A lot of Pagans are helpless to resist the call of Halloween decorations, and believe me, I get it. I firmly believe that pointy hats and Ouija candles and ceramic skulls are 100% appropriate as year-round interior design elements, and I can’t fault anyone for snatching all the spoopy merchandise off the clearance shelves the day after Samhain.
My personal weakness, though, is Easter. I’ve got a thing for horned rabbits and related lagomorph oddities, so while discount home goods stores always are dangerous places for me, I have to be even more vigilant when the fluffles of vernal tchotchkes start appearing in the seasonal displays.
I could rationalize the low-grade obsession by pointing out that hares are sacred to Hermes and associated with the Moon, or that I was born in the Year of the Rabbit, but honestly, I just think they’re cute and fun to look at. And I guess on some level, I find them relatable. Like, jackalopes are nonthreatening furballs at first glance, but they’ve got these incongruous spikes growing out of their little heads, and that somehow makes me think of me — at least enough to name myself after them.
But I also think it’s hilarious when traditional Springtime hallmarks get thrown together in weird mash-ups, creating unintentional wolpertingers. Or when a designer pulls out all the stops in an attempt to really capture the wholesome spirit of Easter, but the finished product is such an unambiguously heathen idol that it can only be used as background dressing in the Netflix original series Equinox.
Those are the pieces that telekinetically fling themselves into my shopping basket when I’m not paying attention. It’s like I’m haunted by an aggressive but tacky poltergeist who assumes that the gays all have disposable income. Which is pretty homophobic, when you think about it.
I am grateful that money is currently an object, because it keeps my urge to collect ALL the weird rabbits in check. However, I am also blessed with friends who enable my lepus cornutus addiction: My jet-setting Misfits brother Scrappy brings me back rabbity souvenirs whenever he travels; Chester gave me the most adorable Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog for my birthday; and my friend McDammit gets a kick out of surprising me with long-eared accessories.
Plus Tempest just sent me a Jackalope: Beast of Beltane greeting card, which made my whole damn week.
I’m just saying that my friends get me. And that much like their living counterparts, the rabbits inhabiting my apartment reproduce at an alarming rate, regardless of whether or not I actively do anything to encourage their population. But I’m happy to have them around.
The most recent addition to the menagerie was another present from Scrappy — a miniature cottontail pinwheel. He actually gave me three of them, two of which I immediately gifted to Tybalt and Nando. (Nando is the Minoan y’all haven’t met yet, but he’s super cool.)
The last time I was over at Tybalt’s place, I noticed that he’d tucked his pinwheel into a kitchen planter amongst some herbs that were probably for seasoning and not at all lethal. And it made me think that I should do something visual with my own pinwheel, which was collecting dust on my dining table and occasionally acting as an impromptu fidget spinner.
When I got home, I grabbed the pinwheel and scotched-taped it to an empty spot of stucco, and… it looked brilliant: fun and festive and unexpected. Except for the tape. That looked kind of gauche. What I needed was some kind of mounted bud vase to hold the pinwheel, and I found a few options on Etsy that weren’t terrible, but they all required spending money, which seemed frivolous.
But then(!) I realized I had something buried in the depths of my supply cabinet that might could possibly serve as a vase. It didn’t have a hook or a cord or anything attached that I could use to hang it, but it would definitely tie into the horned rabbit theme. I just needed to figure out some way to make it work.
And I did.
I should say here that I have no domestic or home improvement abilities whatsoever. As far as I’m concerned, cooking is the darkest of sorcery, and DIY projects are occasionally interrupted by inconvenient trips to minor emergency clinics. And I really need to keep working on my divination prowess, because my only other applicable Zombie Apocalypse skill is an unflinching willingness to kill the bitten before they turn, and that will only get me so far before the rest of the survivors start to question whether I’m truly pulling my weight.
But I approached the bud vase scenario like I would a Chaos Magic experiment:
- Here is the result I want to achieve.
- Here are the resources at my disposal.
- Here are the constraints, and here are the limitations.
- How do I make it happen?
And then I made it happen. And what started as a quandary concluded as an educational experience. Granted, the path I took from Point A to Point B might not have been “traditional” or “sensical” or “obedient to the laws of physics,” but I gained knowledge by doing and screwing up and doing again and succeeding. Which is great, on account of I never really did well in a classroom setting.
So anyway, yeah, that’s why there’s now a bull horn full of bunnies superglued to my wall.
I might as well start raising actual rabbits here, because I am never getting my security deposit back.
ETA
Right after this post went up, I came across a picture from a photo shoot I did for Something Woo (I’m a brand ambassador), and I was like, “I cannot believe I didn’t think to include this.” So let me amend that.
If you’re hankering to show off your love for a favorite animal, treat yourself to a nice, deep dive into the Something Woo Stellar Critter collection. And while you’re exploring, be sure to check out their brand-new coloring book! Tell them Thumper definitely didn’t forget to send you.
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