Watching foxes

Late summer walking in dry fields. I spot a fox. He spots me. Looking directly at me, on alert, I become aware that he is likely to scarper unless I show him I'm safe. I notice my posture - also on alert, pulled up and - importantly for me and my ways of being in the world - pulled out, like my ears are straining to hear, my skin is straining to feel. My breath, probably, is up, almost held.

Two different intertwined histories, knowledges, and experiences begin unwinding and surfacing in me. One relates to an animal communication expert I spent some time with. OK, I can send a message to the fox. "I'm safe". I suspect I could "send" as many messages as I want but my body needs to be there with the message. Another, relates to nervous system. Feldenkrais teacher Annie Thoe, once spoke about how if your nervous system is on alert you won't meet wild animals. The "I want to see" mentality is a predatory mentality and animals are mostly going to scatter in its presence. They can feel it.

These knowledges swirl around in me, melding with more experiential understandings and somehow I drop, I look gently elsewhere, other than at the fox, but allowing the existence of the fox to be there. I draw my skin-sense back in, trusting that the fox remains there and will receive the message. At some level this dropping and becoming more part of the environment, feels as though the fox received my message, and I am responding, rather than I am doing. Some sort of symbiosis.

Slowly my gaze wanders back towards the fox. He's sitting down, seemingly taking in the evening sun. He looks over his shoulder, as his mate trots out towards him. I watch them both sitting, meandering, sitting and meandering.

Reflecting on this moment of beauty somewhat later, I encountered some learning around peripheral vision. Playing with different ways of seeing is something I explore with Rolfing. Many of us (if not all) could benefit from being encouraged into states where we are more in peripheral vision. Stress pushes us into focal or even tunnel vision. Screen use pushes us that way too. It's not as though we need only focal or peripheral, but western 21st century life prioritises one way of seeing. 

Meeting the foxes provided some experiential insight that peripheral vision might not be something you can "do" from your eyes. My experience with the foxes was that I could not just extend my gaze from my eyes to see more either side of my head. My vision and, fundamentally, my experience, was changed as I dropped into myself. Putting it another way, I became more available to the space. I was not "using" peripheral vision as an act of will. I could see more around my head but in that intangible way that as soon as I tried to focus on it, then it slipped away, leaving echoes of laughter bubbling around me.

Importantly, my peripheral vision, allowed me to live in the world in a different way, to be part of the foxes' world. My shift in sensory experience communicated something different to the foxes, I ceased to be a threat, and became part of the environment, softly receiving the glory of the foxes, and of my being accepted by the foxes.