One of my most treasured books is The Runaway Bunny.
I have a copy that I found in a free library a few years ago. At the time it felt odd taking home a kid book, but the pull was undeniable. The pages hold an enchanting story of a little bunny who wishes to gain independence from his mother. The bunny announces a plan to escape and his mother gently follows up each of his plot twists with one of her own.
A couple days ago I felt the need to revisit the book. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but its thick board pages instantly gave me a tactile comfort.
The first page is a simple set up, but it rapidly expands into so much more.
Soon we depart from a predictable chase, into a story of transformation, adaptation and casual assumption of new forms. Forms that have always been available, when one moves unhindered by perceived boundaries.
The young bunny tells his mother:
without missing a beat, the mother offers limbs as branches, grows roots into the soil, embodying “a tree you come home to.”
Here the book really takes off.
In response, the mother flows into pure wind, guiding the little bunny with her breezy breaths.
Eventually the little bunny exhausts his imaginative options and comes to the conclusion that wherever he goes, whatever he becomes, his mother will always find a way to be there for him. Once the bunny makes the decision to stay, the mother rewards him with a carrot. They nestle together in the safety of a tree, surrounded by creature comforts.
The book is a profound piece, symbolic of our relationship with spirit and our divine nature. The question occurred to me, if we knew spirit is found in every aspect of our experience, would we carry ourselves differently?
Just as the mother bunny is willing to shape shift at a moment's notice, the spirit is in all things at all times. This feeling of reverence and connection is palpable when we are standing in the middle of a meadow. Golden pink sun cuts through tall grass, casting thousands of little thin shadows. When the wind blows, the grass brushes together and apart. From afar the grass moves like the fur on a lion’s back, one unified body. A whooshing sound surrounds you, your clothes echo the movements of the meadow. In the center of that moment, the only accurate description for the feeling is transcendence.
I imagine an experience like this led Emerson and Whitman to think about how and why we exist the way we do. It is a charade, pretending that we are all separate, when the truth of oneness is so clear.
Thich Naht Hanh illustrates this most beautifully in his book Peace Is Every Step:
If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are.
“Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, inter-be.
If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. Without sunshine, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. The logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.
Looking even more deeply, we can see ourselves in this sheet of paper too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, it is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. We cannot point out one thing that is not here — time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. “To be” is to inter-be. We cannot just be by ourselves alone. We have to inter-he with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.
Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No, without sunshine nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up only of “non-paper” elements. And if we return these non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without non-paper elements, like mind, logger, and sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.
The first time I read Peace is Every Step, it altered the foundations of how I took in the world. Flipping through its pages to find this passage I was reminded of its gravity. Much like The Runaway Bunny, it speaks to the idea that we are all formless and connected at our most essential level. If we run from our eternal being within, it will search for ways to present itself in the external world. Running is resistance. When we run, we can’t listen to the soft voice of intuition. Instead we make futile attempts at pushing the river, rather than immersing ourselves in the state of flow.
For some of us, we feel the only way to get things done is to push and push. We become so immersed in a mindset of pushing that we no longer recognize any other way to live. How then to check our impulse to force things through? The first step is recognizing the signs.
Are we drained of energy, do our actions make us feel good?
Is this feeling short term happiness or long term joy?
Are we allotting time for breaks?
What does it look like to take time for yourself?
Does the physical body show signs of exhaustion?
Are we acting with intention in our daily lives?
Who and what emotions guide your inner compass?
Is gratitude part of the inner dialogue?
Are we letting our inherent strengths guide the way?
It’s a lot and maybe not every question will have an answer right now but these are questions I ask myself all the time. Our sacred inner nature cannot be denied, we will only fool ourselves if we try to avoid it.
By embracing the slow pace of things and giving ourselves room to trust the unknown, we receive bits of praise from the universe. Just as the mother bunny gives her little one a carrot when he decides to stay, we will start to notice things working out more easily or even little gifts will appear from unexpected places. When you give a friend a present, their smile is a validation of the time and thought put into selecting the perfect item. Seeing them happy makes the entire process worthwhile. In the same way, it’s our responsibility to accept these universal rewards with appreciation.
If we work to embrace our inter-being, this oneness with our surroundings and spirit, we will know the world for all that it is. Life will not be an experience of isolation, but one of eternal connection and holiness in every corner.
It may seem aspirational, but it’s something worth going for.
Thank you for tuning in today.
I’ll see you on Friday with a Meditative Journal Prompt for subscribers and Sunday with Moments for Now.
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xx,
James