The Deep

We inhabit a world that is so diverse and so active that it’s hard to comprehend. On our planet, at this particular time in history, there are over two million scientifically described species (with insects making up almost half of that number). This is just a fraction of the millions of species living undiscovered on our lands and in our waters. So much life!

And very recently, something beautiful has been added to the family of discovered creatures. It was found in 2015, by a team of scientists using deep sea robotics: a tiny blue octopus, about the size of a golf ball, never-before seen by human eyes. There it was, 5,800 feet deep, on the ocean floor in the Galapagos Marine Reserve, along with a community of other deep-sea creatures. Microeledone galapagensis (Small Mollusk of the Galapagos). That’s its name, now that it has been added to the two-million plus family of found species; a family that includes ourselves.

Of course, the fact that humans have become aware of little Microeledone doesn’t make the species any more or less present than it had been before we found it. It was just as real before 2015 as it is now.

I think it’s the same with each of us. We go through our lives, our daily rounds, our ups and downs, using what we know of ourselves and our environment to navigate our world, to get ourselves through situations, to help when we can, to enjoy as much of life as we can. But somewhere deep within each of us lies an unexplored place. And submerged there, in the dark of our deepest selves, there exists an unnamed part of ourselves. We might discover it when a shiver runs through us as we listen to certain music, or see a particular curving of light. We might have found it when we fell in love, or met our own child for the first time. When we meet our undiscovered self there is no language to describe the encounter. But somehow we know that we have glimpsed the truest part of ourselves. And just like the little blue octopus that existed long before we knew about it, so our truest self, the part that directly connects us to Divinity and to all of creation, has existed, exists now, and will continue to exist, always in the depths, waiting to be known.

Microeledone galapagensis (Photo by Charles Darwin Foundation)

For more about the little blue octopus: https://www.fieldmuseum.org/about/press/this-newly-discovered-blue-octopus-from-the-galapagos-islands-could-curl-up