The Story of Rabbit Moon Studio

A friend recently ask me to post this. I believe you will enjoy knowing the story. The name was not chosen accidentally nor by happenstance. It was born out of one of the most difficult trials in my life as a teacher and artist.

A long time ago when I was a younger teacher and artist I taught special education. I taught varying disabilities, blind, deaf, autistic, educable( below 90 IQ), trainable (below 75) and profound (below 25 IQ), and severely emotionally handicapped students. The ages could range from 3 to 21. At one point I was teaching at an severely emotionally disturbed center. I taught art on a stage that was in the cafeteria. There was no wall, no curtain, and three lunches a day. The noise and conditions were unbearable. My students had little patience and exploded unpredictably daily. Lunch students would jump up on stage and threaten my art students continually. The principal was one of the worst I was to have my whole career. The principal was not mentally not stable either and continually attacked the teachers verbally in a very demeaning way.

It was all I could do to force myself to go to that school to teach.

I had read a little about positive thinking and how it can help if you can control your thinking.

On the way to school I noticed a rabbit in an impossible place to live, in the middle of a four lane highway with no water source. The next day I noticed another and the next day another, until I counted up to 5 rabbits.

I remembered how rabbits were good luck in our culture and in Japan. I also noticed on Friday's no matter how bad the day was, I didn't mind because I knew the weekend was coming.

So then I decided to trick my mind..if I saw a rabbit it would be a good luck day, and the more rabbits I saw the better the day. If I saw 5 rabbits it was a fantastic day! I can't tell you every thing was wonderful overnight, but I began to control the situation I was in. That year I was threatened by a 19 year old who had a history of beating up teachers. The principal brought him in and blamed me. However, the teachers and students all stood up for me. That year there were 22 grievances against the principal and there were only 23 teachers. The next year all was changed and better.

I learned in my young mind, that I could control the situation by controlling my reaction to it. It has been a valuable lesson that has stood by me all my life. I later dreamed I would have a business with the name rabbits and I do!!!! So that is the story of Rabbit Moon