Written by Hannah Bourke, Ascension Guide
Hannah Bourke is a multidimensional artist, healer, musician, and Ascension Guide. She supports people aligning with their Higher Self on their spiritual healing path.
Although I now live in the Bay Area, I spent nearly seven years living in Montana, mostly in Missoula, and almost a year off-grid outside the Flathead Valley. In June of 2019, two years after I left Montana and returned to live in California where my family was from, I traveled back to Montana to buy a car from a friend who offered me one for $500. I flew up to spend a week in East Missoula with my friend Richard, our time together often included smoking tobacco and amusing photoshoots for his clothing line amidst the chandeliers and subversive art decorum of his vintage trailer home. By the end of the week, I could pick up the car from my other friend and drive myself back down to California. Little did I know then that I would have two unexpected guests accompanying me on my journey home.
Arriving in East Missoula I was overcome with curious fascination. The streets and rows of trailer homes held the presence of hundreds of black rabbits throughout the entire neighborhood. The rabbits were sleeping underneath cars, and bouncing around the roads and back alleyways, they existed simultaneously wild and quietly unbothered. These rabbits had not been there when I lived in Missoula two years prior. It was as if someone had unleashed a couple of domestic breed bunnies and they began to do what bunnies do best and multiply until they had taken over completely. Richard and I dubbed the neighborhood “The Temple of The Black Rabbit” and auspiciously accepted that a peculiar kind of magic was at hand.
One day, as I was walking home from the Keno gas station I passed by one of the old dirt alleyways and saw the first baby rabbit of my time there. This rabbit was an outlier, anomalous in size, age, and color. It was a baby white rabbit. I dropped my blue suede purse in the dirt and slowly sauntered up to the wild rabbit as it sat meditating in the middle of the alleyway, with its eye silently fixed on me as I approached. Mesmerized by its preciousness, I whispered sweet words to let it know I wished it no harm. “I just want to love you, I just want to hold you, I promise not to hurt you” I spoke quietly as I approached. Stepping carefully, I was aware that it was also aware of me, watching me from its left profile gaze. As I got within reach of the small white rabbit it spooked, and darted around erratically all over the alleyway. I was doing my best to track it, following the flash of white fur with my eyes as it dashed under the bush, around the tractor, through the hedge, and then poof. It vanished.
Mildly disappointed, I began to walk back toward my purse and let the impulse go when a small girl about nine years old poked her head over the fence. “What are you doing?” she asked me curiously. I looked at her, “I’m trying to catch a rabbit, what are you doing?” I replied. “Oh, I’m really good at catching rabbits” she stated matter of factly. She invited me into
her home, she wanted to introduce me to her pet rabbits. I walked around to the front of her house and she greeted me at the front door. Stepping over the threshold into her family living room, I was immediately enveloped by the silent presence of something greater than myself, an energetic essence emanated within the space that electrified my senses. The living room walls were filled from ceiling to floor with handwoven dreamcatchers, each hoop intricately woven and adorned with feathers and beads. The young girl was Indigenous, but I did not ask from what nation her family came from. I simply allowed her to quietly lead me through her family home into the backyard where her two rabbits sat in their hut.
“What kind of rabbit were you trying to catch?” She asked me as we stood there admiring her bunnies. I told her about the small white rabbit. “It was right on the other side of your fence in the alleyway there.” The young girl’s response was immediate. “I’ll be right back.” She unlatched the back gate and within less than one minute I heard “Gotcha!” from the other side of the fence followed by a small shriek that pierced through the air. She returned with the baby bunny folded up in her hands and immediately presented it to me. I held the rabbit to my heart and I knew in an instant I was going to love that rabbit as long as we were able to be together in this life. I was enamored. It completely surrendered to me as I cradled it against the warmth of my chest. It hummed peacefully in my hands and clicked its little teeth pleasurably when I stroked my finger down its spine. “What was the shriek?” I asked the young girl. At this point, her whole family was outside with us, curious about what was going on. “Rabbits let out a shriek when they think they are gonna die.” She said plainly. She told me the reason there weren’t many other white rabbits around was because they were the first ones to get picked off by the birds because they were so visible from the sky. She thanked me for saving it.
I asked the young girl how she found the rabbit, wondering how she even knew where to go looking for it. Her answer was simple, “I have a gift.” Her father spoke next, his words were slow and honoring of his daughter. “She does, she has a gift. She is connected to Spirit. She is connected to all the animals through Spirit.” Her whole family nodded in agreement. I looked at the young girl and thanked her. “You truly do have a gift. I thought I just wanted to pet the rabbit, but now I never want to let her go. Thank you for bringing us together.” She smiled with sincere pride. Her family shared a few more stories of the girl's animal intuitions with me, it was clear she knew her calling. I appreciated the admiration her family had for her. I thanked her and her family, and then the girl guided me and the small rabbit cradled in the palm of my hands around the house and back out to the front gate where we said our goodbyes.
I crossed the street and arrived back at Richard’s home through the front gate, walking through the garden of ice plants, ivy, and stone statues of Aphrodite and other Divine
Feminine beings. I knocked carefully on his purple door with the evil eye hanging above the entrance. Richard answered the front door in slippers and a robe, rolling a rose quartz gua sha across his cheekbones. “Oh no!” he commanded, looking directly at the rabbit. “What are you doing Hannah, what are you going to do with that thing? You can’t bring that in here!” His fit was fierce, yet quickly softened when I showed him the rabbit's sweet sleeping face. “I found her, the girl across the street helped me catch her. She’s the most precious being I’ve ever seen, look.” Richard scowled with intrigue. “Well, she’s going to need somewhere to sleep. Help me empty these old storage boxes from the backyard. God dammit Hannah.” He was simultaneously frantic and committed to helping me make her comfortable. He handed me a brown bedsheet and two pillowcases to line the storage box to make her a nest. This was the pattern that would continue with almost everyone I introduced the rabbit to, the wild rabbit softened the hearts and defenses of everyone everywhere we went.
I decided to name the rabbit Villanelle. I intuitively sensed that it was a feminine creature, even after a small group of neighborhood children had aggressively examined her and given me inconclusive results. I just had a sense which I quietly trusted that it was a ‘She.’ I had always loved music and poetry, and wrote all kinds of songs and prose, including several poems in the nineteen-line structured format known as a ‘Villanelle.’ The name was simultaneously inspired by the television show that Richard and I were watching at the time. The lead female character of the show was a hired assassin, bored with life and finding little joy in anything but haute couture and killing. Although there was nothing obvious about the shared characteristics between the rabbit and the assassin, the name just fit and felt precisely right for the small creature. Shortly after naming her Villanelle, I would begin calling her the name most people would come to know her by, the affectionate nickname Bunz.
My friend Maxon who was selling me the car, arrived in East Missoula at the end of the week to present me with the vehicle. It was a run-down old Corolla, somewhere between the shades of blue and gray, with seven sets of keys. Upon meeting Villanelle, he decided to join us on our journey from Montana to California. Maxon and I packed up the car and said farewell to Richard and all the neighborhood children who had mentored me on being a good bunny caretaker.
We stopped frequently along the drive, the rabbit spent most of the road trip resting on my shoulder under the shelter of my chestnut hair or sleeping quietly in my lap. I would pick wildflowers on the side of the road and feed them to Villanelle from the palm of my hand. I cherished her innocence and the purity of watching her nibble up wildflowers and other grasses. She had a gravitational pull on the world around us, everywhere we went people would
pull their cars over, or walk across the street to join us, gathering around to marvel at the small rabbit no bigger than a baseball. I brought her into restaurants, gas stations, and grocery stores. Waiters voluntarily presented her with plates of lettuce at restaurant tables. People wanted to take photos and hold her, she brought smiles and sweetness to people's faces beyond anything I‘d experienced before. I started to call her “The Joybringer.”
Arriving home in Marin County, California, I was met with a similar initial resistance and baffled shock from my parents as when I had first introduced her to Richard. “Hannah, you’re about to go back to college. What were you thinking? What are you going to do with that rabbit?” My mom's pushback was staunch, and my dad was sarcastically nonplussed. Within a day or two, their energies had softened from judgment to adoration for Villanelle. They wanted to hold her and called her their Grandbunny. She did feel like a child to me. I wanted to do everything I could to keep her wild, free and loved. I heavily resisted putting her in any cage, even after Maxon built her a two-story rabbit hutch using an old bookshelf and chicken wire.
Deep in my heart, I knew she belonged to the Earth, not to me, and that honoring her freedom without trying to tame or control her would keep us both in alignment with whatever we were meant to learn from one another.
The baby bunny slept in my bed with me. Sometimes she would flip herself belly side up and fall asleep on her back with her little paws in the air as she snuggled up against my body, other times she would sleep next to my head on the pillow or sprawl out at my feet. During the day she would roam freely around the house, she loved exploring the stairs and crawl spaces. She would nap on the couch or my freshly made bed and run around excitedly after every rest cycle. She would attempt to eat practically anything around the house that was chewable including couch cushions, clothing, carpet, electric wires, and books. Bouquets were like her own personal buffet. Magazines and various loose papers often had bite marks nibbled out of them. My parents endured these aspects of the experience with as much tolerance as they could manage. I apologized when necessary, did laundry daily, and cleaned up after her as quickly as I could. I took her on walks around the neighborhood and let all the children and adults hold her everywhere we went.
As Bunz grew bigger, her coloring began to evolve. She always had intense red eyes and snow-white fur. In her maturation, she began sprouting soft grey fur around her paws, ears, and nose. As she grew she also became braver and bolder in her curiosity and desire to roam further away from the yard and out of my sight. I could feel the edges of my comfort level being stretched, my instinct to keep her close and safe within the control of my sight was being challenged by the part of me that knew I was meant to trust her and trust life working through
her. My human ego wrestled with these parts of myself. It had been three months of raising her from a baby to a nearly full-grown bunny when I experienced the final initiation to surrender my attempts to limit her and let go to trust her sovereignty completely.
I was painting in the backyard when I realized the sun was going down and Villanelle was nowhere to be found. I packed up my paints and brushes and set out to look for her, calling out her name as I walked through the neighborhood. My heart beat inside my chest like thunder and my breath was shallow and heavy as I searched the streets. It was dark now, and I knew I would not be able to sleep until I found her. I spent the whole night looking for her, crying, and calling out for her until dawn. By morning I was worried sick. I made “Missing White Rabbit” posters and just as I was hanging the first poster on the streetlight outside my home, my neighbor came outside and told me his daughter had taken Villanelle in for the night. He said his daughter liked the rabbit so much she almost wanted to keep her. Flooded with relief from the weight of so much sadness and worry, I received Villanelle back into my arms and walked her home with tears of relief flowing from my eyes. I felt like I owed my mother an apology for the times I had kept her up with worry through the night. When we got home, I put Bunz into the cage. I didn’t know what else to do. I apologized and told her I needed to keep her safe until I knew what to do with her. She put her paws up against the wire and rattled the cage like the bars of a prison cell, I could feel her telling me “This was not our agreement.”
By nightfall, I still had not slept nor come up with an inspired idea of what to do. I stepped outside to sit at the dark water’s edge of the Belvedere Lagoon and pray. There was no moon, just a sky full of faraway stars. I started to pray and talk out loud to the universe about my fears and need for help. I kept my eyes open during the prayer and let my gaze focus softly upon the sky, I spoke plainly into the air like I was talking to someone right there with me. “God, I love this rabbit with my whole heart. Thank you for this sweet being in my life. Thank you for bringing us together. She has helped me heal in so many ways. I am overwhelmed by how scared I am to lose her, and yet I want her to feel free. I don’t know what to do. Do I need to surrender the Bunz?” At the exact moment those final words left my lips, a shooting star fell across the entire night sky. Silenced with wonder, I had to register what I had just asked. What did it even mean to surrender the Bunz? I didn’t fully know, but I knew I had received my answer. “Yes.”
Something shifted within me at that moment. Beyond the temporary experience of fear, I knew I could trust the message the cosmos offered. I went back inside the house and pulled Bunz out of her cage. I cradled her to my heart and kissed her forehead and apologized to her for being so scared. “Look Bunz, I love you so much, and I don’t fully understand what it
means to surrender, but you and I both know you don’t belong in a cage. From now on, you are free to come and go as you please.” I set her on the floor and opened the sliding glass door connecting my bedroom to the outside world. Bunz looked up at me with her ruby red eyes, as if checking to see if I was sure about my decision. Then, she hopped through the open doorway into the fresh air outside. She paused for a moment, taking it all in, before crossing back over into the bedroom inside. She looked up at me one more time, and then hopped back outside and away into the night. It was the first time I felt total freedom and trust that I didn’t have to control her or her environment to keep her safe anymore. My fear had dissolved away into surrender.
I slept with the sliding glass door open all night so she could come in and out as she pleased. The next morning I awoke to the rabbit jumping onto my bed and snuggling into my face on the pillow at 7 am. I felt relief knowing she knew how to find her way home. She could take care of herself now. She knew her home, that she was free to roam, and that she was deeply loved.
Villanelle and I moved to three different houses throughout our time together. She always found her orbit around each new home and loved exploring the neighborhoods freely. I always made sure she could come in and out of each house on her own and had access to my bedroom. Her favorite entrance was the cat door when we lived in the forest of Bonny Doon in the Santa Cruz mountains. In many ways, Villanelle operated like clockwork. She would sleep just outside my bedroom, but come in to wake me up every morning at 7 am. She came in and out of the home throughout the day, took naps with me in the afternoon, and then set off again on her adventures.
There were so many mystical experiences during our shared time together. She taught me how to love another in a way that they felt free, and in that, she was my greatest teacher. There were many moments I would fall back into worry, wanting to keep her close when I felt the fear of losing her tighten up within me. When that fear of loss would grip me I would always remember the falling star, and the peace it brought me to surrender and trust that it would always be ok.
Villanelle had come to me during a time of deep healing after I had escaped from violent abuse that nearly ended my life. She reminded me of the innate innocence of life which is our true nature. She allowed me to practice patience, presence, and humility, in learning how to attune to the needs of another with love. She inspired an even deeper strength in me to be authentic in my truth even when it didn't make sense to others. She reminded me that the Creator gave us all free will to choose how we want to experience our lives. Love or fear.
Freedom or control. She reminded me that in choosing love and developing a relationship with the Holy Spirit to move through our fears and challenges, we can heal from the deepest of wounds and begin to trust that there is wisdom that has been guiding us through it all, often beyond our understanding, every step of the way.
Read more from Hannah Bourke
Hannah Bourke, Ascension Guide
Hannah Bourke is an open channel intuitive and multidimensional energy healer devoted to Sophia Christos and the collective awakening of humanity. After a Kundalini Awakening experience she was given the term Ascension Guide by her spiritual team to embody the work she does in the world helping others to align with their Higher Self and the wisdom of their own Soul. She works with people one-on-one, and also facilitates psychic self-healing ceremonies called the DIvine Feminine Healing and Empowerment Ceremony to help guide others in how to heal themselves using the power of their own multidimensional intuitive abilities.
