Octopus

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

Happy Mother’s Day

 This is a special day to remind us all of how much Mothers mean to each of us.  The following quotes about Mothers show some of the feeling behind our celebration of Mothers.  

"Mother: the most beautiful word on the lips of mankind." —Kahil Gibran

"To the world you are a mother, but to your family you are the world." —Unknown

"Mothers can look through a child’s eyes and see tomorrow." —Reed Markham

"To a child’s ear, 'mother' is magic in any language." —Arlene Benedict

"My mother is a walking miracle." —Leonardo DiCaprio

"Mothers hold their children’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever." —Unknown

 "A mother understands what a child does not say." —Jewish Proverb

"There is no influence so powerful as that of the mother." —Sara Josepha Hale

"Mother: the most beautiful word on the lips of mankind." —Kahil Gibran

"The art of mothering is to teach the art of living to children." —Elaine Heffner

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Blessings,

Judy

Pigeon Speaks

Picture of  pigeon in flight from Wikipedia.

This morning, as my niece and I were sitting at the table doing our individual homework, a soft cooing sound began.  It seemed to come from the roof above where we were working.  It got louder and louder, the point that my niece had to go and see what was going on.

It was then that I realized that I had been asking the question, where our new home was to be.  Pigeon was speaking, and answering the question.  She says,

Humans, like pigeons, do have a homing instinct that will take them across the miles to the absolutely best place for the person to be.  If you are still looking for where home is, then you are not home.  There is the home on this Earth, and the home that our soul dwells within, and they are different in what nourishment they provide to our bodies and our spirit.  Pigeon has moved all over the world to come to different places to find an adequate food supply.  Humans, too, must find places where they can get a full supply of the food that they require, and they must find a place with water enough for them to drink.  

Food, for all of us, comes from the ground.  It is time to look to the ground for your food.  We do not understand how those of you that live higher than the trees in your big houses can find adequate food.  It is not natural to live there, where food does not exist.  This is a time to become natural.  You must tell everyone that this is so. And, everyone must find their family, find ways to feed together, and to become as one flock.  In this way will there be support.

 Many blessings,

Judy