
“Long after the bomb falls and you and your good deeds are gone, cockroaches will still be here, prowling the streets like armored cars.” – Tama Janowitz I’m not wild about cockroaches and I know you aren’t either, but there are so many things that are extraordinary about this creature that invites us to awaken within ourselves some of their remarkable qualities. So as you read on, try to think of them as inspirations for what we might be able to do, rather than little critters who infest our homes. But first a little history.
Cockroaches apparently appeared on this planet even before the dinosaurs; scientific estimates place them on Earth some 320 million years ago. And they’re not singular: there are some 4,600 types of roaches among us. And all of them are believed to be able to survive the radiation of an atomic bomb. Talk about resilience!
In fact, resilience is probably one of the most well-known talents of these little creatures. Perceived pretty much worldwide as pests, they’ve also been raised in China for medicinal purposes, and two of their species were used in the 19 th century by homeopathic doctors.
Despite their tiny bodies, they can run as fast as 3.4 miles per hour – or 500 body lengths – which is almost as fast as an average adult can walk. But because of its tiny size, its speed would be equivalent to a human being running at the rate of 210 miles per hour, which is seven and a half times the speed of the fastest person!
Below are some of their hard-to-believe characteristics:
1. Their adaptability is extraordinary.
2. The female of their species can reproduce without a male.
3. They can hold their breath for a very long time (five-seven minutes according to a study published in 2009 in the Journal of Experimental Biology).
4. They can survive for up to an entire week if their heads are cut off! What kills them is not decapitation, but starvation – because they can’t eat without a mouth.
5. Unlike human beings, they can eat almost anything without harming themselves.
From: https://theweek.com/articles/463960/5-fascinatingreasons-cockroaches-outlive-all
Adaptability
While blessed with a hard exoskeleton for protection, the roach also has the uncanny flexibility to crawl into the tiniest of spaces. We know this all too well. They can fit into a crevice one quarter the size of their bodies, which is equivalent to a six-foot-tall person fitting into a hole a foot and a half high.
Asexual Reproduction
A female cockroach does not need a male to reproduce. So they’re spared the whole mating and dating ritual that has confounded the love lives of men and women.
Breath Control
Yoga students are taught to practice pranayama to learn how to control their breath and raise their consciousness. But a cockroach is not reliant on its mouth or nose to breathe, for it takes in oxygen through holes in its body.
The Headless Cockroach
Unlike the proverbial chicken with its head cut off that moves about wildly and chaotically, a cockroach can actually continue to live for as long as weeks without its head! (Why not read that sentence again for the sheer magnificence of this creature?) This is because of a different kind of circulatory system than humans have; they don’t send oxygen throughout their bloodstream.
Gandhi and The Roach
Some members of the cockroach family have been known to survive for as much as an entire month without any food. Unlike my wife’s cousin Bernie, they are not fussy eaters. Some roaches will eat glue, leather and soap. They can also survive a week without any water – two to four days longer than people.
About two millennia ago, the great yogi Patanjali wrote in his Yoga Sutras that men and women were capable of tremendous latent abilities. Today, these pesky pests demonstrate some of them, and invite us to awaken these abilities within ourselves.