Shaking our tails at yoga
IDEA: TO RAISE BUMS AND CHESTS, BUT ALSO AWARENESS OF THE PLIGHT OF BUNNIES
Each week Marie-Lais looks out for the unusual, the unique, the downright quirky or just something or someone we might have had no idea about, even though we live here. We like to travel our own cities and their surrounds, curious to feel them out. This week she does the downward dog with rabbits.
Nobody here is using the word “rabbit”, yet here’s one called Peter. I’m remembering my little sister reciting over-dramatically the whole “and their names were … Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail!” Beatrix Potter tale, for elocution. I thought it madly adorable when she dropped her voice for: “And they lived under the shade of an old oak tree” before Peter Rabbit and Mr McGregor meet.
The meeting today is a yoga one, arranged by Cristina who I met in a beading class at Piece. In her Polish accent, she spoke about her work with “the bonniss.”
Here we are among the longand short-eared, the furred from colder climes and the hairy from warmer places. Cristina’s charges are the Lonehill Bunnies. The idea is to raise our chests and bums of course but also awareness of the fact that these and other abandoned or criss-crossed rabbits need funding for their sterilising, feeding, vet bills and being adopted.
Sarah, the Indie Yoga teacher, sounds something like my sister doing Peter Rabbit, entreating us to crawl on our hands from a crouched position, “reaching the far corner of our yoga mats with the explorativeness of bunnies”.
When we stand up she says we can shake our tails. She does hers. Next to me, on a squiggled pink mat with a young woman already occupying it, a dark grey rabbit makes himself comfortable. He even nods off with his back legs crossed.
I just can’t stop smiling here. Behind me, a bunny has taken up a position on someone else’s back so she’s moving ever so carefully, her downward dog not too downward.
Wherever I look there are these good-mood-inspiring creatures that can overcome fear with inquisitiveness. I have one I feel between my feet for a while. “Being careful not to kick a bunny, extend your right leg high into the air.”
A black one lollops across my mat, pausing to roll huge eyes at me. A small, pied brown rabbit, looking slightly like a guinea pig with stiff little quill-ears, crawls under my chin and nestles in peacefully. I’m dizzy with delight.
This Yoga with Bunnies was sold out weeks ago and Heather wants to know when the follow-up is. Cristina looks astonished.
“It’s the most fun fundraiser possible!”
We think Cristina has no choice.
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