In Mary Oliver’s essay, Staying Alive, she explores what it means to live a life of our own creation, told from the lens of her love of foxes. I’ll be including many of her passages, but if you want to read the full essay for free, an online version can be found here.
Once I saw a fox, in an acre of cranberries, leaping and pouncing, leaping and pouncing, leaping and falling back, its forelegs merrily slapping the air as it tried to tap a yellow butterfly with its thin black forefeet, the butterfly fluttering just out of reach all across the deep green gloss and plush of the sweet-smelling bog. - Mary Oliver, Staying Alive
Watch the YouTube version here.
my dearest fox heart, live your life with these rules:
just be, don’t perform.
you and you alone decide your actions, your beliefs, and your words.
your body, your mind, your spirit, are your home. tend to your home.
live a life that feels right to you, and you only.
let your animal body connect with nature and learn how your rhythms mirror the rhythms of the earth.
don’t take yourself too seriously.
laugh more.
your intuition is loud, if only you listen.
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