The Soul of an Octopus

by Sy Montgomery, 2015

Who would have thought an octopus had a soul? But after reading this book, you can’t help but believe it! How sweet and precious this story is! She spends most of the book with octopuses in the New England Aquarium, and with the people who work and volunteer there. Through her great story-telling, I came to know and love the octopuses she describes: Athena, Octavia, Kali, and then Karma. She does learn to scuba-dive and takes two trips to find octopuses in the wild: First to Cozumel and then to Moorea. Loved this book! It was sweet and delightful. Danette recommended it to me. Sy Montgomery is the author of The Good, Good Pig.

I love this description of her and a dive-buddy going to a Presbyterian church in Moorea:

Taking seats in the back, Keith and I are the only foreigners to join the packed congregation of about 120 people. Almost everyone around us has a tattoo; many of the women wear elaborate hats made of bamboo and live flowers. The minister wears a long, waist-length garland of green leaves, yellow hibiscus, white frangipani, and read and pink bougainvillea; the women in the choir are adorned with headdresses of flowers and leaves. When the choir sings, their voices ring deep and sonorous, like a chant coming from the sea itself. The front of the church faces the ocean, and the sea breeze blows through the open windows like a blessing…

….But what is the soul? Some say it is the self, the “I” that inhabits the body; without the soul, the body is like a lightbulb with no electricity. But it is more than the engine of life, say others; it is what gives life meaning and purpose. Soul is the fingerprint of God.

Here is the last paragraph of this book:

I can’t know this, of course; and I can’t know exactly what I mean to her. But I know what she–and Octavia and Kali–have meant to me. They have changed my life forever. I loved them, and will love them always, for they have given me a great gift: a deeper understanding of what it means to think, to feel, and to know.

Things I learned about octopuses:

  1. The plural of octopus is not octopi, it’s octopuses.
  2. They don’t live very long (3-4 years at most), and they get senile when they get old.
  3. They can fit through teeny-tiny cracks and holes. Tragically, Kali got out somehow and was found dead on the floor outside her tank.
  4. They can’t live together (although there are some octopuses who live together in the wild) because they will eat each other. Same is true for mating-after they mate, one might eat the other.
  5. The octopuses come up to greet the author and the other people who work at the aquarium. They hug with their tentacles and use the suckers to grab onto their arms. They would stay like that for long period of time; until their hands and arms were freezing cold. These are Giant Pacific Octopuses and they live in cold water.
  6. They are also able to change their skin color to match their surroundings, even the texture of their skin.

Reading this book makes me want to go to an aquarium and find the octopus! I do remember seeing one while snorkeling in Hawaii – only for a second and then, swoosh, it was gone! Really loved this book!