{"id":1077,"date":"2010-05-21T14:33:34","date_gmt":"2010-05-21T14:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/2010\/05\/a-moment-of-zen-with-peter-cottontail.html"},"modified":"2010-05-21T14:33:34","modified_gmt":"2010-05-21T14:33:34","slug":"a-moment-of-zen-with-peter-cottontail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2010\/05\/a-moment-of-zen-with-peter-cottontail.html","title":{"rendered":"A Moment of Zen with Peter Cottontail"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Eastern<\/a><\/span>I just spent 15 minutes standing perfectly still in the middle of my backyard.<\/p>\n

I had gone outside to push past the mid-day doldrums, breathe some fresh air, and inspect my two teeming raised-beds that are lush with lettuce, radishes, peas, spinach, Swiss chard, strawberries, potatoes, and onions.  <\/p>\n

But I wasn’t staring at the veg.  I was staring at a cottontail rabbit who was hunched in a sun-speckled spot about 10 feet away from the garden, happily clearing my grass of clover and other weeds.<\/p>\n

I inched closer to him, being careful not to make noise or sudden movements.  His nose twitched, his eyes glimmered, his ears rotated in that bunny way.  But he didn’t run away or jump or tense up.  He just kept munching.  <\/p>\n

Eventually, I was within 2 feet of the guy (gal?), his (her?) presence making my blood pressure lower by the moment.  The only sounds were birds in the trees and the rustle of a perfect spring breeze.  The rabbit looked so soft and warm, alert but not alarmed, eating and twitching–then leaning forward to choose its next clover patch, gently sproinging his (her?) hind legs to meet its hungry mouth, and then continuing to eat and twitch like there was nothing on planet Earth that needed doing except for this thing, right now.<\/p>\n

Now, I feel like I just had a refreshing catnap, warm shower, and cup of tea.  Calm, awake, and very grateful to have a backyard where bunnies live in the moment….and not in my lettuce patch.<\/p>\n

(image via: http:\/\/www.outdoorskentucky.com\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Like what you see? <\/strong>Click here to subscribe<\/strong><\/font><\/a>
\nand get Fresh Living in your in-box every day.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just spent 15 minutes standing perfectly still in the middle of my backyard. I had gone outside to push past the mid-day doldrums, breathe some fresh air, and inspect my two teeming raised-beds that are lush with lettuce, radishes, peas, spinach, Swiss chard, strawberries, potatoes, and onions.  But I wasn’t staring at the veg. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,27,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-holly-lebowitz-rossi","category-eco","category-positive-things"],"yoast_head":"\nA Moment of Zen with Peter Cottontail - Fresh Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2010\/05\/a-moment-of-zen-with-peter-cottontail.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Moment of Zen with Peter Cottontail - Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I just spent 15 minutes standing perfectly still in the middle of my backyard. I had gone outside to push past the mid-day doldrums, breathe some fresh air, and inspect my two teeming raised-beds that are lush with lettuce, radishes, peas, spinach, Swiss chard, strawberries, potatoes, and onions.  But I wasn’t staring at the veg. …\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2010\/05\/a-moment-of-zen-with-peter-cottontail.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-05-21T14:33:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/05\/Eastern%20cottontail%20rabbit%20-thumb-395x298-14118.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hrossi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Moment of Zen with Peter Cottontail - Fresh Living","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2010\/05\/a-moment-of-zen-with-peter-cottontail.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Moment of Zen with Peter Cottontail - Fresh Living","og_description":"I just spent 15 minutes standing perfectly still in the middle of my backyard. 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A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Divinity School, she has more than a decade of experience writing about religion and spirituality for Newsweek, The Washington Post, Spa Finder, Sojourners, Search, and many other publications. Her commentaries have also been heard on NPR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All Things Considered.\" When not at her desk, you can find her baking, in her garden, or rockin' out in water aerobics class. She lives in Arlington, Mass. Visit http:\/\/www.hollyrossi.com for more.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/author\/hrossi"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}