Using resistance as a spiritual catalyst for deepening.
Every so often, life offers up a teacher in the most unexpected form. This week, mine arrived with eight arms, nine brains, three hearts, blue blood, and an age old reputation of being dangerous.
Octopuses have long been cast as sea monsters—creatures fabled as dragging entire ships underwater, wrapping sailors in their tentacles, and disappearing into the deep. But, as any good metaphysician knows, the things we fear are often the things we simply haven’t understood yet.
In my spiritual tradition, we start from the premise that “It’s all God or it’s not.” And if the manifest universe is the Body of God, then even the beings we’ve misunderstood—or outright maligned—carry the Divine spark. They, too, are individualized expressions of the One Life.
Contempt Before Investigation
There’s a phrase in the recovery community that feels tailor-made for spiritual practice: contempt prior to investigation. It’s the habit of dismissing, judging, or fearing something before we’ve ever taken the time to see it clearly.
And yet, sometimes what we reject wholesale can be hiding something meaningful — a truth about ourselves, a buried memory, a disowned part of our being.
I’ve had my share of “monsters” to face. For years, mine was Christianity itself. Not the mystical heart of Jesus’ teachings, but the westernized version of the faith I encountered as a grieving teenager. When my boyfriend was killed, I was just fifteen and we were exploring Christianity together. At the time I misplaced my grief, shut the door on Christianity, and locked away a part of myself with it.
It took years—and a willingness to investigate what I had labeled “the monster”—to reclaim the wisdom beneath the tradition and rediscover the power of Christian mysticism and ancient rituals that now feed me.
Which brings me back to the octopus.
Meeting the Monster: Athena
In The Soul of an Octopus, naturalist Sy Montgomery describes her first meeting with a giant Pacific octopus named Athena. What unfolds is not the attack of a monster—but an encounter with consciousness itself.
As Sy bravely puts her arms into the aquarium octopus habitat, Athena reaches toward Sy with deliberate grace: one arm, then another, then another. Her suckers taste Sy’s skin—not as prey, but in recognition. Then Athena draws Sy closer and relaxes, as if whispering, “I see you. I know you.”
And then it happens:
Athena flushes a soft rose beneath Sy’s hands—a sign of trust, even pleasure.
This is not the behavior of a monster. This is the behavior of a sentient being reaching for communion. Two souls meeting in the mysterious space where difference dissolves into connection.
The Intelligence of the Deep
Octopuses are astonishing creatures:
- They have neurons in every arm—eight distributed brains working both independently and together.
- They recognize individual humans and remember kindness.
- They solve puzzles, play, taste with their skin, and dream.
- Their lineage is 300 million years old—far older than trees, birds, or mammals.
Spirit brilliantly expresses through them uniquely, and unmistakably. They are not monsters; rather I think like all living creatures they can be mirrors, responding to us in the same way we approach them.
Investigating the Monsters in Our Own Waters
When we refuse to investigate the things we fear—people, beliefs, memories, whole chapters of our lives—we lose access to parts of ourselves. We exile aspects of God’s expression as us that are trying to be acknowledged or owned by us.
And sometimes, what we call “the monster” is simply a part of our own story asking to be understood and integrated.
Our Own Advent of Light
This past Sunday (Nov 30, 2025) also marks the beginning of Advent, a season of expectation, reflection, and the return of Light. Whether you honor the Christian tradition, the winter solstice lineage it grew from, or your own metaphysical practice, this is a beautiful time to sit with the shadows, face the monsters, and ask what they are trying to teach you.
Every year in the western hemisphere we have this wonderful opportunity to be with the darkness in a conscious way as we await the return of the Light on the winter Solstice. So I offer you this invitation, light a candle this week and do some reflecting. Here are some questions you might want to consider:
- What wants to be reborn in you?
- What do you hope for? (Hope is represented by the first candle of Advent)
- What monsters do you need to face that you have pushed into the deep because of fear?
- What might they teach you as you become willing to be with your “monsters” in the dark, awaiting the return of the light?
May Your Monsters Be Teachers
Sy Montgomery’s encounter with Athena reminds us that when we approach life with curiosity rather than fear, the world becomes a place of wonder again. Even our monsters soften as our we open to possibility.
May you meet your monsters with courage.
May they surprise you.
May they deliver you to deeper understanding, truth, and communion with all of Life.
Namaste.
