✦ Octopus in Myth and Ocean Lore
She moves like a spell underwater—fluid, curious, and beyond the bounds of logic. The sacred octopus doesn’t just live in the depths—she is the depths.
In the silent blue beneath the waves, where light fades and ancient secrets sleep, the sacred octopus glides—watching, waiting, shaping. She is the witch of the sea, a creature of intelligence and adaptability, mystery and myth. She does not follow a straight path—she spirals, she shifts, she vanishes, and reappears.
Her magic is not meant to be understood. It is meant to be felt.
The octopus has long been both feared and revered—a shapeshifter of the sea, a symbol of hidden knowledge, a reminder that power often wears many arms.
In Polynesian mythology, the octopus is connected to creation stories. In Hawaiian lore, it’s said that the current world is the eighth to exist, and the octopus is the only survivor from the last one. A being of the past age, ancient and wise.
In Japanese folklore, the octopus (or tako) appears in tales both erotic and divine, often as a symbol of fluidity and transformation. It’s sometimes linked to sea spirits and shapeshifting gods.
In Norse mythology, great sea monsters like the kraken may have roots in ancient encounters with giant squid and octopuses, magnificent and terrifying creatures who haunted the deep fjords.
To the modern mystic, the octopus is a creature of:
Shapeshifting and adaptation – She flows with change, becoming whatever she needs to survive and thrive.
Depth and subconscious wisdom – She thrives where light can’t reach, ruling over dreams, emotions, and ancestral knowing.
Mystery, illusion, and magic – She camouflages not to deceive, but to protect, to choose when and how to be seen.
Intelligence and strategy – With multiple hearts and a powerful mind, she is both a thinker and an instinctive magician.
✦ A Legend: The Oracle of the Coral Labyrinth
Long ago, when the world was young and the seas were still dreaming themselves into shape, there was a coral labyrinth at the bottom of the ocean—spiraling, endless, glowing with bioluminescent runes that no sailor could read.
Inside this labyrinth lived Nyeluna, the first octopus—an ancient being with eyes like twin moons and skin that shimmered with stormlight. She had eight arms and one thousand stories, and the sea itself bent to her will.
Fishermen feared her. Mermaids sang to her. Storms listened to her silence.
It was said that if a soul lost its way—whether at sea or in spirit—they could find their way again only if Nyeluna wrapped a single arm around their dream. But she did not answer to prayers. She answered to presence.
One night, a girl named Mina, broken by heartbreak and unable to find her way forward, tied a stone around her ankle and walked into the ocean. But the sea did not take her. Instead, she found herself floating gently through a tunnel of coral, pulled by unseen currents.
There, in the glow of the deep, Nyeluna opened her many arms. She did not speak. She simply reached toward Mina’s chest and pressed gently where her pain lived. The ache softened, unraveling like seaweed in the tide.
When Mina returned to shore, her voice carried the rhythm of waves. She became a storyteller, and her tales were always full of spirals and salt.
✦ Symbolism of the Sacred Octopus
To work with the sacred octopus is to honor:
The wisdom of the subconscious
The power of selective visibility
Your ability to grow new paths—even after loss
The mystery of emotions and dreamscapes
Octopus teaches that strength doesn’t always look like armor. Sometimes, it looks like melting through the cracks, finding new forms, and slipping through cages that once held you.
Call on Octopus Energy when you:
Are navigating deep emotional waters or shadow work
Feel ready to let go of a version of yourself that no longer fits.
Need protection through camouflage or quiet presence.
Are weaving dreams, art, or inner transformations
✦ Ritual: The Spiral Ink Spell
You will need:
A deep blue or black candle
Pen and paper
A bowl of water (ideally salt water or charged moon water)
A piece of coral, shell, or ocean stone
Write a fear or limitation on the paper—something you're ready to dissolve. Light the candle and hold the paper over the bowl of water. Whisper:
“Eight arms of change, ink of night,
Wrap this fear in silver light.
Shift and spiral, deep and true,
Return me to the wiser me I knew.”
Tear the paper into spirals and let them float in the water. Stir gently with your finger or shell, then pour it out into the Earth or the sea.
✦ Sacred Octopus Blessing
"I am change wrapped in silence,
I am the path that turns and turns.
I do not fear the deep—
I build my home there.
I slip through what binds,
And I grow new dreams."
The sacred octopus teaches that the magic you seek doesn’t live in the sunlight alone. It lives in the deep. In the places you’ve forgotten, in the feelings you’ve avoided, in the dreams that still hum beneath your surface.
She reminds us that transformation isn’t always loud or pretty. Sometimes it’s soft, strange, and slow… like an arm curling in the dark, reaching for a new shape of self.