A Magical Christmas Story

Almighty Rabbit :: Caitlin House

This is not really about Christmas… it’s more about Easter. But it is about miracles – and for me, that’s what Christmas is all about.

Settle in, and get cosy… it’s story time.

Once upon a time, not that long ago, a rabbit came to visit our home. Not just any rabbit of course – it was an enchanted rabbit. I could tell from its too-long ears and shimmering oak-earth coat that it was not just any normal rabbit.

We found Rabbit sitting beside our car, under the pines, one soft winter morning. She did not move – she just sat there, watching us through eyes that were lit with knowing.

Hello Miss Rabbit!

I said in surprise. She did not move. I bent down to touch her, and as my hand came near, she took a lazy jump to the left, just out of my reach. She sat, and looked at me again, bemused.

And I giggled.

There was frost all around that morning, and Miss Rabbit was happy beneath her pine tree. I hoped she would return back to the safe cove of her home – wherever it was – sometime soon. We hopped in our car, and headed off to work.

But still, when we returned home, there beneath the pine, was Miss Rabbit. Smiling at us with her enchanted-rabbit smile, moving lazily out of our hand’s reach when we bent to touch her.

In the morning, there she was again. This time, we grew worried. There were stray dogs in our neighbourhood, and we worried that the pine wouldn’t protect her as she needed. Our neighbour – a tanned father with permanently dishevelled hair, a crooked grin, and a penchant for singing Beatles Christmas carols off-key so all the street could hear – helped us in our attempts to catch Miss Rabbit. The three of us scrambled under the pines, and formed mustering circles around her. But again and again, Miss Rabbit looked at us bemused, and lazily bombled away from us. We gave up after twenty minutes, when she found a haven under an old car down the street.

But for weeks afterwards – each morning as the sun hit the frosted dew and we left for work – and each evening as we arrived home with the sun skimming the top of the Western mountain, there she was. Miss Rabbit, always by the pine tree, watching us with onyx eyes that knew more than we did.

Each morning I would recite to myself:

I must find out what Rabbit Medicine means! She must be here for a reason. Is it about fear? Is that the Medicine of Rabbit?

And each evening when I returned, I would promptly forget to consult my oracles (my library of books). Instead, Miss Rabbit became a part of our family, and I would laugh as I told friends of our new pet – the loving, wild animal who had made her home in our front garden.

And one day, as quickly and gently as she arrived, Miss Rabbit left.

Days later, I learned that in my womb there lived the new light of my soul.

A moon later, I opened the gates as I did each morning, my new moon belly beginning to wax and bloom with life. And I wondered where our friend, Miss Rabbit had gone.

And all of a sudden – I began laughing. It was like the great humour of the mystery was shown to me in that moment. Miss Rabbit had been living with us in the days we conceived, right up to the days we learned of this.

And I needed no book to know the wisdom and medicine of Rabbit now – it was in the folklore of our speech. My dad always liked to tease me and Chris as being “a pair of rabbits.” And we say the breeders of our planet “populate like rabbits.” Rabbits gift to the world is of fertility, of new beginnings, of life, and of children.

Miss Rabbit was Great Spirit’s own little in-joke that we had officially become Rabbits – the sacred breeders of the Earth.

Some days, it feels like there is a split in the seam of the universe… and I can see through to the other side. And it is filled with this golden light, and hordes of angels, each pissing themselves laughing and concocting up even more beautiful miracles and spirit jokes they can bring to each of us every day.

And while it wasn’t Christmas – it was our own miracle of our year. All in its own fluffy-eared, shining-nosed, enchanted-bunny-rabbit kind of way.

I’m wishing you a hundred miracles… a thousand laughing angels… and the eyes and time to see them all…

Merry Christmas, darlinghearts. May your day be filled with all the things that matter – love, joy, nourishment, kindness and gladness. May it be magical, and may it be true.

You are one of the best things in my stocking.

big love,