetitive in his memory
yet held him in captive fascination every time.
He understood this far better than
the mystery of caterpillars and harmless butterflies.
Everything about them caused him to question his
natural instincts, his drilled education—
caused him to think more deeply about survival,
aggression, and his own mutation.
He wondered about how many unimagined alien lives
might fill the unknown territories, the vast unknown.
How often such thoughts betrayed him to himself
and he reacted with swift executions
of self-condemnation and guilt.
He detected sudden movement among the dead—
an enemy with the audacious will to survive his wounds,
yet too badly wounded to provide a threat
and soon surrounded by scavengers busily at work.
He turned from the drama,
indifferent to the merciless death
taking over where merciless life left off,
looking up instead.
His ever-alert antennae informed him
of the vibrating drone overhead—
a massive swarm of killer-bees on the move.
Now here was a species he understood,
a breed of aggressors without conscience,
a rigid and militant society much like his own.
His leg twitched uncontrollably
and his body grew strangely colder
despite the summer day’s heat.
March,1992, revised May, 2004