A friend asked me to write about the rabbit
She meant The Rabbit that arrives in our neighborhood early spring. The one that brings a battalion of herself – replicas, that peer from under every flowering bush. She steers them to our vegetable gardens, and encourages them to snarf tendrils of newly blossomed pea pods, lettuce and beans.
Her strong feet and back legs, like little elevators, hoist and lower her to whatever level she needs. The tops of her ears, all that is visible in the dense shrubbery, resemble seed pods, until they rotate, like furry audioscopes to listen for what might be lurking.
Soon she’ll have another contingent hopping behind her. She can mate right after giving birth, and produce a brood within a month. She births at night, so she’s dubbed The Moon Rabbit; during the new moon phase the moon too undergoes a transformation and, like her, disappears for a time. Chinese folklore believes that female deities such as Aphrodite, Ishtar and Inanna live on the Moon under the Cassia Tree – the Golden Shower Tree, that after 4000 years still has the power to heal and renew itself endlessly.
The gifts the Moon Rabbit offers are repetition, change and transformation. Repetition, that is, how we learn as children, from good parents and mentors. Change is what we learn to do because of our mistakes and successes. And transformation through life experience is how we keep becoming, over and over again.
Jean Cassidy 2023
NB
The Moon Rabbit and the girl, was a topic of discussion between the Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and the mission controllers in Houston right before the space capsule landed!
Here is an excerpt of their conversation:
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Photo credit: the DM Collection
art and education, poetry, prose poetry, short story, wnc poetry, women writers, writing
Virginia
I love how important you make rabbits in our lives–because they are.
Lisa Bartoli
You make me smile, teach me something new, made me wonder or create vivid pictures in my mind through your writing, Jean. Today, you did all four. Thank you!
Jane
Beautiful Jean! Thank you for conjuring all this rebirth imagery… I have always been grateful for my spring birth, me and baby rabbits, LOL….
jcadmin
Jane, Hi
If ever, in your work you might want to use Acupuncture or Rabbit in your
dream work, that will be
fine with me…just grab it!