What Does It Mean When a Rabbit Crosses Your Path?
Before we talk about the popular subject of animal totems, and at the risk of seeming un-humble, I am going to quote a comment posted on a previous blog entry:
“Wow Lianne, your breadth and depth of knowledge of the metaphysical (and all that entails) is extraordinary. I've done my fair share of reading and research over the course of my adult life, but do not profess to have such a broad scope of information and understanding as you.”
I’m so glad someone noticed because I AM NOT THAT SMART! As I’ve mentioned before, when I write something of this nature, I’ve learned how to link up with my Higher Resources and THEY are very smart indeed. They’re the ones with the depth and breadth; especially because they are so numerous, they cover many areas of expertise. It’s their “frequency” that you may sense in my writing. (Other times, well, only I can take the blame for that stuff.)
I know, I know; other people tell me I should take full credit for the good stuff, too, but these Other Voices are so present in my own awareness it just seems like a shoddy thing to do, and not fair to any of you. Because truth is, anyone can learn to use this interconnected consciousness if you learn about the energy principles involved, if you first realize how populated your multi-dimensional universe is. Then you discover the practice of discernment. Or, as we’re about to discuss, frequency relationship.
I’ve spent at least 42 consciously-aware years in that study in my present lifetime, and many prior lives striving for this awareness and practicing my communication skills inter-dimensionally. Most importantly, I'm trying to develop a keener discernment about those with whom I am communicating. I look for keys to raise my frequency to a higher level. (One must be very choosy and careful.)
Many of you have likewise spent time in such study and preparation. I’m pretty sure of that. Otherwise, why would you be reading this now? And why would some of you notice that there’s more here than a single mind should have acquired in a single lifetime? And really, if you look at the words I’ve used, they seem pretty ordinary. Casual, in fact. But lurking behind them are often Minds of a development more advanced than we’re accustomed to associating with on this planet. At least, in our day-to-day experience.
Okay, enough of that. I’m guessing we’ll come back to it later on in this blog, many times. But my CoAuthors don’t like a lot of personal attention, name-dropping, and such. No one here wants to set up shop and become a frequently-sought-out guru or anything. So on to Rabbits and other “animal totems.”
Coincidence? Or Frequency Relationship?
Rabbit totem is not actually a different subject, because the underlying energy principle in the subject of animal totems is the same principle of “frequency and harmonics” that guides my association with higher Minds, Teachers, CoAuthors, whatever you wish to call the millions of members of the benevolent brotherhood of Beings with whom I associate. It’s also the same principle people are striving to understand with all their laws, secrets, and attractions, if you know what I mean.
If you were walking in the woods and a large tree limb crashed down in front of you, missing by mere inches, you’d find it very significant, wouldn’t you? Aren’t you the kind of person who would, after recovering your breath, stop and ponder? You’d wonder, “What if I’d been a little bit faster?” Or even, “What powers of goodness kept me from colliding with that limb, or that limb from colliding with me?” In my way of thinking, it would be almost inhuman not to have such wonderings.
So when we lived in our tribal or more primitive lives on this planet, we developed all sorts of explanations for such events. And we noticed, vividly, probably even more vividly than we do now, our intersections with every living element of the natural world.
I grew up dawdling around in Michigan woods and streams, and so I often came across things that did not seem coincidental. If a particular creature made a grand or unusual entrance—i.e., crossed my path—I wondered about it. Surely it meant something? That bird seemed to be looking at me in a distinct way. What was it trying to say? Who sent it? And why?
I can look back now and say that perhaps that was some of my training between lives echoing into my conscious mind, and even indeed some of those I’ve called my CoAuthors sending their little messengers to lighten my day. But that’s hindsight.
Owl Totem
When I heard of Medicine Cards back in the 90s (a kind of oracle based loosely on Native American animal associations), I thought “There! That’s the explanation I’ve been looking for!” I was immersed in my other studies at the time, but a friend owned a set so I asked him, “What do they say it means when an owl perches in broad daylight outside our office window in plain view, and stays all day despite the little birds pecking at him?”
The mystical answer from that author’s perspective was that the owl is associated with “clairvoyance, astral projection, and magic.” One out of three wasn’t bad. As I said, whenever I’m writing, clairvoyance is a part of the equation. The owl was perched outside the room where this work took place.
The physical answer came from my famous animal-tracker sister, Linda Jo Hunter. She pointed out that Joseph had been trapping the mice overrunning our rural home at the time and, unbeknownst to me, throwing them out the front door (right near my office) so as not to deny them their rightful place in the natural world. She’d spent time with an owl biologist in the Pacific Northwest, and that’s how they “called down the owls” for research—with dead mice as lures! Joseph had done an admirable job of “calling” this owl to us. He’d apparently decided it was easier to wait right there for his supper, just in case some other owl might get there first if he’d had any flight delays.
Oh, how the mind imagines! And conjures motivations and mysteries! But it all makes deeper sense and does indeed involve a little bit of “magic” (if you take that view of complex inter-dimensional relationships). I say inter-dimensional, because the principles of frequency and harmonics function at invisible levels, hence, they are “other-dimensional” since our physical senses do not generally detect them.
According to my copy of Animal-Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small by the late Ted Andrews, owl symbolism is widely disagreed upon, if you study the various cultural associations. Andrews speculates that because the owl is a night bird and humans have always found the night mysterious, they were bound to conjure some dramatic meanings whenever an owl made its presence known.
So it’s really up to Joseph and me to decide: What did the owl’s presence mean to us, if anything? Because whether Joseph called it with dead mice, or whether it was attracted by our resonating frequencies of thought, deed, and emotion, it chose to stay in our presence.
In other words, we were all harmonically compatible. So did it have anything to tell us about our current state of being, reflecting as it did our entire milieu of life at that junction?
Did it symbolize the reincarnation of the dead, as some traditions claimed? Or fertility, as the Welsh believed? Well, birth and rebirth (reincarnation) is definitely a subject we were writing about at the time the owl perched outside our office. What about the Roman belief that owls could aid in the extraction of secrets? I’ve certainly been a Roman in prior lives and I have been thoroughly engaged in a quest to extract the secrets of the Infinite in my work and study. It goes on and on like that.
Why We Attract What We Attract
The point to be gained from the experience, or my retelling of it, is that of being observant and open-minded about the meaning of everything we attract, through frequency-relationship, in the course of our lives. To know that we are little beacons emitting a certain radio-frequency, and receiving back answers that are harmonically tuned to that frequency.
What surrounds us is a reflection of what we have been (even back into previous lifetimes) and what we are in the present moment.
This is true whether it comes in the form of an owl, or as Joseph once experienced on a horrible, rainy day of job hunting, a passing truck full of pig manure that unfortunately found its way onto his windshield. Horrible, yes, but that might have been the “attraction” that broke the cycle of despair and made him laugh, thus changing his frequency to one that took the “horrible” out of the entire experience! And surely made the rest of his day more bearable.
Which is why the notion of trying to resonate only a “positive attitude” or focused visualization out into the world simply doesn’t work for me. Our reality is constantly reflecting back to us things from which we can learn, or use to propel change, or to expand our understanding of the Infinite (an understanding which of course never comes to an end). I do try to remain upbeat, finding the silver linings in all things, but something about the rote application of the “attraction” principle (missing the other side of the wave form, the “repulsion” principle) seems wrong to me.
It seems like a place you might get stuck, where you’ve got half an energy principle that is valid, but you’re missing an entire universe of other energy principles just as valid and vitally important to your growth in understanding and well-being. I can’t see how that approach could prove fruitful or lastingly effective. It reminds me of the time I was touring Greece and Lebanon and lost one contact lens. The rest of my experience was tilted, half-seen through filtered light, slightly unreal.
However, I’m willing to concede that recognizing that “like attracts like” and that thoughts are like radio beacons could be helpful as a starting place. I’m saddened, though, by how many people are willing to cast off their own abilities as inter-dimensional communicators in favor of having someone else perform this task for them. It surely leads to mental and spiritual atrophy. Especially when that particular information source is confining their thinking so narrowly.
Rabbit Totem
But now, at last, the Rabbit: Yes, when I opened the kitchen blinds one morning to see a rabbit sitting square in the middle of what Feng Shui terms the “career” area of our home (which happens to be outdoors), I paid attention.
He was staring at me intently, clearly determined to hold his freeze until I NOTICED HIM. It was blinding midday, and there’s not much out there for him to eat; mostly rock landscaping designed for drought tolerance, with a few scraggly tufts of yellow gazania that blew over from neighbors’ yards, which he might have considered dessert to a heartier meal. I know he normally hangs out across the street, where there’s lots of green grass and lovely, dense bushes. That’s one of the reasons his presence captivated me and made me finally say aloud, “What?! What are you trying to tell me?”
At the time, I’d been once again haggling with myself over the career issue of to blog or not to blog. I mean literally, weighing it over in my mind at that very moment. So I knew he might be a factor in the answer. Had he been sent by one of my Advisors? Or did I “attract” him through frequency relationship, something that would symbolize and embody the message that my higher self was trying to get through to me? A symbol that could break through my insecurities and conscious-mind resistance?
While living in the owl-haunted home, Joseph and I had learned many animal lessons. We had decided that the rabbits on that property were teaching us by their behavior to be alert to the present moment, to seize opportunities that might appear suddenly, and to progress by sudden leaps and hops, always with a wary eye for danger. Never lapse in your alertness, Rabbit shows us. And move quickly when you have the opportunity. As you can see, I seized this one.
Did I need the rabbit to tell me? I suppose not, if some other way had been found to gain my attention.
Did I interpret it rightly, act on the right impulse, seize the moment? Well, that’s the thing about seizing moments; you don’t really know, do you?
But I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my interaction with this living Teacher rabbit, who still visits that same area. Matter of fact, last week I observed that certain areas in that bank of rough grey granite chunks were actually flattened and smoothed, as if an entire family or families of rabbits had spent some time on them, like the acorn-grinding slabs we found worn into the boulders on that property we’d once rented, remnants of our Native predecessors. On closer inspection, sure enough I found enough rabbit droppings in those spots to fertilize an entire lawn!
Future tenants in this house are going to wonder how those green things have managed to sprout up through a foot of granite despite the plastic underlining. Only the rabbits and we two (and you) will know!
I see I’ve wandered off from my subject of frequency and harmonics, so I’ll have to continue on another day, seize another opportunity to expand on this most important principle. Until then—bon chance! May all your seized opportunities bring you pleasure, wisdom, and grace! So say my CoAuthors.
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Update: If you enjoyed this post, you might like to read my three-part series on Gardening with the Fairies. My Cosmic CoAuthors weigh in on that subject as well. Also, What Does It Mean When a Beetle Lands in Your Hair? and my newest, 5 Lessons from Hawk Totem: The Harriers Who Live Here I'd love to hear your stories in the comments below!