A while ago, I watched the beautiful Oscar winning movie, “My Octopus Teacher”. It was a documentary but had everything in it - relationships, fear, overcoming obstacles, and sacrifice.
Picture of Octopus from Wikipedia
The Octopus has received a lot of attention over the last several decades. The Beatles made the Octopus a legendary figure in their song “Octopus’s Garden”. We often refer to our family as “the octopus that we can never escape”. A new expression via Drew Barrymore is “I wish I were an octopus so I could hug ten people at a time!” Octopus is part of our speech and our culture.
Octopus is given its name, in part from its eight legs or tentacles. As eight is the number of infinity, Octopus has a connection to the heavens and to Great Spirit, even though Octopus lives at the bottom of the ocean. Their home is a small cave, or pile of rocks that it can fit into, along the sea floor. Here Octopus hides and waits for prey. What makes this animal so unusual is that it has no bones in its body, so it is able to squeeze into small spaces. One can say that Octopus is the ultimate example of flexibility.
When Octopus is spread out, its tentacles are like the spokes in a wheel, or like an eight point star. It represents nothing and everything. The suction cups on their tentacles allow Octopus to grab on to and to hold tightly. As Octopus has a short life span of one to five years, it seems that these suction cups may represent getting a hold on life.
What is your relationship to Octopus?
Blessings,
Judy