safety, hiding, radiance

remembering a beautiful film, My Octopus Teacher, and how this unique one of the octopus is able to shapeshift into a perfectly camaflaged being to protect themselves from predators and danger. this kind of ‘cloaking’ becoming a beautiful kind of mask enabling the octopus to escape from harm. In essence perhaps, hiding their radiance but actually for octopus, it is impossible to hide their radiance, as even the “mask” has its own radiance. this past week I was walking near the bay, weaving my way through the harbor boardwalks and I came across the marine life center. they had a temporary visitor, a giant pacific octopus. they had been rescued from a shrimpers net with injuries to their body so they had kept them in a tank until their wounds could recover. they said they would soon be releasing them to the Salish sea . notice in the photograph of them the small and vulnerable eye that remains shut as they have no eyelid to protect from the bright lights of the marina.

I couldn’t help but think of this one metaphorically as I have been wondering about the one of me who wove a cloak to conceal my own radiance? I am uncertain now what the radiant one of me might look like, might act like? this radiance I might not even recognize? I imagine this woven cloak becoming like a skin, enveloping me in what I perceived to be safety but instead it becoming a place of hiding. and like the octopus-one, shapeshifting to ‘fit in’ . never wanting to seem different or be threatening in my difference. And especially wanting to avoid the risk of being rejected because of my difference..

aside from encountering my new octopus friend, I’ve been thinking a lot about some recent encounters with friends and my quite messy and oversharing need to set some unsolicited boundaries. This all began with Char at the end of the summer while we spent time on Guemes Island. She called me out for my superior-one who seemed to present that I knew more, thereby diminishing what she herself knew. and I think she is right, I do this sometimes. humbling. and unintentional but thereby unconscious. then there is friend tory, who’s brilliance and frenetic energy both overwhelm and gives me pause, in awe. without her request I reached out to her overexplain ing my need for solitude and focus in this year long intensive, something I failed to remember I had requested a full year ago after returning from the vision quest. clearly this work is activating one in me who is becoming both aware and less aware of my own impact on others as I move from and between my many protectors….in this case the caretaker and the one of me who is uncomfortable with attachment, mine and where I feel safe and the other in the sometimes unhealthy projects and attachment that I sense from others. then there is a new acquaintance in Dave, Amy’s friend. I intuited (perhaps falsely) a need, or desire for a kind of relationship beyond an occasional hiking friend. maybe true, maybe not but I made it clear that I was focused on this time and practices so maybe I’ll see you after September 2025! It seems I want CONTROL of when and where I expose myself to potential attachment, my own or others. there is a lot to unpack here….some of this was a reflection by Anouk but I am trying to come back to the language and understanding of the protectors.

how often I have not followed my instincts when someone has wanted / needed to attach to me, an unhealthy kind of attachment that keyholes into my IP of caretaker/rescuer. I am so tired of this one of me that I may now be too quick to assume this is what others want of me and what does this say about healthy and unhealthy attachment? remember the gesture Anouk shared with me from Eurythmy, open arms hands open in receiving, opening and then gently bringing arms back together and crossing over chest/heart in a gesture of sovereignty and standing in my north, my adult one and not in my child-one who is hiding or feeling afraid or shut down from opening to others. when is the open arms gesture one of the mother who believes her duty is to protect others, to be kind to ALL, to include ALL. what about the one who is loving observer who trusts in the wisdom of my-self as well as the wisdom of others inner knowing. Giving them support to find their own inner guidance. When does the gesture become an over extension and when is it closing off from vulnerability.??