In Thrall to the Fox-Fire Eidolon

...Love accompanies chaos, precedes the world, wakens the sleeping, lights the dark, gives life to the dead, gives form to the formless, perfects the imperfect.
-Marsilio Ficino: De Amore, Translated by Sears Jayne , 1994

"When men are dead, their ghosts often go to reside in foxes, or use these animals as hacks, riding on them through the air and over land and water for enormous distances and with lightning speed."
-Thomas Watters: Chinese Fox Myths, 1874

"The erotic intention ... presents itself as that which would possess and touch what ought merely to be the object of contemplation, ...its root in the intimate contradiction of a gesture that would embrace the unobtainable"
-Giorgio Agamben: Stanzas, 1993

"When we desire, we desire the phantasm, and purely corporeal pleasure does not exist."

Bin gewohnt das Irregehen,
's führt ja jeder Weg zum Ziel:
Uns're Freuden, uns're [Wehen],
Alles eines Irrlichts Spiel!

[I am used to going astray;
Every path leads to one goal;
Our joys, our woes,
Are all a will-o'-the-wisp game!]
-Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827) , "Das Irrlicht", from Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten 2, in Die Winterreise, no. 18-
Translation by Arthur Rishi

...Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed;
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
- William Shakespeare: Sonnet 147

"Do you think we were surprised to find that the American Dream was a nightclub that had burned down five years earlier? That we were surprised to find when we tracked it down that it had been the old Psychiatrist's Club? Prior to that its name had been the American Dream. Do you think that we were surprised to find that?"
-Hunter S. Thompson: August 26, 1997

"Nodjimahkwe (Keewaydinoquay's teacher) had a log that glowed with waaswamagagod
(luminescent fungi) set on either side of her doorway. She did this for two reasons. The first was so that people could find her place even on overcast nights. The second was so that perhaps those coming would have more respect for her work. As it turned out, people were more respectful, but they also were more fearful, and some were afraid that Bad Spirits were involved."
(as told to Lois Boisvert on Kitiganing Island circa 1988)
-Keewaydinoquay: Stories from my youth, 2006

"The false fox wol have his part at nyght.
-Geoffrey Chaucer: The Legend of Good Women



















In Thrall to the Fox-Fire Eidolon

False fox beckoning away
down footsteps that fall contextual
promising the want of wants
-the attraction might as well be sexual...
A coming fever longing rose
to unmasque the heart's desire
hanging on to shadow
folly's beacon hides
lovesick angels choir

Wish-making star's phosphor caress
with undiminished charms
plays Eris off of Eros
both of them she arms
Were this the prize all wanting,
prize that takes no claim?
What bite of apple tasted-
why waste it on a name...

Alchemists who sought the Forge
to New World's night laid siege
though their moment was at hand
the firefly's synchronicity
lay beyond their reach
They defaced the noble savage
crossed great waters wide
declared a crucifixion
called the continental divide

Along night's mossy banks they comb
& dredge the dross of dream
to pluck burning cold with holy fire
the eldritch splendor, vulpine pome
In imagination's orchard
the law of gravity is fed
outfoxing every doctor
vixen vexed in heart & head

Neath the ruins of those old psychiatrists' club
stir deliriums dark though yet undead:
amor hereos, ilisci
assidua cogitato, al-'ishq
from that sepulchre of American Dream
wakes Bodhicitta in Her garden bed

-John Meador
11/11/09