An unexpected exchange of love

River running through the sanctuary

We walked around the Sevenoaks Wildlife Sanctuary on Sunday, and stumbled across a young rabbit that did not seem concerned that we were there.

It carried on munching on some leaves before turning around to face and cautiously hop toward me.

I bent over to greet it and saw its eyes were filmy, so I gather it was blind.

I gave it a leaf to munch on and as it was finishing this off I stretched out my hand slowly to see if it would let me touch it. It stopped eating as soon as I touched its head, but did not run away.



It lengthened its neck and its body relaxed into the ground while I stroked its head and body.

It seemed rather skinny, maybe ill, although I did wonder if it would be eating if it was that ill...so maybe it was recovering.


Once I stopped touching it, it seemed to bring itself out of the trance and turned to hop away into the undergrowth.

Part of me wanted to save it, but another part of me said not to interfere as it was all part of the natural cycle of life. I have no doubt that on many different levels this whole interaction could be seen in a different light, but my feeling is that we were exchanging energy. I gave it some much needed love and it gave me that love back in such a way that made my day.

Some people might be going, 'yuck, don't touch a sickly wild animal,' but everything has its place in nature. I remember as a kid my mother always saying that all birds, starlings in particular, were dirty and lice infested. Maybe to us humans, who are brainwashed into being so scrupulously sterile that we like to 'kill all germs dead!' whether they are harmful or not.

As I am sitting here writing this, the song Love by John Lennon is playing

Love is real, real is love
Love is feeling, feeling love
Love is wanting to be loved

Love is touch, touch is love
Love is reaching, reaching love
Love is asking to be loved

Love is you, you and me
Love is knowing we can BE

Everyone deserves to be loved whether sickly or not.

I suppose I could look up what it means and read all kinds of things into the encounter, but I won't...simply because to me...it was and is all about being in a space of love...