Article February 17, 2014 ISSUE

The Velveteen Rabbit and a lesson in reality

Caroline Martin

While leafing through the much-loved children’s book The Velveteen Rabbit, I came across part of the story where the main character, a stuffed rabbit, asks another nursery toy, the Skin Horse, about being real. The horse tells the rabbit that becoming real is something that happens to you after a child loves you for a long, long time.

Standing in the bookstore, I smiled. While becoming “real” is a very tender element in this story, I started thinking about true spiritual reality, and how we can discover it. I then remembered a distinct turning point in my understanding of reality that took place some years ago after a particularly poignant healing.