Leaps and Bounds

Being the age that I am, I thought building blocks, Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, and other manipulatives were stored in my attic for future generations.  Who knew that I would still be building towers; although this tower is an imaginary one dictated by Mother Nature and my connection to her.

The animal totem is a surviving symbol of ancient cultures.  I believe it’s a tool which represents a bridge to the natural world. I believe the spirits of the totem are personal and deliberate in the several messages derived by the embodiment of carefully carved likenesses.

For me, I have a two-tiered one, but I’m newly on my spiritual journey and in hopes of discovering more.

The base of my totem is a toad.  Well, I think it’s the base because it was the first spirit to cross my path.  It represents change.

Earlier this week, a rabbit appeared and it was not entirely out of place given its early spring, my lawn is overgrown and it was apparently hungry. Maybe I got it wrong and it wasn’t the rabbit appearing, but rather me, from my car.  There aren’t choices of pathways from my driveway to front door, unless you count going around the front of the car as opposed to the trunk end.  I guess I could have gone through the garage, but that’s not the part of the house I wanted to enter.

The evening had been spent out of town with a group of published and soon to be published, local writers.  I found them on a social network and hoped to connect with like-minded creative persons.  The primary focus of the group is to offer critiques, insights, comments, direction…and all things positive to encourage our inner voice permission to speak.  Putting words to paper is a thoughtful and sometimes tenacious process; at least it is for me.  I spend as much time hitting the “backspace” and “delete” buttons as the other 70 something possibilities on my keyboard. So now, I’m engaged in the process… with witnesses.

Returning home, I was full of hope and planned to sit awhile and edit.  I don’t know why I looked down, but I did and the rabbit sat motionless as if it sensed my person to be a threat.  I’m not a threat unless you have grown 6 other legs or don’t have legs and slither.

I passed it, turned around and gazed at it and came inside to call for my daughter to come out and validate my sighting.  She did.  We stood.  We smiled and she knew instinctively to go and get the book “Animal Speaks, by Ted Andrews, as surely I would want to know why it was there.

Here’s what I read (in summary).  The rabbit or hare represents the concept of being according to the Greeks.  It is one of the 12 Chinese astrological signs and embodies the power of the moon. If a rabbit totem shows up, you can begin to see a cycle of 28 days beginning to manifest in your life. (The cycle of 28 days is all things lunar). It can lead one unknowingly into the realm of the faeries. It procreates and its fleetness is a virtue of survival. The hare has an innate sense of defense…it creates forms to hide and never foreshadows its movements, being aware of predators. They shift from freezing to great speed and this skill should be gleaned by those with this animal totem as it will enable one to take advantage of opportunities which may only present themselves for brief moments. They are still, they listen and they are intensely in tune with the environment.

Now, what to do? Again, I find that my life is being orchestrated from beyond. Thankfully, I am availing my soul unrestrained direction.  Responsibility is another person’s burden.  Not mine.

Can I just be?  Shall I engage to strip all my senses of what I perceive to be truth? Is it time for the universal truth to redefine me? I think perhaps it is.

I will quite my soul and follow the hare.  His presence was a gift to remind me of endless possibilities.  His presence gives me the courage to take chances; for survival is not predestined, it’s a quest taken in leaps and bounds.