By Tom Swift
December 31, 2025
You don't know the owner and you don't know the dog. But it's a highlight of your day driving down the road and seeing the two of them.
The man's running for exercise. The dog is running for joy.
They are tethered by a leash strapped around the man's waist and the dog's neck. You get the impression — given the tight-fitting bright yellow running shirt and the fact that it is, after all, sleeting — that the man is at least a semi-serious runner. Certainly, this is not his first jog around the block. Given that you're driving down a thoroughfare on a holiday weekday in winter, these are hardly ideal running conditions.
Yet it's the dog — a charcoal-colored canine of medium build — who is running first in this duo. It's the dog who's galloping ahead of the man, jumping up, over and over, mouth open and turned up so as to collect the chunks of snow and water that fall all around. Once, then again, and again, the dog is running and bounding. This is a lottery winner and the payout is falling from the sky.
Until this moment, you're a little sour; on the road to recovery, with your body talking to you all day long (often in different languages), you're not pleased that the elements are even a factor in your day. Here you are less than 48 hours after a winter storm and this is not the first but the second time since the end of that storm that we've gotten additional precipitation that is more than a mere dusting. In fact, you're fighting it a bit — wanting to be able to get out and about more than once today with things do to in between these runs of the four-wheel variety.
Then you see this four-legged creature who shows you that there is another way to look at things.
Success
By Tom Swift
December 20, 2025
You come home late on an afternoon that will soon turn to night. You open the garage door and out of the corner of your eye you catch a furry figure running across your backyard.
You know it's the rabbit. It's got to be the rabbit that frequents your backyard at night.
You slowly approach and see he's scurried near the lilac bush. Soon he's exiting the premises, bobbing his white behind in and out of fresh, white snow. He leaves through your open gate in the direction of the front yard.
It's lightly snowing and not-so lightly blowing. You think about the feed inside your back door. The rabbit is likely to be back at some point. You want to put some out. But then you don't want to waste it, either. Won't take long for the snow to cover up whatever you put down. It doesn't make sense to put down wildlife food if the wildlife can't find said food.
Yet you try anyway, dumping sunflower seeds, corn, and peanuts into a clump on a bump in an opening in the snow not far from the lilac.
Some minutes later you look out the window: you can't see the clump. Already whitewashed.
Good call, buddy, you say to yourself. Way to over-rule your right first instinct.
Later in the evening you slide the curtain on your backdoor window over and take another look-see. The rabbit is back. The rabbit is back — and he's found the clump. He's sitting before the seed and corn and nuts with his feedbag on.
This makes you happier than you might care to admit in public.
Before you go to bed that night you peek out again and see the rabbit underneath the lilac. He's a few feet from his remaining stash. He sits looking in that direction.
You know what, buddy? The prevailing view of success ... the one that you grew up believing without even thinking about it ... the view you swallowed in a way not dissimilar to the way you consumed air ... that view doesn't have to apply to you.
Hawkeye
By Tom Swift
December 6, 2025
There's something about a clear winter evening that hearkens the possibility of magic.
Steam rising from a chimney ... in the day's last light ... frozen ground under my feet ... I can be sent — like that — to the frozen ponds of my childhood. In my mind I can hear skates cut ice. I can hear old buddies laughing and yelling and trash-talking during outdoor hockey games. I can see myself alone with a fresh sheet of ice to dream on. Skating under starlight is highly underrated. You feel every minute bump of the earth while at the same time the heavens are in clear view.
I would neither skate nor run nor play hockey on this night, however, a week post-surgery. I stepped outside to move a little. Walking is healing. Walking lessens the pain. I wish I could just go on a long, slow loop through the neighborhood but a recent, sudden shift from fall to winter means the terrain would be uncertain. And right now I need certain. Falling on ice would not be a good idea. So on this night I was out but I wasn't about.
I stood on my back stoop. Before me: A new coat of snow. Clear sky. A big moon. Dusk — the hour between — the hour of transformation — is my favorite time of day and I made it outside with just enough time to still see my feet. I was bundled and, as I held the railing and go down a small stack of steps, I moved slow. I landed on to the pathway that cuts through my backyard. I will walk back and forth, house to garage, garage to house, as many times as feels right. It's a short jaunt but it's far better than nothing. I put some seed out for the birds in case they came around. Then I began the slow crunch.
I hadn't made two round-trips when I looked toward the clarity of the sky (cold air makes for a clear view) and see a hawk. Probably a Cooper's hawk, possibly a red-tail (I didn't see a rust-colored hindquarters even though, on cue its wings spread). This hawk wasn't flying; it was gliding — right over my head, turns out. I turned to follow its path. The hawk settled high up on my maple tree some forty feet from where I stood. This surprised me greatly.
I had noticed in the fall, after the leaves fell, that there was a nest up there. I hadn't seen such a nest in the previous seven winters. I have many squirrel friends in the area; I have observed their dreys in the white ash in my front yard. Seemed unusual that they changed residences but I otherwise didn't give the matter much thought. The specter of surgery has been foremost on my mind. This was scheduled before the maple dropped her gorgeous red and orange leaves. (I have the prettiest tree on my block and it's not close.)
Shortly after the hawk landed I heard chirps. I'm not sure where they came from but I assumed from the nest. They sounded a little like cardinal chirps but not precisely so. I wondered if the hawk had offspring it was back to feed. But that wouldn't make sense at this time of year. My best guess is that the chirps were from other birds tucked into coniferous trees nearby. Maybe the male in the cardinal family, which lives in an evergreen just over my fence in my neighbor's yard, was sending a warning to the neighbors.
Since hawks are predators, it occurred that this could be a raid. Except, I don't hear squawking. The warning signals, I presume, would be loud. A few summers ago, when the leaves were thick and you couldn't see anything much else from the ground, I was out in the backyard when a hawk came through and stole a chick. I knew this was happening because of the noise — and because of the site of the parent bird desperately chasing after the hawk as it left with its meal. The scene on this night was not that. The hawk stood on the assemblage of leaves and sticks before slipping in and out of sight.
I will later learn that likely I'm wrong about that being at nest at all. Rather, it's likely a roosting site. Hawks need safe places to perch, conserve energy, and shelter from wind and cold. They often reuse old nests (their own or another bird's) as roosting spots during the off-season. This is akin to the difference between a house and a cabin. The hawk may have built this roosting spot months ago during breeding season and returned to it for protection from winter weather. It was 14 degrees with a little breeze and it wasn't getting warmer anytime soon.
I hadn't been outside all day. Frankly, I already felt cold inside. I didn't want to move but I needed to move. In addition to the physical pain there is mental strain, which might be greater. Given the myriad sensations that hit the body after your insides have been cut open (especially when your inguinal walls have been manipulated) the opportunities to wonder were not hard to conjure. As this pang or that stab and this shooting-throbbing-aching have come and gone from one spot or another I have found myself battling doubts that healing was, in fact, happening. For sure it wasn't happening as fast as I expected. I had a dream around this time that I bought a new pair of ice skates — even though within the dream itself I knew I already owner a pair of perfectly good ones. In other words, I bought skates I couldn't use. In waking life, I thought I would glide through this recovery and, alas, that hasn't been the case.
The encounter with the hawk didn't tell me when my healing would be completed; it didn't erase all doubt that it would be completed at all. But it gave me a bigger boost than any dose of pain medication. Hawks have incredible vision. They naturally represent clarity and insight. They have the ability to observe situations from a higher vantage point than I usually allow for myself. This sort of perspective is decidedly useful in the midst of anxiety. Step back, we say. We can be too close to something to see it properly. One of my favorite mediations is one in which the aim is to see yourself from the "10,000-foot view." Instinctively, I will find myself doing this in the coming days. I will see a deceased elder's face. I will hear him say, "You are OK, Tom." Doubt creeps in, his face then appears in my mind's eye: You are OK.
Also, the hawk's visit just made me excited. I texted my neighbor, a birder I knew would be interested. I started writing this post. I looked up symbolism because symbolism fuels meaning that's more durable than logic.
In some Native American traditions, hawks are seen as messengers between the physical and spiritual worlds, calling people to pay attention to signs and intuition around them. I find myself regularly wanting reassurance that there isn't something seriously wrong. I do this by asking people, many of whom have no way of giving me what I seek; by looking up information to confirm suspicions; of reading too much into the moment. My intuition is one of my favorite parts of me. It should be a go-to, not a last resort.
Like many birds of prey, hawks symbolize liberation, self-reliance, and the courage to chart one's own path. Hawks are also territorial and protective, so they can represent vigilance and the guardian spirit watching over something important.
The point (and I write this to remind myself) isn't to take one answer away but rather to sit with the questions. There's a creature in my space who possesses a great capacity to see who is, literally, watching over me. The hawk can't make me glide to health but this is different than saying it can't offer useful guidance. After all, the parallel is there: both the hawk and I are in a period of vulnerability; both of us require patience. The hawk knows instinctively to return to its roosting spot, to rest as needed during a harsh night, and to trust that what exists today will, like when the day turns to night, transform into something different soon enough.
The hawk glided in. I thought I could glide in my own way. I haven't so far. But maybe I just to need to sit and look at things from a higher perch.
Nighttime Messenger
By Tom Swift
November 1, 2025
You're heading home during a midnight stroll when you see a silhouette on the sidewalk. The diminutive figure is half a block away. You're walking west, the figure east. You wonder if it's a cat. But then there is something about the sight of a fox — even a fox you don't yet know is a fox — that tells you this isn't a creature you see on your city block every day.
You are separated from the outline in the shadow by an intersection. You live on the street in between. You pick up the pace to close the distance. The fox that you don't yet know is a fox but that definitely isn't a cat does the same — it runs straight toward you. You are excited and you are nervous. You want to see but you don't want to provoke. Just then a pair of headlights appear behind the fox on the street parallel to the sidewalk. For sure, yes, this is a fox and you feel the fox at the same moment also IDs you. The fox stops but only enough to pivot; immediately, the fox dashes in front of the approaching car — the headlights a camera flash that fully captures this gorgeous creature — across the street and into an alley.
You went on this late walk because you needed to move; you had stayed up to watch a West Coast game and, given your pair of matching hernias (one for each side of your body), not yet repaired but making themselves known, you do well to move and not so well when you don't for prolonged periods, like the length of a basketball game. Circulation is a decidedly good thing. You probably otherwise wouldn't have gone out at that hour, which is past your bedtime (even on a Friday night).
Yet — even before the fox's appearance — you are grateful that you did. Along the loop through the neighborhood, you wished goodnight to a cook as she left the backdoor of a neighborhood restaurant after close and cleanup; you observed through glass doors the last worker close down the old movie theater after the last show for the night; saw a black cat on its hindquarters on a front lawn, a sphinx surveying its kingdom; a pair of well-fed rabbits roaming a backyard; the memory, thanks to an empty yard, of a dog that always gets excited when she's out and you are near.
These scenes were extraordinary in their ordinariness — life alive, life as cinema. A healer friend told you the other day that before surgery a person sometimes experiences heightened consciousness. Maybe for that reason your senses infuse a keener response to this scene and especially to the sight of this unexpected and thrilling visitor. It is, anyway, an encounter worth contemplating.
Since you love symbols — and because, of course, all of life is about you — you look up meanings attributed to the fox from various cultural traditions and spiritual perspectives.
Common meanings include adaptability and cunning; and hidden knowledge or secrets. The nighttime setting amplifies the fox's association with mystery and the unseen. A fox, in your experience, this one included, always seems to be singular; nearly always seems to be alone. The way this scene unfolded, you alone, the fox alone, could suggest that a hidden truth is coming to light.
In many traditions, foxes are trickster figures. A fox approaching might warn you to be cautious of deception (from others or yourself) or remind you not to take things at face value.
In Japanese folklore, fox spirits (kitsune) can be benevolent guardians or mischievous shapeshifters. Celtic traditions often view foxes as guides through the spirit world. Native American perspectives vary by tribe, of course, but some emphasize the fox's wisdom and capacity for camouflage.
All of these are useful. However, three other meanings especially resonate at present:
- Feminine energy and sensuality — In some traditions, foxes represent feminine power. (When you and your boyhood friends first noticed girls you called them foxes.) Your dreams, both nocturnal and those in waking life, suggest a feminine energy may be drawing near. Possibly you're becoming more acquainted with aspects of your own feminine energy. You did seek out a female surgeon who then confirmed your intuition that she possesses the kind energy you want to be in the room when your body is opened.
- Transformation — The fox moving toward you, rather than away, could symbolize that change or new awareness is entering your life, not something you need to chase. That is the phrase that strikes: It's coming; you don't need to grasp for it. What's "it"? You don't know. Yet.
- Guide or messenger — Many spiritual traditions see animals approaching as messengers or spirit guides offering guidance during uncertain times. How romantic.
Of course, like a great novel or those dreams, there is more than one meaning that might be gleaned. Key isn't just the nouns but also the verbs — not just the What but the How. Both the fox and you emerged from shadow and uncertainty, moving toward each other on parallel paths. Neither of you fully recognized what the other was at first. Then came sudden illumination, a moment of clarity, and the fox's decisive and rapid action.
This response to sudden clarity might be instructive. When the light arrived and revealed the situation clearly, the fox didn't freeze in confusion or second-guess itself. It assessed quickly and moved decisively, trusting its instincts. This feels significant given the strange, ambiguous sensations hernias arouse. They mess with your self-trust and make you question what's really happening in your body. And if you doubt your own body it's not hard doubt, well, anything.
You went on that walk specifically because movement helps, because staying still with those sensations feels worse. The fox was also in motion through the night. Most may not have reason to think this way but this visit could be seen as an affirmation: an encounter with another creature also moving through the darkness rather than hiding from it.
That moment when the headlights revealed everything might mirror moments when you get clear information (like knowing definitively that, yep, this burn is the hernias) versus the murkier times when symptoms create doubt — doubt that spreads not just to other parts of the body but to the entire decision-making apparatus.
As you navigate a situation in which your body triggers discomfort and concern, it's not easy to trust yourself. Yet you did: you took a walk even when you wouldn't otherwise. When this all began, your instinct, when symptoms arose, was to rest whereas now it's to move. You don't always feel this way and it isn't, in fact, always this way but this could be seen as proof that your instincts are working even when doubt is present. When you honor your instincts, even as you walk in the shadows, clarity sometimes appears in a flash. The question is whether you will trust it. This is easier said than done.
What isn't in doubt is that such an encounter is a gift. Whether or not this is what the creature had in mind when it ran toward you, that fox delivered a message.
