The Great Easter Egg Hunt
(Apr 2000)

Do you recognize the dreamy-eyed girl? It is me, when I was four or five years old and still living in Michigan. I seldom wore dresses or white clothes after we moved to Rosswood when I was seven. I asked Marcel what kind of picture she would like to see on this month’s front cover and she said, “An Easter egg picture,” so I dug deep and found a picture of my rabbit and told her one of my favourite stories.

The rabbit is on the table because my Mom was learning to be a painter and was told by her teacher to practice painting live objects. My rabbit seemed content to pose and I seemed content to watch. The baby bottle was my brother’s; Mom used it as a contrast to give perspective to the picture she was painting. The pile of Easter eggs is an added artistic touch on my part.

As children we celebrated all the holidays, and every Easter, Dad hid brightly colored eggs all over the house. I liked the game of finding them but found that eating more than one gave me a tummy-ache. Sometimes it was months later when I discovered a lost egg and then it tasted better. When I became a Mom I carried on the tradition but switched to small chocolate eggs that were foil-wrapped. As my kids grew the hunts became more serious. The one I remember the best is the year I won. My boys were now teenagers of 14, 16 and 17 and there was a foster boy and Rae, my husband. I decided to hid the eggs only in the front room, otherwise it got too complicated and took too long. Typical of most Moms, I was always asking them not to leave their dirty clothes lying around, and the night before I reminded them to clean up the front room, but it didn’t get done.

Early Easter morning I spent an hour being very creative and hide one hundred eggs. To put this contest into perspective, this was serious stuff. I sewed or taped eggs into the curtains, took apart light fixtures and anything else I needed to hide them in. When the time came for the hunt, the boys were organized. They divided themselves into two teams, moving the furniture into the middle of the room, searching each piece before putting it back. When the counting was done, they were five or six eggs short of the hundred. They questioned my counting ability, for they were sure they had done a thorough job. I grinned from ear to ear, trying hard not to laugh. With great smugness I walked over to the couch and gingerly picked at the heel of a dirty sock lying under it. Dale, the youngest, said, “Mom, you wouldn’t!” I grinned some more as the eggs rolled out of the dirty socks into full view and I gloated—for about a week. After that, I noticed their socks were no longer left lying around the front room.

I have been caretaker to rabbits many times in my life. The one on the front cover was my first rabbit. Rosswood had lots of wild rabbits hopping around and we eventually caught one, but he bit my brother so we let it go and Mom got us another tame one. As a young mother wishing to create the same experience for my children, I bought a pair of rabbits from the pet shop and was told we owned two of the same sex. I put them in a cage with only a little hay till I had time to build them a home. Several days later, I noticed dead baby rabbits in the cage. They had frozen to death for fall had arrived. This came as a surprise and a shock and I decided that I had had enough of rabbits.

When I moved into the building on Ellis Street in Penticton five years ago, I noticed a young rabbit hanging out around the woodpile. I left food out and he survived and stayed around. With the construction of the new pathway and the old woodpile getting moved, the rabbit decided to move across the street and live under a vacant building. Several people leave carrots for him/her and we can get within a couple feet of him, but he keeps his distance, standing up on his hind legs as he surveys the situation. Noticing when he is out of hiding is a magical moment for me, and I consider him the mascot for the Juicy Carrot.

In the last three months, I have had four one-hour deep massages on my left shoulder. It took two sessions to loosen up my neck so that it didn’t feel pinched. After the third session, which felt like needles going into my vertebrae, I could feel sensations in the opposite jaw bone for days as my skull shifted. During my fourth session, I could feel a deep, subtle sensation in the opposite hip joint. Doing yoga afterwards I could stretch further forward, but the pull was intense on the right leg. After my walk and for a few days later, the hip ached and I am hoping that it is rotating slowly back into proper alignment, which will allow the opposite shoulder to drop. When I stand still and tune into my body, I notice that my feet like to roll to the outside edges. Ten years ago, I was struggling with pulling up the inside of my arches, as my feet collapsed inward. My neck now crinks and pops, as the vertebrae have loosened up, allowing my bones to readjust. I take this to be a good sign as I want the pressure from deep within to release for I no longer remember why I am holding that tension. Changing the way I walk and stand takes time and patience with myself, both of which I have lots of. I am delighted and honored to be given this journey towards self-realization.

My intent for the year 2000 wasn’t clear until now, but then I hadn’t made the time to focus on it. When I was out walking the other day, it came to me: my goal is to feel more energetic and healthier at age 50 than I did when I was age 25. I certainly am more intuitive and can now feel my energetic body. Each day I understand a little better what takes my energy levels down and makes my eyes feel heavy. Eating high-quality foods that rebuild my system is easier than ever. In fact, sometimes food is too abundant. I have always felt happy and satisfied with whatever I was doing on a day-to-day level and now that I feel like I have a mission and a vision, life is really good. I am grateful for all the blessings I get from the universe, for each day someone teaches me something about myself and my perceptions about being a human. We are all sparks of the Divine.