Tule of the Cascade Phoenix | A True Tale to a Mythical Gate
Tule is the true life vixen whose lost kit leads readers into the Masquerade myth, where Shadowfox, rather snootishly, describes to Pagoda a peculiar gate~ “Why, it’s the staccato rhythm of a woodpecker beat~of course~the whirly whir of the whippoorwill tweet, and the thum~puh! of Elephant’s feet.”
It is the summer of 2021. California’s Dixie Fire rages a singular wildland flame larger than the state has ever seen. It smokes and spirals giant fir and towering pine, swelters over shifty cinder slopes of purple and red rock lava, crackling its creep across the Caribou Wilderness of Lassen Volcanic National Park. Here, a vixen named Tule is denning two kits. She is but one of very few survivors in her species, so scientists have fitted her with a specialized collar that allows them to study her behavior and monitor her movement. In a sudden swirl of fire-tipped fur, Tule rises from the blaze unscathed.
Her name Tule is Spanish, with roots in Nahuatl (Nah-w`at-lă) linguistics related to tollin, meaning rush, as in stalks upon stalks of aquatic bulrushes, what we commonly call cattails. For as long as anyone can recall, cattails have lived in the marshy wetlands of California, but for today’s water wars on the Bay-Delta, a political battlefield, where once existed an enormous tule marsh, singing tweet-a-leet-teat; and humans found the type of solace that only comes by way of Nature’s magick. Slyly weaving its treasure trove home, for humans, or for Tule and her two wandering kits, this magick cackles in a timeless tongue, flickering folklore flames, and billowing fangs like a stalking red fox—frightening!
Or frightened—look out!
Down, down, down the montane slope trots a lost little red fox looking for his mama. He steers clear of their fire-threatened den, tiptoes over rock outcrop to a meadow. Here, he spies a peculiar gate rising from the haze; right there before his very eyes. The little red fox is curious. The little red fox is clever. He inches closer, the gate swings wide, and in he steps onto a quaint little footpath, enchanting as it is, meandering amid tall stands of misty evergreen.
And, as it just so happens …
