I knelt down to gather up the shimmery blue-black raven feather lying in the dirt lane. Tucking this gift in my pouch, my curiosity was sparked. What were the Raven Spirits up to? Why were they leaving a feathery hint of their presence as I began my morning walk?
Continuing down the road, I heard Ravens calling to my attention. To stay awake and aware. To be here in the now. Not out of fear. Not due to danger. They didn’t want me to miss the opportunities up ahead, which I’d be able to see and appreciate if the eyes of my heart were open.
Following the winding pathways shaped by running water, I walked around a bend in the arroyo and found a rabbit lying on the ground. A gentle breeze was brushing through the rabbit’s downy fur. I stopped in my tracks, whispering a greeting. Was she in shock? Had she died?
I could see the rabbit’s eye, a deep obsidian pool, facing skyward and touched by the glow of the morning sun. Her soulful eye was blinking open and shut. She was alive.
I took a few steps to create a wider berth, opening ample space so my presence wouldn’t be a distress. The rabbit’s instinct was to run. But she was in a tender healing process of some kind. Her long velvety ears and obsidian eyes were sensing far beyond what I could hear and see. Standing in the stillness, I wondered how I could help.
Suddenly her legs began moving in the rhythmic pattern of a rabbit bounding across the land. Yet the bunny remained in place, lying on her side in the sandy soil. Though she couldn’t get on her feet, her body and spirit knew exactly how to run free.
Her tawny legs and padded paws pushed against the sandy soil, creating momentum that propelled her body around in a full circle where she lay. With a few graceful strides, her soft belly and outstretched legs came around again facing toward me. Her front legs stretched all the way forward and her back legs stretched all the way back, held for a few moments in a grand and glorious leap. Then Rabbit’s body relaxed and gently settled into the earth.
She breathed out her very last breath while running toward the great mystery. She gracefully leapt from physical existence into spirit, returning home. She found her way back to the universe of potentials, carrying everything she’d learned in her lifetime as a rabbit living in the high desert mountains on a planet called earth.
Standing in the spaciousness of her death passage, I felt beyond-words awe in the extraordinary moment we’d just shared. Sprinkling tobacco offerings around her and the place where she’d made her leap, I honored her free spirit and the soft animal body she left behind.
Rooted on the earth-side of the doorway Rabbit had just leapt through, I wondered what she now knew. The great mystery was no longer such a mystery to her. What had been unknown was being experienced and becoming more known.
Looking around for materials for a burial ceremony, I pulled strips of cushiony bark from fallen tree branches. Tucking the bark blanket beneath her body, I spoke softly to Rabbit about her beauty, her intelligence, her remarkable grace. Carrying her light-as-a-feather body, I nestled her inside a hollow in the sandy bank of the arroyo. A protective wrapping of stones was set in place to hold sacred her burial grounds.
Rabbit has stayed close in my awareness in the days since we met. I’m forever grateful for the richness and wonder of the bit of time we shared. I’m still gathering up the gifts of being entrusted to be part of her dance with death.
She’s showing me how companionship and care can readily come alive even in unexpected crossings of diverse life paths. We can tend to one another with Love and respect, offering ourselves and each other ample space to find our way. Whoever we are. Wherever we’ve been. Wherever we’re headed. How and when and why we’re seeking to go.
The gentle bunny rabbit is a powerful teacher about leaping into the mystery and stretching toward the unknowns. Gracefully. Creatively. Courageously. With pure passion for living fully until our very last breath.
The medicines of Rabbit are still alive, wild and free, bounding around in my heart.
