Rabbit Rabbit: Interrupting Wanting With Being

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Rabbit rabbit! Welcome to June. In this heartfelt kickoff to the month, Alexander Blue Feather invites you into an intimate exploration of quirky traditions, grief rituals, spiritual recommitment, and summertime synchronicity. He shares the folk origins of the “rabbit rabbit” custom, begins a 30-day wake-up challenge guided by spiritual teacher Adyashanti, and reflects on the continued apprenticeship of grief following his father’s passing. From salt-and-peppering ashes under the avocado tree to planning a soulful road trip to Glacier National Park, this episode is a soft-spoken invitation to slow down, notice your wanting, and meet the month with presence.

SUMMARY

Alexander opens the episode with the tradition of saying “rabbit rabbit” for good luck at the start of the month. He reflects on his grief journey since losing his father, noting how his emotions have shaped and interrupted his sense of presence. He begins a 30-day meditation challenge inspired by Adyashanti, revisits Francis Weller’s The Wild Edge of Sorrow, and shares his personal rituals for scattering his father's ashes in meaningful places. Looking ahead, Alexander teases upcoming content on Wicked, a compassion meditation, and plans for his next season of Wise Circles. The episode closes with love, honesty, and an invitation to lean into the difficult parts of being human.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Rabbit Rabbit: A playful folk tradition said to bring good luck when spoken first on the first day of a new month.

• Spiritual Reset: Alexander begins a 30-day meditation journey with Adyashanti’s teachings to reignite his daily practice.

• Ongoing Grief Work: He revisits The Wild Edge of Sorrow and shares how grief continues to be a teacher, not a one-time event.

• Rituals of Release: Scattering his father’s ashes in sacred personal spaces like beneath an avocado tree and along the beach has become a grounding practice.

• Summer Intentions: A road trip to Glacier National Park and a new round of Wise Circles starting in August bring themes of renewal, presence, and community.

TRANSCRIPT

Rabbit rabbit. Rabbit rabbit. It's June 1 '20 '20 '5. These are the first words that I have said on this Sunday, June 1, which means I'm wishing you good luck in the month of June. Do you know what it means?

Rabbit, rabbit. So in The UK and parts of North America and for me, Sarah Jessica Parker's Instagram. Few years back, she would post sometimes on the first morning of the 1 the new month. Rabbit, rabbit. I'm like, what is she doing?

What does this mean? So, it's a long standing superstition and folk tradition to say rabbit rabbit, sometimes called white rabbit, sometimes just white rabbit on the first day of the month for good luck. Rabbits have long been symbols of luck, fertility, and renewal in folklore. Their appearance in spring and quick reproduction linked them with abundance and good fortune. Where does this come from?

The exact origin is unclear, but the tradition appears to date back as far as the early nineteen hundreds, possibly earlier. It gained traction in British schoolyard culture, and then it spread more broadly. US President Franklin d Roosevelt was known to say rabbit rabbit on the first of each month, popularizing the custom in The US. Modern news, it's still practiced in some families and among those who love quirky traditions. So here, in my family, the House of Blue, quirky traditions forever.

Rabbit rabbit. Some people believe if you say it before you speak any other words, it will bring good luck for the rest of the month. So I did it for you right now live. So your next chance is on the morning of July 1. It took me a while because I would forget, and then I would say something.

So it's June, and I'm back with a brand new podcast episode. Welcome to Viral Mindfulness, the podcast. It's me, your favorite host, Alexander Bluefeather. Summer's coming. Yes.

Young Pueblo, writer, teacher, he says four words. I'm gonna share four words with you. Wanting always interrupts being. Wanting always interrupts being. This month, starting right now, today, I already started this morning, I am doing a thirty day wake up challenge.

Adi Ashanti, one of my spiritual teachers. I mean, he's really the spiritual teacher that I started with. I don't think I've ever called someone my spiritual teacher. And then as I was in relationship with his teachings, he retired after several decades of teaching. But before he retired, I met a couple women and new friends that I've been meeting with once a week for almost five years.

We sometimes don't meet every week this year in 2025. It's been a busy start to the year for the three of us. And we talk about our spiritual path, and we we're all students of Adi Ashanti. Anyway, he has a thirty day program on Audible, and I've missed his words. And I thought, yeah, I could use something to activate or stimulate, tickle my spiritual practice this month.

And so it's thirty days and every day there's an audio that's around ten minutes and it is about the spiritual teachings of Adi Ashanti, which I'm familiar with. You don't need to be familiar with. And it's part of also meditating that day with the concept and teaching that you are served for the day. And so I wanted to tell you what June felt like for me to maybe activate and inspire you to put some attention, some tending towards your spiritual garden. And I've already started the last couple weeks, really deliberately being focused and disciplined on meditation, short meditation in the morning, because I caught myself.

I had fallen out of my regular practice of twenty minutes, timed twenty minute meditation. And now that feels like too long. So here I am stimulating back with smaller steps, the little big things. And when young Pueblo's words found me wanting always interrupts being, I love it because I'm always wanting more, and I'm always wanting to be somewhere else, especially if things are difficult, especially if I'm not following through or I don't feel content. This has been a big season of grief for me since my father passed away in December, and I don't want to have grief and I don't wanna have feelings about it.

I want to feel capable of doing all the things that I desire and to not have embodied grief keeping me from doing what I need to be doing. So I want to be done with this. I want to be able to meditate for thirty minutes, thirty minute sessions, forty five minutes. I was entertaining the idea a few years ago, forty five minutes from thirty minutes and, woah, that practically threw me under the bus. So what if this month, the attitude that you put forward and this also reminds me of a John O'Donoghue reading this week that I've been talking and teaching about that the quality of your approach matters.

So how you approach something and the quality of your approach is super important, and it helps to impress and inform the results. So if I meet June 1 in this month, this month of good luck, thirty days of really practicing and being dedicated and disciplined to my spiritual life and embodying teachings that assist me in connecting with the spiritual path. Also, I haven't wanted to be grieving or feeling continued grief. I got home from the East Coast A Couple Weeks ago, and whenever I come home, I miss my sweet little goddess daughter and my beautiful East Coast family, Jay and Kenny and the animals. And this time coming home was a whole nother layer, a constellation of missing missing my dad, coming home to my place in Huntington Beach where my dad's ashes I have possession of a portion of his ashes, and that's new for me.

And earlier this week, at the beginning of the week, I sat myself down and pulled out my grief book and caught myself not wanting to be feeling and to have limitations from my grief, and I leaned in. And I started from chapter one. I've listened to the audio of Frances Weller's book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow. And now I'm reading the hard copy, but I'm taking my time, and I'm writing down the words that resonate, the ideas, and then I'm putting them into my sketchbook. And it inspired me to to start connecting with my dad's ashes.

Like, well, no. You should take his ashes to Kauai. You should take them here. And I'm like, you have a whole little container. Why don't you take a little bit in a lot of places?

So I started at home first, and I started that day. And I I like to say that I'm salt and peppering some of his ashes. So I salt and peppered his ashes underneath my avocado tree in the back patio. And it has a lot of symbolism for the last time my dad and I really were connected and meditated together with his full mental capacity in 2015. And then I took some to Huntington State Beach.

And then today, this morning, I'm gonna take some to Laguna Beach. But I'm going on a road trip this month. I'm taking Hudson Harvey Mountain Feather, my 2024 alpine green cross track wilderness on the road. And I'm heading north and I'm gonna explore and chase Glacier National Park and meet my dear friend, Jude. So I want to carry you all along with me, and I want to share with you the ritual and the practice and the effort that I'm putting in to lean in to the difficult parts, to lean in to stay focused and intentional about my grief.

It's a big deal. My dad was a very big part of my life, and I'm learning right up front here in chapter one that this is a constant conversation. And this isn't an event. This is a continued conversation, an apprenticeship with sorrow and grief. So, wanting.

What are you wanting that's interrupting your ability to be in life, your life right now today on Sunday things, 06/01/2025. So I have lots of beautiful ideas coming your way. I wanna tell you a little bit about Wicked, the origin stories of Wicked. I saw the original cast on Broadway in 02/2003. And this week, June 4, the second part of Wicked, the film, For Good, the trailer comes out.

So I thought, oh, it's a perfect week to share this beautiful podcast with you. And I want to share a meditation with you about compassion. It's a meditation Francis Weller wrote, and it's beautiful, and I wanna guide you through that. So I'll be here on the podcast, and I'll see you real soon this week with these beautiful episodes. As always, you can stay connected with me at my website, ViralMindfulness.com.

I'm also on Instagram at ViralMindfulness.com. And my newsletter, that's more seasonal these days. You can subscribe. You can head to my website. I also have it on Substack as Viral Mindfulness, all things Viral Mindfulness.

And I'll share with you details all along the way. My next round of wise circles will be in mid August to October 10. I've got lots of interesting ideas for any of you students who want to be in circle together. So that's it for now. Rabbit rabbit.

Let's start this month. Oh, let's finish where we started. Sarah Jessica Parker. I was a huge fan of Sex and the City back in the early two thousands, late nineties. I actually didn't watch the original Sex and the City series until the very last season, season six, which happened to coincide with my last year of graduate school at the University of Utah, for social work.

And one of my girlfriends hey, Gretchen. I miss Gretchen. Gigi, where are you? I don't know if she listens to this podcast, but if you're listening, I think about you often. And I know I said that I was gonna send you a letter and I never sent that letter.

So who knows? Someday. But you also can send me a letter or reach out to me. I'd love to hear from you. And she was a huge fan, and I was house sitting for her.

And they had HBO subscription on cable, and we didn't have streaming television back then. And I watched the last part of season six and started with the end of the series, and then I went back and I just became obsessed. And I loved. I always related to Carrie because I have curly hair, and I always want to be a writer and feel like I'm an aspiring writer that doesn't write. So here I am as a podcaster, sharing stories, and the new HBO Max, new installment of older characters who happen to be my age.

I'm 52, and the the characters are, you know, my age. And so it's fun to see, for me what their life is like in the big city in New York City, and I've always loved New York City. And now I get to be bicoastal. And so the new season three of And Just Like That launched this week, because summer in the city, and summer is such a great time in New York City. Every time and season is great in New York City.

So I'll be back in New York, the July and the August. So wishing you luck and hoping that you interrupt your wanting and wishing and expecting with more presence and more playfulness and curiosity for you being here as you are with everything that's part of today for you, especially the difficult parts. Sending you lots of love. See you soon.