Deep in the rolling hills of northeast Missouri, a bit west of the Mississippi River, and to the northeast of Vista de la Moo, lies a sacred spot. While it is rumored that the best sauerkraut in the midwest is made here, this place is not sacred for its kraut. There are some who believe that Peter Potterlater once dwelled here, but it is not for his mysterious visitation that this place is esteemed. Nor is it sacred for its proximity to Zimmerman's General Store, home of the fifty cent moonpie and enough 100% cotton quilting fabric to keep the entire state of Missouri warm in winter. Oh yes, this place is special in a much simpler sense.
Here, undulating hills step up to see the expansive sky's constant color show. The daily churn and whirl of clouds extends way out beyond a rabbit's domain, a cloud dance never twice the same. Shift to night, where effusive sky can dwarf the ephemeral spectator. Stars shine bright as firefly dreams and occasionally the rare banana moon shows up on the horizon.
Warm season storms are a treat in this sacred place, fierce winds clamoring up in a great balagon of thunder and lightening, to drive rain down in torrents. It is for the rain that the hillsides wait, for it is the rain that brings life to the hills. When the sky delivers enough liquid cloud, the hills offer in return a golden grassland, forb-dotted and creased with riparian woods. Precious prairie juice seeps into the deep silt soil, ready for root uptake.
All kinds of roots linger in the rich mollic horizon. There are fat, deep, tap roots three times the size of their aboveground parts, and fine fibrous networkings like a lace curtain life support. There are some roots that anchor and some that store. 
There are roots who specialize in efficient water absorption and roots who strike deals with fungi in order to bring in pricey nitrogen. These underground parts find their place in the soil matrix, each adapted to a particular locale. The root scene is kicking it sous-terrain.
Meanwhile, the solar power systems aboveground are also working hard to bring in energy without losing too much precious prairie juice. Leaves long and narrow, or hairy as a monkey, leaves that turn perpendicular to the rays of the sun as it passes overhead, and leaves wax coated like SPF 45: all plants here are adapted to take in sun energy without letting themselves get burned. The other job of aboveground parts? Reproduction!
The forbs begin advertising in spring and continue until frost stops them. They flash a bit of color, beckoning a pollinator, a swallowtail butterfly or bee to come drink sugar water from their floral goblets. Grasses too put out their brilliant flags for the wind to do its thing. When the pollination party is in full swing, one by one the plants step up to set seed. Heavy seed heads on tall, stalky sunflowers, light silk shrouded seeds from asters and milkweeds, each plant has its own dispersal strategy. Some work it out with the wind, others depend on birds to come in, but all will scatter over the land to wait for spring's possibility of new growth.
So here we are in the waiting time, imagining all the wondrous Life that this sacred spot keeps. There is more, of course. There is all of that fauna that everyone gets so excited about, grazers and nibblers, insect snatchers and raptor attackers, each with a role in the prairie drama, each dependent on all others. This is the great harmony of life that cycles on and on. This is the sacred homeplace of Dancing Rabbit.
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