Created by Rachel Maria Kisellus

It started with a rabbit on the front lawn.

I opened the door and there he was ~ still, alert, soft.

I grabbed my camera and crept quietly toward him, heart open. But my son beat me to it, bounding past me in boyish joy, and the bunny bolted, quick as a breath.

I stood there a moment, empty-handed, then turned and walked to the backyard.

It had just begun to rain ~ just enough to press the air down and wake the soil. My bare feet sank into the mud, and I felt the earth in that deep, somatic way: not beneath me, but with me. Holding. Receiving.

And then I saw my mango tree.

God, she was beautiful.

Wet leaves shining like armor. Branches heavy with some unseen secret. She wasn’t performing. She was just being ~ alive, radiant, steady in the storm. I began photographing her, not to capture her, but to witness her. To remember this moment as it was: unexpected and whole.

Eventually, I wandered back to the front yard. And there he was again.

The rabbit.

This time, I crouched into a squat, camera loose in my hand. I shifted my weight until I was grounded ~ really grounded. Rooted. My hips softened, my breath dropped, and I settled into the stillness I so often ask others to find.

And the moment I truly landed in myself, the rabbit fled.

Like he felt the pulse of presence and mistook it for a predator.

Or maybe he was teaching me something.

That the deeper you drop into the moment, the more it slips through your fingers. That beauty isn’t something you can trap, only follow. That you might never get the shot ~ but you will get the story.

And maybe that’s the point.

I can’t help pointing to the beauty.