I came across this quote a few days after I wrote last week’s blog: Caught Between a Rock and a Soft Place . Its an excerpt from a children’s book called the Velvateen Rabbit. I think its a good companion to that article. It gives some insight on the importance of authenticity on the path of awakening.
It is a book that I often read to my children before bedtime when they were young. It was always such a beautiful intimate time of connection with them and when the story was finished everything in the room was soft and warm. They often drifted off to sleep with a peaceful smile on their faces.
Maybe you will be touched by this excerpt…
The story is about a plushy toy rabbit who is a favourite companion of a little boy. The boy carries him everywhere and eventually gets quite ill. The parents fearing the rabbit is harbouring germs put the toy in another room.
It is in that room that the rabbit hears from a wise old toy horse that there are occasions when toys actually come alive. The rabbit wants to know how he can become real because he misses the little boy and wants to be with him.
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
—The Velveteen Rabbit (or How Toys Become Real) by Margery Williams
You know, sometimes childrens’ books teach more to adults than it does to their children.
Russell Scott