Just a quiet Sunday morning around here - sky so blue it hurts the eyes to look upon, snow-capped mountains in the distance, still and calm.   Even the hummingbirds are sitting in the Joshua trees instead of flitting to and fro as they normally do.

Upon first rising this morning, I glanced out the window to the south and noticed a small cottontail hopping underneath one of the vehicles parked in the yard.  Sitting in the shade, his ears splayed lazily to the side, an odd play of shadows gave him the appearance of antlers, and I had to smile to myself.  Jackalope, I thought.  Coyote's younger brother - no less the trickster.

So I smiled to myself and went on about my business.  It was about half an hour later, as I was sitting at my desk writing an email, that I glanced out the window to the east... and saw a huge jackrabbit the size of a small pick-up standing on his hind legs, perhaps intentionally tormenting the weenie dogs who had gone out for their morning duties in the dog yard.   What caught my eye was that the low-hanging branch of a chapparal bush had created the illusion of antlers on this giant hare, and so there I was face to face with the jackalope once again.  Now he seemed to be almost laughing at me.

"What makes you so sure it's just shadows and branches, m'dear?" the jackalope inquired, licking at one large paw and then using it to smooth his handsome whiskers as he regarded me from a safe distance.  Safe for which of us, I am not quite certain.  "Why are you so quick to create explanations for the vision I have brought you instead of rejoicing in the vision itself?"

He had a point.  So I smiled, bowed slightly from the waist to show proper respect, and met his eyes, which seemed to be kaleidoscopes of mischief and mystery, doorways to the nagual.  "Old programs," I explained, though I knew he required no explanation. It was myself using the explanation to assimilate my own thoughts.  "Guess I had gone back for a moment to believing there's no such thing as a jackalope.  Thanks for the reminder."

His nose twitched as he regarded me.  I thought he might charge and run me through with those fierce antlers, for jackalopes are known to be aggressive and unpredictable, but instead the corners of his mouth formed a dangerous little smile.  "Reality is what you make it, m'dear," he said.  "See the shadows alone and I am naught but a simple hare.  Allow me my antlers, and you begin to take back the power your day to day world leeches from you."

"You make it sound so simple."

He shrugged a furry shoulder.  "Does it need to be complicated?"  He glanced suspiciously from side to side, then leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner.  "Got any grass?"

The few sprigs of wildgrass which had cropped up after the winter rains had all turned brown and dry.  Not much for a wayward jackalope to eat.  "I'll get you something from the house," I offered, but he had already started moving away, back into the shadows, underneath a flowering yellow senna bush at the edge of the desert.

So I came back inside and gathered up some celery, carrots and the last red apple, and left them at the opening of the rabbit hole which seems to go deeper and deeper into the infinite and mysterious unknown.

Still, couldn't help thinking as I looked back and saw that apple, that it was the jackalope who had once again given me the fruit of Knowledge and rekindled the fires of the nagual.

Does it need to be complicated?

***

All material in this blog (essays, rants, images, poetry, et al) is copyright © by Della Van Hise, and may not be reprinted elsewhere without the prior written permission of the author.  This includes all print and electronic media, including other blogs, other websites, and so on.  Thanks for respecting copyrights.