Dreaming in the Sacred Hare Coat ✦ Mythic Tale
✦ Dreaming in the Sacred Hare Coat ✦
The vastness of the dark night drapes over us like a cloak. Beneath this black moon, all that can be seen in the forest around us is the warm glow of the fire in the center of our circle, the crackles and pops break the silence that feels tangible, pregnant with the magic that will unfold before us.
A lone drum breaks the silence, a resonating heart beat - and then 12 others join in so that I feel enveloped in their voices. Trembling with anticipation, a familiar and kind touch upon the shoulder signals that it is time. The furs are coppery and alive in the firelight, joined together by a scarlet thread of wool, spun by the Elder and a stitch was woven by each woman in circle so that our prayers and stories may carry each of the sisters in their dreaming. I have watched this fflinâ reverntly placed upon the shoulders of many a sister, coveting the experience to one day be my own.
The fflinâ kasnâ, or sacred coat of Hare, is lain against bare skin, placed upon me with great care and tenderness by the village grandmother, a soitlâ, or wise woman, who has dreamed with the Hare many times and knows the ways and wisdom of this wild soul.
Two slender ears perch up upon a velvety soft hood which acts as a veil to bring the Otherworlds closer. Many hides of wild Hare woven together, they sway and move, melding into the skin so that we are one. Within these blessed hides, the wearer is imbued with a spark that carries us to our dreaming with a depth of sensitivity and wide eyed wonder that is unknown to all except the muse of this sacred coat.
Upon being donned with the fflinâ kasnâ, I breathe in the ecstacy that is the Hare dance. The outside world fades away and I am the hare; my teeth grow long, my heartbeat quickens, and a cotton-tail emerges from my root. Embodying the cycle of life, death, and rebirth; in the belly of the Earth den, where kits are born - springing across the land to forage for moss and berry - and eventually lying down on the pulsing Earth to exhale a final breath. This dance continues three times, each repetition, the dream state enveloping my psyche on a level I never knew possible.
Within this journey, I see my dreaming - a radiant Hare, emmenating a lunar glow with a familiar twinkle in its' eye, as if to ask "do you remember?" At its' feet lies a gift. An offering of crimson Rowan berries upon the dusty blanket of snow, when I press one upon my lips, I am gifted with the sight of the threads of fate - weaving and wefting on the loom of life. With tears swelling and a sudden knowing, we lock eyes once again to sit in this shared presence. Before my Dream Hare departs, they crawl onto my shoulders and become my own fflinâ kasnâ to carry this journey with me on the remainder of my days.
As I sink into death for a final time, the trance begins to slow, my beating heart returns to that of a human. Songs woven in the chambers of a Hare heart come seeping from my soul, they are offered with gratitude to the sacred coat who held me in what was my first vision flight. The coat that was now imbued with another layer of prayer, woven from the depths of my own heart and soul. Prayers that will lie on the shoulders for the next 12 generations of sisters and daughters that, too, will be held in the dreams and visions of the Hare.
✦ An excerpt of my short story, Dreaming in the Sacred Hare Coat inspired by my journeys with this beloved ally. 🐇 Donned in my own fflinâ kasnâ, hare hide shawl by Mezzaluna Fibers and Dreaming Hare talisman by me ✦