Happy New Year, everyone!!
This is a print of a woodcut by Utagawa Hiroshige that depicts the New Years Eve Journey of the Foxes to the Changing Tree.
I like it so much! The foxes are carrying foxfires (magical, not actual fires) along the way. The Met says “the foxes have set a number of kitsunebi (foxfires), which farmers count to predict the upcoming rice harvest.” You can see in the background hundreds of foxes progressing with their magical fires to the old tree through the fields–so, a good harvest on the horizon!

I know that in Japanese folklore, foxes are able to transform, to magically shape shift to make use of what is around them.

So…for 2021, I wish for all of us some magical and useful metamorphoses, and a good harvest on the horizon!