I dreamed My spirit guide was small enough
to lose in a teacup,
a creature you’d need a microscope
and a moment of humility
to even notice.
It didn’t roar, or soar, or bare its teeth.
It simply persisted;
eight stumpy legs trudging forward
with the quiet conviction
of something that has survived
every ending the universe ever rehearsed.
My tardigrade teacher showed Me
how strength can be soft-bodied,
how courage can look like
curling inward at the right time,
how disappearing into stillness
is sometimes the most radical way
to stay alive.
It taught Me that resilience
isn’t a battle cry;
it’s a slow, stubborn heartbeat
that refuses to stop
even when the world forgets
to be gentle.
When I asked it for wisdom,
it didn’t speak.
It simply floated,
suspended in its own tiny cosmos,
a reminder that survival
is its own kind of holiness.
And now, when life scorches,
or freezes,
or empties itself into a vacuum,
I feel that microscopic guardian
trudging on inside Me;
a quiet insistence
that I, too, can endure
what should have unmade Me.
My spirit animal is a tardigrade:
humble, unkillable,
a creature that carries
the whole philosophy of persistence
in a body smaller than a grain of dust.
And somehow,
that makes Me feel vast.