I wrote this loosely based on a Russian fairy tale I once heard by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.
(from Women who Run with the Wolves)
Long, long ago there lived a girl at the edge of a forest.
She lived with her stepmother and two stepsisters.
She had lost her true mother and father as a child and they had taken her in, but they were very poor as well and they took her in only so she would do all the chores for them. One of her chores was to take care of the fire as it was very cold where they lived and they did not have ways to restart the fire again if it should go out.
One day, after withering a very ferocious and long Blizzard, they were low on firewood and she knew she had to get some more. It was cold and she only had an old shirt and a tattered old apron to wear. She recalled another even older more tattered shirt she had put aside and as there is warmth in layers, she put this on as well.
As she started out walking, she was having a hard time finding wood in all the fresh snow, and had to venture a little farther into the forest than usual. She stepped on something in the snow she thought was a log but was actually a rabbit, and as she pulled her foot hurriedly away to avoid hurting it, she slipped and fell. As she tried to get back up, she realized she had sprained her ankle.
After a long time, and much pain, she was able to gather at least enough firewood for a couple of days, but it took so long that by the time she got back to the house, the fire had gone out. Now even though there was still a little wood left by the stove, the stepmom and her daughters had fallen asleep and neglected the fire.
They blamed her of course, and the stepmother told her that way deep in the woods, there lived a witch and that that certain witch had fire, and she needed to go and find a way to get that fire from that certain witch.
So, the girl set off on her journey, not knowing which way to go or which direction to take. She went off towards where she had last gathered firewood but had no idea of which way in which to turn from there. She put her shivering hands into the apron pocket, and felt a small rag doll inside that had been given to her so very long ago by her true mother.
She squeezed the doll tightly and looked around and saw only the tracks of the rabbit she had accidentally stepped upon, and she decided to follow the tracks of the white snow rabbit.
As she followed these tracks, she came across an obviously well traveled path leading to her left. She gazed longingly at the path for quite some time before heading off again to follow the path of the white snow rabbit. Why, she would have likely followed that well worn path had she not squeezed so tightly to the little cloth doll once again while pondering in her heart what to next do.
Following those tracks appeared to have been in vain though as they just all of a sudden ended at the top of a snowy plateau!
She looked around to try to find a rabbit hole he may have gone down into but no such thing seemed to be! Then she noticed a small little plant that seemed to have some berries on it at the edge of the plateau. Half starved, she reached for one of the berries, and lo! She went skidding down the hillside! Now you may have thought she’d be in panic and quite beside herself by now, but she just started laughing and said “How delicious this berry!” Such a strange girl was she!
Now as she thought this, she squeezed again the little doll and in her ecstatic glee (she later said) this little poem popped into her head!
“What fear have I now as this succulent berry sustains me?
Why, I grasped at a thorny bush and my fingers were pricked !
I tried to hold on that bush to protect me,
Yet, down this slope I haplessly slid...
What incredible flavor this sweet berry imbues!”
She fell and she fell, and she wondered at the
vividness she noticed in the open sky’s blue hues.
Having wound up in some sort of valley, she walked along wondering where the White Snow Rabbit had gone.
End of chapter one.
(The doll in the story is her soul, and the berry's taste is the taste of Freedom)
The Rabbit is her true path which she will follow out of pure intuition
