Water bears look like works of science fiction. The microscopic, 8-legged 1,300 species of water bears (tardigrades) are alive and well. Their remarkable abilities to survive and thrive in harsh conditions make them seem even more improbable. They’re one of the most resilient lifeforms that’s ever lived.
When I had 6 weeks of daily radiation to treat cancer, I thought a lot about the perseverance of water bears. The technicians would position me on the table, then close the heavy door behind them as they left the room to protect themselves from the radiation. Click. Through a small window, they’d watched me, alone, unmoving, exposed on a table with no protection from the radiation blasting my body. I imagined myself as a tardigrade, opening to the light and radiation, absorbing it to kill any microscopic cancer cells floating around my body. I would think of Rumi’s quote, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.”
By the end of week six, I had a painful burn the size of a baseball in the middle of my chest. “What would a tardigrade do with a burn like this?”, I wondered. They’d tend to what needed tending. So, that’s what I did. I changed dressings and applied the medication twice a day. I meditated on my wound, imagining it closing and healing. It was painful and frightening to have a wound like that, but like so much along my cancer journey, it passed. To my amazement and my doctors’, it healed in 2 weeks. Today it’s only a few freckles and the tattoo that marks the focus of the radiation beam, the place where the light entered me and healed me.
My healing is nothing compared to tardigrades. I bow in deep humility to them. Devastating drought? A sprinkle of water revives them from completely dried out to fully functioning. Deep freeze of outer space? They thaw and don’t know they’ve been away from Earth. Crushing pressure? They flatten and bounce back. Blast of radiation 1,400 times stronger than what would kill humans? They repair their shattered DNA and go about their day.
Tardigrades instill awe, wonder, and confusion in scientists. How do they survive everywhere under such extremes? Why have they evolved to do this?
They’re ubiquitous, found from the top of the Himalayas to Antarctic depths, at temperatures from -328°F (-200°C) to 304°F (151°C). We know they repair damaged DNA rapidly and completely. It’s not that they aren’t impacted by their environment. They take the destruction around them, then they pick up the pieces, build back, and carry on.
As we consider how to create a world resilient to climate change impacts, again I’m thinking of tardigrades. How can we withstand hardship, quickly and completely fixing what breaks? How can we endure? Nature-based solutions to our most dire challenges are found all around us if only we look, listen, and seek to understand. In a world where we constantly navigate change and manage difficulty, I want to be a tardigrade — repairing myself, my ecosystem, and all beings with whom I share it.
Christa Avampato 