Dear Brooke,
Please do not consider my interest in, attachment to, and frequent references about, bunny slippers to be an attempt to challenge or usurp your traditional, highly respected, and well documented status as the bunny slipper Mistress of the DGIV thread.
As some background on my relationship with bunny slippers:
Some time ago, before my SI days, I was on the Celestine mailing list and an active member of the Dalnet IRC channel #Celestine. As you may or may not know, The Celestine Prophecy, and subsequent titles, was authored by James Redfield, and in his writing he has set forth certain psychological, metaphysical, and spiritual principles which many believe to be relevant to an examination of ones personal growth and general life experience. All of this has a lot to do with energy- individual and collective. As such, it has a lot to do with relationships: with ones own self, with significant others, and with communities, including the world community.
However, I digress. The bunny slippers....
Certain critics of this "celestine" approach to life, mostly the hard nosed materialists, began calling this approach a "fluffy bunny" philosophy, meaning, to them, shallow, without substance.
Those of us who studied and applied the Celestine principles, and then shared the results and experiences with others in various forums around the globe, appropriated the "fluffy bunny," and transformed it into our own meaningful symbol, a logo so to speak, which we used to identify ourselves around the world. We transformed the critic's swords, turning them into plowshares....hehehe
I am one of those who not only walked up to the edge and looked around- I also took a leap.
For usage in the IRC channel I created several of what are called popups or aliases with my mIRC software, pictures of fluffy bunnies engaged in various life activities and with captions and a variety of colors.
From there, I created many interesting types of bunny slippers, each type suitable for different areas of fashion and life experience, from casual to quite formal and sophisticated.
To further personalize the bunny slipper experience, I approached someone I know who is in the business of manufacturing a famous brand of women's footwear. This company's forte is slippers. This person found a designer, a cutter, and an assembler who were willing to spend a little time "after hours" to create some different pairs of bunny slippers to my specs. They were too fascinated by my request and the opportunity to engage in something of a clandestine nature to liven up their work day routine to say no to the odd nature of this request(to this day, the company does not manufacture bunny slippers)
Bunny slippers have been a favorite of mine for many years now. I think they are symbolic of some very important things in life, important activities, and important states of mind as well.
Bunny slippers have served me well as an important vehicle in my own travels toward personal freedom- freedom from self recrimination and freedom from the fear of the opinions of others who place a high value on conformity. This is the freedom to be oneself in a world where too often people would have us pretend to be otherwise, mainly for their own comfort.....
Sometimes, when I discover that I have perhaps been slipping away from my own individuality, slipping uncomfortably too far into the mainstream of conventional perspective, I will get into a particular pair of bunny slippers and then go out into the world and engage myself in whatever activity calls me at the time.
I have worn bunny slippers with a sleeveless black dress on disco dance floors, bunny slippers at certain community organization board meetings, bunny slippers dining out, bunny slippers at the super market, bunny slippers apres ski....many different times and places...
Personally, I hope to see the day when psychotherapists everywhere counsel their clients/patients to wear fluffy bunny slippers with long floppy ears, not just at home but especially during those activities when the client/patient would in fact tremble in fear at the thought of it.
Were this to be so,I am convinced there would be great outbreaks of freedom, individuality, and gratitude for these things and a new found simple joy in breathing and being alive in this very interesting world we live in.
Best,
Charliss (bowing humbly and respectfully to Brooke, extending a gaily wrapped present of bunny slippers as an offering, an acknowledgement of Brooke's exalted status as the bunny slipper Mistress of the DGIV thread) |
