Harbinger of Healing

this is expounded on from a dream I had in early December, a combination of Watership Down and From Fear to Love, both books I had recently read. 

My steps took me to the open shop door. The yard, basking in the summer warmth, was empty save for myself It held a curiously absent feeling, as if I had entered my own mind as a stranger unfamiliar with familiar surroundings. I stopped at the threshold of the open door, for there sat a small white rabbit with his ears flat against his body, crippled in a trembling fear.

I approached the rabbit with a tender caution. I understood it represented a part of my own subconscious. This rabbit, frightened and lost, was a manifestation of childhood fears in guileless nature. Without speaking a word, I gently lifted the rabbit into my arms and held him against my chest. He had been wronged somehow and vindication was necessary, as much for me as for him.

Whatever discord had befallen him it had been most unnatural; this brand of fear in a rabbit his size and age begs vengeance on him who is responsible. That deed, however, was not for my doing. The rabbit, wide-eyed in his fear and inured by the danger of the world around him, needed assurance that he could exist in his own fur; an assurance that could only come from discerning an identity above whatever trauma he endured.

In his shaking fear, I attempted to find a location where he would feel safety, a place where he could begin to talk about what had happened to him. From corral to coop, barn to bin I walked, my feet crunching against the gravel, the sound of which echoed against the seemingly airless surroundings. With each stop, he only shook his head.

"Not the place," he seemed to scream with his eyes, "This is not the place."

My feet continued on, still cradling the rabbit in my arms. He nestled his nose in the nook of my elbow, nervously checking his surroundings. All I could think to do was to speak a steady stream of affirmations into his folded ears: "You are safe. I have you. You are safe. I will keep you safe."

With several more locations I, at last, understood. I looked into his vacant eyes, my own filled with compassion and searing empathy. We were finally on one accord and his taciturn voice seemed to erupt as revelation flooded over us.

"We have to go back. Back to where it all began."