Beach Bunnies...

Nature is amazingly accommodating...only to be rivaled with its absolute refusal to accommodate one iota beyond its decision to reasonably accommodate.  Also, nature has a way of changing things up without a warning.

Often, we see the conflict between the natural world and the human world.  I am not sure exactly when these two worlds became so distant from each other, I just know that they have.  

So it is always a happy occurrence when I see our world interface languidly with the natural world...

Last night, at sunset I arrived in Cannon Beach, Oregon.  A spectacular place in its own right to be sure.  But arriving at sunset really just drove home how special this coast truly is.  I checked into my hotel on the ocean and then set out to find a place to watch the sun go down.

There were families huddled around beach fires, snuggled up together tightly.  There were couples on the hotel embankment covered in blankets braving the cool evening air to watch the sun's daily show.

I was getting my bearings when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye...it was a bunny.  A domesticated bunny, not a wild rabbit.  And as I took in the grassy knoll, I saw there were a lot of them.  Tiny ones, larger ones, all clearly related to each other and enjoying the evening munching on clover.  

I surmise someone’s bunnies got loose some time ago and, for whatever reason, attempts to captivate them again failed.  Maybe they didn’t try, maybe it was someone on vacation and their bunny got out.  Who knows.  I do know today, there are many wildly domesticated bunnies donning the shores at Cannon Beach.

It seems nature and people (and bunnies) have struck a balance between the ties of domesticity and the ravages of the wild.  And it was lovely to see.  Of course, I attempted to pet them, with marginal success.

This also seems to be a trend I am seeing in the world, when I was in Bali, at the bottom of a waterfall there was one tiny bunny.  Just eating mossy grass, completely undisturbed by the people traipsing in and out of the gorge.  It owned its rightful place there and seemed completely at home in this very unnatural place for a domesticated bunny.

Perhaps there is some sort of bunny insurrection that is happening that I missed the memo on...perhaps every once in awhile there is a fine balancing point struck between domestication and wildness.  I know I still search for that myself.  How much feral can I be and still enjoy the things domestication affords like safety, food, shelter and community?  I, myself, feel like I am constantly walking a line between enjoying the value of being domesticated and feeling like those same domesticated things are going to bleed me out.

I know I long for the risk of wild.  The hint of danger lurking behind every corner.  Where exactly is that line between danger and safety, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, belonging and exile and the human world and the natural world?

I guess we all kind of define it for ourselves.  And in Cannon Beach, the beach bunnies have made a stellar selection.  Plenty of clover rich grass to eat, safety of natural cover when predators happen by and beautiful vistas all day, every day.

I may never achieve what the Cannon Beach bunnies seem to know instinctively, but I know I am tuned into the same channel.  And I only hope that, if and when my time comes to excuse myself more from the human world and move towards the natural world, that I do it with a polite hop into the sunset...

Again, still...