The Velveteen Rabbit
by Margery Williams
“What is Real?” asked the Rabbit one day.
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you” “When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with you, but really loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Umm, sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “But when you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, or bit by bit?” asked the rabbit.
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “To become real takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easy, 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.”
“Once you are Real, you can’t become unreal again, it last for always”.
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In our practice today in class, I referred to what is it like … feeling the feild …
It is like becoming real …Â (well described in the Velveteen Rabbit’s dialogue with Skin Horse…)
Soudi
Yes. Thank you Eliana. Your comment makes perfect sense with my experience.
Hi Soudi,
This story is a very interesting connection with what is real and the feel of the field.
It is said that whatever gets your awareness becomes real, what doesn´t fades away.
As it is said by the Skin Horse: “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.”
Aware of the fell of the field, openess unfolds and nothing can hurt in this reality because it is the “shifting exhibition of a ‘field”.