When I was a little girl, we had a white rabbit.
She was called Pinky and she was large and placid, She spent her day loping happily round our large garden, showing up against the green grass, gazing at the world through limpid pink eyes. I’m not sure if anything ever ventured through her mind. She was either very deep, or deeply shallow.
Pinkie was part of the wallpaper, so to speak. She spent each day enjoying each minute and eating grass. We loved her as all children do, in passing. Until, of course, she wasn’t there any more.
When she left us, it happened at Easter. Being a Catholic family Easter is possibly bigger than Christmas. My mother made us new clothes and the egg-giving was lavish and loaded. My parents always made us home-made chocolate nests. We celebrated thoroughly.
One cannot avoid the bunnies at Easter, of course.
So when we came out to find our own had chosen this moment to lollop off this mortal coil and join St Francis in heaven, it was a particularly poignant moment. My father dug a hole at the top of the garden, and she was buried with ceremony and the sure knowledge that Pinkie now chewed the most heavenly grass possible.
I cannot remember being devastated, though, because this placid creature simply coexisted: never engaged.
And that has been my experience of bunnies ever since.
They are things of the wild, little doe-eyed creatures who graze contentedly, right up to the moment your great big gallumphing human footfalls shake the ground on which they are poised.
They are charming, even though we know about over population and myxomatosis and Watership Down and Fiver and all that.
We did have one rather disconcerting experience with some slightly larger rabbits once.
In our pre-parenting years we loved to roam across the Weald of Kent. There are Oasthouses a plenty and hidden in the lush green hills are gems: a stately home with a dome just like St Pauls, and a wonderful 17th century Hall.
I went to the latter to learn how to meditate. When I came away I was £500 lighter, and slightly nonplussed by the strange, courteous and detached individuals who ran the place.
But looking back, I hold it in immense esteem; and feel deeply affectionate towards those who taught me anew how to descend into layers of quiet, and settle there, somewhere close to the centre of myself and the universe.
I will never know what kept the place running. It was the most classic red brick mansion, surrounded by rolling acres, dappled with fruit trees and lined with Jacobean brickwork. I would roll up for a session and on the lawn would be hordes of rabbits, utterly unafraid. They would watch as I swung open the door of the place that had a magical air to it, and was met by a pungent smell which summoned visions of exotic lands far away.
The furniture was beautiful, ancient, but old and battered, and I would sink into an armchair and do something I still, to this day, find difficult: I would listen.
On our walks, then, we would wend our way through the hop fields and up towards the hall. One day, we took an unusual route around its perimeter.
And there, before our eyes, were the biggest rabbits you have ever seen.
They were huge: about the girth of a medium-sized terrier. We stared at them fixedly, in the hope that we might bring them into focus and the realm of the familiar; but no, they looked just as impossible post-stare. These were Big Bunny Rabbits.
I do not know what they were, to this day. After cursory research I can hazard a guess that they might have been German Giants.
These give a new meaning to the word large. They have been bred to be big. One of the biggest, I understand, is called Herman and he lives, unsurprisingly, in Germany.
He weighs 17 pounds and is almost a metre tall. He can chomp his way through two kilograms of food a day. And he will live for 12 years: you do the maths.
It took us some time to get over the sight of the enormous rabbits. But when all is said and done, they do have a reputation for placid calm. And it is this which has facilitated their use, for thousands of years, in the Chinese calendar.
We have just emerged from the rather bombastic Year Of The Tiger.
And a day or so ago, I visited my friend Sir G at his wonderful horizon-broadening blog The Cultured Life. This one takes some chewing over. I visit it a couple of times before I can sum up the courage to make a comment, and then I am still left feeling rather plebeian: but the blog’s host, Sir G, is ever courteous, ever patient, and I learn all sorts of new things there.
So a day or so ago, I clicked on his site and there it was: the most perfect little ivory bunny rabbit.
I left a disgracefully girlie comment that day. It was the sweetest thing; its posture so enquiring and undemanding. I gazed in undisguised adoration. What, I asked, was its provenance?
The Manchester Museum, Sir G replied.
He added: “This particular post was also meant to give vent to my intense relief at the fact that the damned awful year of the tiger has at last died and gone to hell where it belongs.”
The tiger, as Sir G put it so beautifully, is behind us. The rabbit is creative, passionate and sensitive, says Chinese wisdom: and this year will carry the same traits. This will be a year of calm and consideration, friends and family. Goodbye, turbulent tiger: hello, leporidic serenity.
It is to be the year of the long, loppy ears.
With thanks to Sir G of The Cultured Life, along with apologies for shamelessly thieving his beautiful little rabbit.
I had to have it.
Kate Shrewsday 
The goodbye to that darned Tiger is very timely.
Ain’t that the truth…
I actually feel a bit sad for the “tiger”.
I mean … “rabbit”.
Ah well, this is just me then! 🙂
Well written post nonetheless.
Thanks 🙂 Yes, we bid goodbye to the fiery action-man, Thysleroux, and say hello to Mr Cellophane.
Maybe that’s a bit harsh…
We need the year of “employment opportunity” here in USA. We’ve had 10 years of unregulated banking capitalism which has left us with alternating years of the hawk and vampire. Sales of AK47’s are doing very well and that does not bode well at all.
No indeed, Carl. Let us hope this year is a little less predatory.
2010 WAS bloody awful, and now I know why. Good riddance. Bring on the Year of the Wabbit.
Hear, hear….
It was the tiger, then, that brought all that woe and the year of the wabbit, well, well. Some pretty big ears to hold onto and make a run for it in ’11. What a great post, Kate.
Thanks Penny 🙂 I feel sure this year, with its big, floppy ears, is going to be just great.
I always wanted a rabbit, but my parents were probably right in denying me that pleasure. I think for the most part most bunnies would rather just be left alone.
Bring on the year of the rabbit! It’s funny. I am trying to be more courageous this year, step out of my neat little burrow, so to speak, and I can’t think of a better representation of myself than a rabbit. How apt.
Definitely your year, Kristine 🙂 Here’s to plenty of time to grazing in the sun this year 🙂
Let us hope it is not the year of the Were Rabbit…
🙂
I’ll never forget the moment in the film where the were rabbit appears in the headlights in the dark. Fabulous.
Just to make you smile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcIi2yz8o1s
I love the gravelly voice introducing this Lancashire phenomenon.
Just as long as he has the right trousers on.
Your description of your childhood rabbit as either “very deep, or deeply shallow” made me giggle, and I wondered, reading through to the conclusion of your post, whether we are taking the year of the rabbit quite seriously enough – I have a feeling we’re not done with chaos yet… BTW, am I the only one who found 2010 a year of immense progress and incredible breakthrough? I personally feel about 1000 percent lighter than I did just a year ago.
Perhaps the buddha rabbit can teach us how to face chaos with greater serenity? – that would be nice 🙂
II think that’s the key, Ruth. Last year was good for some, and I know it represented a year of great growth for you.
We can’t change events, and I don’t believe events are not preordained according to a set of characteristics. But we can choose the way we face it: and we can set out with high expectations which can shape our year. Here’s to facing whatever comes – chaos if need be – with serenity.
Rabbits make me smile. No matter my mood.
Also, I enjoy White Rabbit of Jefferson Airplane fame.
So, here’s to the year of the Rabbit.
Loved your description of meditation: “But looking back, I hold it in immense esteem; and feel deeply affectionate towards those who taught me anew how to descend into layers of quiet, and settle there, somewhere close to the centre of myself and the universe.”
Go ask Alice when she’s ten feet tall….
I am off to listen to the white rabbit of Jefferson Airplane on your site now, Nancy, and check out your visit to the Dental Spa…mind boggling…. 🙂 Thanks for the mention!
Happy year of the Rabbit.
Kate, would you be interested in this:
http://bearsy.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/themed-photo-competition-the-first-week-of-2011/
That looks great Pseu: how do I contribute?
I’ll ask over there, and introduce you to Boa who runs that site and she can then make you an author.
Many thanks, Pseu 🙂
OK, if you visit the thread and make a comment over there bearsy, another of the admins, can make you an author and then you can contribute.
Cheers Pseu 🙂
Thanks, Kate. That’s sweet. What a plug, too!
Richly deserved. And I did pilfer your rabbit, after all.
We have big wabbits here, wild wabbits. They come and munch our plants. Last summer some hugs wabbits came to our garden… not seen any that big before, hope not to again (but they will be back).
Love your post. Have subscribed so that I can read more.
🙂
Glad you enjoyed it, Val: I’ll pop over to yours later 🙂 Your wild wabbits sound as if they are gaining in both size and numbers. Erk.