The story is a beautiful metaphor for how our flaws and apparent imperfections can be transformed when they are integrated and fully accepted. To me, the moral of this story is that we become Real through the process of connection. The Velveteen Rabbit could never have enjoyed the beauty of being Real had he not been “broken open” by the experience of vulnerability. Despondent, after crying his first real tear, a beautiful fairy came to make him into a Real Rabbit, allowing him to hop, skip, and jump with other rabbits (who also had once been discarded). When the boy finally “moves on” as children (and all people) can do sometimes, the Rabbit was heartbroken, feeling rejected and diminished. All of the wear and tear from allowing himself to be vulnerable stripped the rabbit both of his sheen and his un-realness. The Velveteen Rabbit, once a beloved and shiny stuffed bunny, was loved deeply by The Boy, who saw him as real. One of my favorite childhood stories is The Velveteen Rabbit, a parable of just how this evolution may occur. Contrary to that assumption, consciousness is an evolving condition of being. Perhaps because we don’t know how to imagine any other living state, it may seem to us that birth is a decisive instant, before which there is nothing and after which we are fully ourselves. We are mistaken if we believe that our consciousness is fully awakened at the first moment after birth.
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