Rabbits

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The university campus in Utrecht, the Netherlands, is a modern one. Manicured lawns with carefully, sometimes I even think strategically placed trees and shrubs around buildings that radiate a sense of modern architecture ~ intersected by busy roads and well-travelled bicycle paths.
Even on a sunny day one would be hard-pressed to find signs of a natural landscape ~ of nature ~ in this area of town...

When I had the opportunity to make my way through this campus around 1 AM I was surprised to discover the different picture it presented. Everywhere I was looking there were rabbits! Big ones, small ones ~ all very busy to keep the the grass on the already manicured lawns even shorter. As I drove by a number of them sat up on their hind legs ~ looking at the headlights of my car with an indignant  stare. “What are you doing here? This is our territory!”

Needless to say that rabbits are among those animals that go wherever there are food and safety to be found. Safety from their natural dangers that is, as traffic obviously presents a whole different challenge to their safety. Yet it seems that ‘owning’ the university campus at night was an opportunity they couldn’t resist.

It made me think about the unique energy rabbits bring into this world.
Surprisingly enough they are not the ‘scarety-cats’ most people make them out to be. They have an energy that calmly, opportunistically ~ and in a sense courageously ~ goes about its business. An energy that once it has taken hold is not easy to send off again...
That is because rabbits need a real, true reason to do as we might ask. When interacting with rabbit energy, pretty much any question you may ask them is met with a simple counter-question: “Why?”
And unless you have a good reason to get your questions answered by them, they won’t really bother to interact any further than that.

On top of that ~ and this maybe this is the most important quality ~ rabbit energy keeps secrets...
Rabbits see, look, stare, and observe ~ but will not easily talk about the things they have learned. And that means that whatever you tell rabbit, will be kept a secret.

Driving the empty roads of the university campus, it made me wonder what secrets these rabbits were keeping... Personal secrets... Research secrets... Secret failures or victories... Hardships, but also relief and release... And perhaps also the magical world they are part of...

In the daytime hours that magic is nowhere to be found ~ and neither are the rabbits. They have secreted themselves away ~ retreated down their rabbit-holes; waiting for sundown when their magic is set free in the world of this university campus again...
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