The Octopus card I created for my upcoming Animal Reflections Oracle Deck had been sitting on my writing desk for four days.

Last Thursday I ‘shuffled’ the remaining cards I have left to write messages for and pulled Octopus. Sitting on my office chair in front of my computer I held the card in my hands. The first thing that popped into my mind was an image of me with a bright pink and lime green stuffed octopus I’d gotten for Christmas when I was a young girl.

It was then that I became very emotional and my eyes filled with tears.

Next, I thought about the film I’d watched last year called, My Octopus Teacher. A deeply moving film about the relationship between a man who is a scuba diver and an octopus.

But it was the image of me and that stuffed octopus that was evoking something I couldn’t name and caused me to feel weepy. Over the years when I’d see the photo or think of the image I’d wonder why it was I’d wanted that octopus. It just seemed an ‘odd’ or not a typical animal to ask for as a young child. 

I’d had many stuffed animals when I was young, but the octopus was one I’d always wished I’d hung onto. But why?

What was Octopus trying to share with me? When I tried to write a message for Octopus it just wouldn’t flow. Something felt off. I knew then I needed to just let this sit until I was ready.

I tried again the next day, but again, it didn’t feel right. So I took some time to study the habitat and behavior of Octopus and allowed that to simmer.

Next, I decided to print out the photo of me and the stuffed pink octopus. Thanks to my mom who saved photos of me when I was young and put them on a disk that I saved to my computer.

The fact that Octopus has eight limbs brought up an exercise I took part in a little over a year ago with my friend, Dawn, who wrote a book that will be released this fall called, Shadow Animals – How Animals We Fear Can Help us Heal, Transform, and Awaken.

In that exercise that will be shared in Dawn’s book, I’d come to understand my fear of spiders linked to my childhood trauma of being touched inappropriately.

While the spider with its eight legs creeped me out, the eight legs of an Octopus felt different to me. While I had viewed spiders out of fear, I felt a sense of motherly love from Octopus. I sensed the eight legs of Octopus wrapping around me as protection. I also sensed Octopus limbs as an extension to the outside world – and that eventually – in my own timing – and learning to expand and trust my own intuition – I’d eventually give voice to what had happened to me.

Octopuses also have the ability to camouflage themselves as a way of protection when danger is near and this brought up how I’d kept my secret hidden for over fifty years. Just like Octopus retreats into a cave-like structure within the ocean, a part of me had also retreated within as a way to emotionally protect myself.

As I worked through all that Octopus was sharing with me I realized that the stuffed octopus was my friend, my confidant, my protector. Now the tears flowed again but this time from a feeling of joy and what that stuffed octopus really meant to me – all these years – that I never really knew why. And now I do.

XO

Barb