rabbits symbolism
• Life, healing, clear-sightedness, gentleness / Luck; trust; love; friendship; fear; evasion / Rabbit symbolism concerns the Moon (Intuition).
• The rabbit represents humility, because he is quiet and soft and not self-asserting. -- Black Elk
Chinese tradition says that people born under the sign of the Rabbit possess intelligence, wisdom, and understanding. After turbulent Tiger years, Rabbit years are times of diplomacy and gentle persuasion. Emphasis is placed on human rights and helping the underprivileged. Activities dealing with healing and medicine will flourish. An excellent judge of character, they are difficult to deceive. 1
• Older than Christianity, the symbolism of the hare is thus a celebration of life's continuation with rebirth, as in each spring, and the rabbit expresses hope that life will be renewed, and better than before.
• The nocturnal rabbit, signifying the moon who dies every morning and is resurrected every evening, also represents the rebirth of nature in spring. Both the moon and the rabbit were believed to die in order to be reborn. Therefore the hare is a symbol of immortality. In Egypt, Osiris, god of the dead, was sacrificed to the Nile each year in the form of a hare to guarantee the annual flooding Egyptian agriculture depended upon. Although the hare is not a symbol for Christ some analogy might be made to Christ who was sacrificed in the form of a man for the feeding of God's people.
To Buddhists the hare is a symbol of self-sacrifice. Legend says this creature threw itself into a fire in order to feed Buddha when he was starving. As a reward, it was given a new home in the moon.
Because of its fertility (one doe can produce 42 young a year), the rabbit or hare is an emblem of fertility, abundance, good fortune, sexuality, lasciviousness, lust, procreation, puberty, renewal, spring, rampant growth, excess, and love gods and goddesses such as Venus, Aphrodite, and Cupid. Pliny the Elder even prescribed its meat as a cure for female sterility. The white hare sometimes found at Mary's feet represents her triumph over lust or the flesh. Because it signifies abundance, the rabbit is sometimes used in western countries as a harvest or fall symbol. It also stands for madness and the month of March.
The rabbit's alertness and speed made it a Christian symbol of vigilance and the need to flee from sin and temptation. Like the lion, the hare was believed to be so vigilant that it slept with its eyes open. Its flesh was contaminated with wakefulness and could cause insomnia in its eater. Its speed was a reminder of the swift passage of life.
...The rabbit's burrow is a symbol of Christ's tomb.....The rabbit's trembling makes it a symbol of cowardice and timidity. However, Judeo-Christian writings recommend a holy trembling before the Lord. [1 Chr 16:30; Ps 96:9, 99:1, 114:7; Is 19:1, 66:2; Jer 5:22, 33:9] The writer of Philippians warns the Christian to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." [Phil 2:12] In Medieval times, cowardice was personified with drawings of an armed man running from a hare. On the other hand, in Africa and the Americas, the hare was believed to be a trickster using its superior intellect as its defense. Some tribes considered him a hero and even the earth's creator. Aztecs believed 400 rabbits guarded their fields. 2
- If we consider the phases of the moon in its waxing (masculine) and waning (feminine), and accept the notion that the moon at full intensity is the Destroyer of Darkness or, as Hillard says, "sign of new life and the messenger of immortality," we can appreciate the honored position to which the rabbit has ascended..... A number of explanations account for this hare/moon symbiosis. One is that the hare is nocturnal and feeds by night; another is that the hare's gestation period is one month long. And, it was believed that a rabbit could change its sex—like the moon. 3
• Life, healing, clear-sightedness, gentleness / Luck; trust; love; friendship; fear; evasion / Rabbit symbolism concerns the Moon (Intuition).
• The rabbit represents humility, because he is quiet and soft and not self-asserting. -- Black Elk
Chinese tradition says that people born under the sign of the Rabbit possess intelligence, wisdom, and understanding. After turbulent Tiger years, Rabbit years are times of diplomacy and gentle persuasion. Emphasis is placed on human rights and helping the underprivileged. Activities dealing with healing and medicine will flourish. An excellent judge of character, they are difficult to deceive. 1
• Older than Christianity, the symbolism of the hare is thus a celebration of life's continuation with rebirth, as in each spring, and the rabbit expresses hope that life will be renewed, and better than before.
• The nocturnal rabbit, signifying the moon who dies every morning and is resurrected every evening, also represents the rebirth of nature in spring. Both the moon and the rabbit were believed to die in order to be reborn. Therefore the hare is a symbol of immortality. In Egypt, Osiris, god of the dead, was sacrificed to the Nile each year in the form of a hare to guarantee the annual flooding Egyptian agriculture depended upon. Although the hare is not a symbol for Christ some analogy might be made to Christ who was sacrificed in the form of a man for the feeding of God's people.
To Buddhists the hare is a symbol of self-sacrifice. Legend says this creature threw itself into a fire in order to feed Buddha when he was starving. As a reward, it was given a new home in the moon.
Because of its fertility (one doe can produce 42 young a year), the rabbit or hare is an emblem of fertility, abundance, good fortune, sexuality, lasciviousness, lust, procreation, puberty, renewal, spring, rampant growth, excess, and love gods and goddesses such as Venus, Aphrodite, and Cupid. Pliny the Elder even prescribed its meat as a cure for female sterility. The white hare sometimes found at Mary's feet represents her triumph over lust or the flesh. Because it signifies abundance, the rabbit is sometimes used in western countries as a harvest or fall symbol. It also stands for madness and the month of March.
The rabbit's alertness and speed made it a Christian symbol of vigilance and the need to flee from sin and temptation. Like the lion, the hare was believed to be so vigilant that it slept with its eyes open. Its flesh was contaminated with wakefulness and could cause insomnia in its eater. Its speed was a reminder of the swift passage of life.
...The rabbit's burrow is a symbol of Christ's tomb.....The rabbit's trembling makes it a symbol of cowardice and timidity. However, Judeo-Christian writings recommend a holy trembling before the Lord. [1 Chr 16:30; Ps 96:9, 99:1, 114:7; Is 19:1, 66:2; Jer 5:22, 33:9] The writer of Philippians warns the Christian to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." [Phil 2:12] In Medieval times, cowardice was personified with drawings of an armed man running from a hare. On the other hand, in Africa and the Americas, the hare was believed to be a trickster using its superior intellect as its defense. Some tribes considered him a hero and even the earth's creator. Aztecs believed 400 rabbits guarded their fields. 2
- If we consider the phases of the moon in its waxing (masculine) and waning (feminine), and accept the notion that the moon at full intensity is the Destroyer of Darkness or, as Hillard says, "sign of new life and the messenger of immortality," we can appreciate the honored position to which the rabbit has ascended..... A number of explanations account for this hare/moon symbiosis. One is that the hare is nocturnal and feeds by night; another is that the hare's gestation period is one month long. And, it was believed that a rabbit could change its sex—like the moon. 3