In Her Nature is a year long exploration into the healing power of the natural world. Season by season, setting out to awaken the spirit, and rekindle joy. The weekly journal of a neighborhood, its plants and birds and creatures – and how they are helping repair a heart and rebirth a soul.
The darkness had just settled over our yard when we returned from dinner, that particular October dark that comes earlier each evening, catching us off guard with its sudden depth. I opened the door for our greyhound, and watched his silhouette disappear into the shadows of the garden. In those first moments, there was only the ordinary ritual of coming home: keys on the counter, coats hung by the door, kettle for tea boiling. The comfortable routine of evening’s end.
Then he appeared at the back door, a shadow holding a trembling form.
In the half-light spilling from the kitchen window, I struggled to understand what I was seeing. His tail wagged with pride, eyes bright with accomplishment. And dangling from his mouth, held with the precision of generations, was a rabbit. Her small legs moving in desperate, fading arcs against the air.
For a split second, I froze, caught in that peculiar paralysis that comes when the ordinary world suddenly reveals its teeth. My dog stood patient at the threshold, waiting to be let in, waiting to be praised, waiting with the innocent expectation of one who has done exactly what he was made to do.
Then I jumped into action, my body moving before my mind could catch up. I reached for the rabbit, trying to loosen his grip without causing more damage. But even as my hands moved with purpose, I knew. Some knowledge arrives complete, needing no explanation. The rabbit’s body went limp as I cradled her, and she fell to the deck with a soft finality. Perfectly asleep, it seemed, except for her eyes that caught the kitchen light like two dark pools holding stars.
Her leg was clearly broken, bent at an impossible angle. I knelt beside her on the cool deck, my hands finding the warmth that was already beginning to fade from her small body. In death, she seemed even smaller. A handful of fur and delicate bones, a life that moments before had been nibbling grass or grooming in the safety of what she thought was just another evening.
The new moon hung above us, just a sliver of bright light, not enough to see by, but perfect in its thin crescent. Still, I couldn’t wait for morning. There was something necessary about attending to her immediately, about not letting the night take her without ceremony. I carried her with both hands to the pollinator garden. That patch of earth I’d carefully tended all summer, where bees had drowsed in the lavender and butterflies had danced among the coneflowers. It seemed right that she should rest there, among the roots of plants that fed so many small lives.
In the darkness, I began with a spade, but soon found myself digging with my hands, needing that closer connection. The soil was dry and cold at the surface, we’ve had no rain for so long, but underneath it still held summer’s warmth. The shallow grave took shape slowly, each handful of earth and leaves a small meditation on the strange intimacy of burial. When it was deep enough, I placed her gently on her side, with all the care I could offer. There are no fresh flowers left in the garden, but I gathered what this fall offered, the seed heads of Queen Anne’s Lace, which I arranged as a delicate crown around her. From the hyssop growing right beside her resting place, I broke a single stalk, its purple flowers long faded, and placed it atop the grave, a small way to mark her place in the earth.
In those moments, I said a prayer, not to any particular god, but to the great mystery that allows rabbits and dogs and humans to share this earth in all our complicated ways. And begged her forgiveness, though I knew she was beyond forgiving or condemning, beyond anything but the great return to soil and root. My words disappeared into the darkness, small offerings that seemed both necessary and insufficient.
When I returned to the house, Finn was waiting by the door, tail still wagging hopefully. I gazed into his eyes, searching for what? Remorse? Jubilation? Shame? But I found only the clear, uncomplicated gaze of a dog who loves me, who wants nothing more than to please, whose deepest programming had simply expressed itself in the way his breed has done for centuries.
This is the paradox of the rescued greyhound: We save them from the track, from the relentless pursuit of mechanical rabbits, from a life measured only in speed and profit. We bring them into our homes, teach them about warm beds and stairs, introduce them to the foreign concept of play. But we cannot erase what they are. The instinct to chase, to catch, these things run deeper than our love can reach.
He had killed a rabbit once before, a year ago, but had left it where it fell. This time was different. This time, he brought his prize to me, laid it at the threshold like an offering, and in that moment I felt the weight of something I couldn’t name. Did he bring it for me, this terrible gift? The thought filled me with a confusing mix of horror and something else, not quite elation, but a strange recognition of being seen, being provided for in the most primal way.
Dawn barely broken, the rabbit haunts me already. Not as a ghost or a source of guilt, but as an ache that teaches without words. In her death, she showed me something essential about the wildness that persists at the edges of our domestic lives. She reminded me that beneath our carefully tended gardens, beyond our windows lit against the dark, the ancient dance of predator and prey continues, endless and unchanged.
I walked to her grave this morning, the disturbed earth is still visible, dark against the frost-touched ground. The hyssop stalk I placed there still lies where I left it, keeping watch. By spring, I know she’ll have fed the soil that feeds the plants, that feed the bees and butterflies. But for now, the grave is raw, fresh, a disruption in the garden’s order.
And my greyhound? He sleeps beside me as I write this, his breathing deep and untroubled. His legs twitch, perhaps he runs again in dreams, forever chasing something just beyond reach. I rest my hand on his smooth flank and feel the warmth of him, this complicated creature who is both my gentle companion and still, somehow, a hunter. In saving him from the track, I did not make him less of what he is. I simply gave him space to be it all.
Last night, the rabbit gave her life to remind me of this truth: We are all of us caught between worlds, carrying within us histories we didn’t choose and instincts we cannot fully tame. The best we can do is hold space for the complexity, honor what is lost, and love what remains – even when it shows us what we’d rather not see.
—> What moments of natural wonder caught your attention this week? Please share your stories and photos in the comments below. Let’s experience nature’s gifts together.
As always, thank you so much for reading and supporting me.
Love,
Jane