2. Oceanospirillum

How to say Oceanospirillum: (Oh-Shen-Oh Spih-Rill-Um)

This is the second card out of eleven cards in the Tubes suit (correlates with Cups in Tarot decks).

The Spiritual Significance

Oceanospirillum, the spiral helix of the sea, is possibly one that pirouettes upon the mermaid Ariel’s bubbly breath when she sings of all the wonders in her domain. This microbe imbibes the saltiness of the waters around it. Like an extrovert, Oceanospirillum thrives on swimming within the emotional waters of others. This microbe is definitely a community worker, and a hero, rushing in to save lives like the 911 first responders when the Trade Towers fell.
Oceanospirillum doesn’t mind a bit of oil around its environment at all, in fact, oil spills are what lures it out of its ultra submarine depths.
Oceanospirillum species were not that well known until a major spill crisis brought their oil eating talents into the limelight. What a lesson for those of us who have been buried deep, and hidden from the awareness of others, whether our family, friends or community!
This microbe teaches that when the terrorist plot manifests, when the bomb, or crash or other game-changing event overflows into our regular lives, we are called upon to dig deep into our inner resources, for powerful, latent, abilities that, we did not recognize for what they were, until it is time to use them to turn the tide.

The Microbiology

Bacteria from the genus Oceanospirillum responded by the millions after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico occurred. Using the technology called “microarrays” which does not require cultivation of bacteria for identification, microbiologists discovered that the microbial community functional composition and structure changed dramatically in a deep-sea oil plume that resulted from the spill.
According to these researchers (Lu et al., ISME J. 2012 Feb; 6(2): 451–460): “A variety of metabolic genes involved in both aerobic and anaerobic hydrocarbon degradation were highly enriched in the plume compared with outside the plume, indicating a great potential for intrinsic bioremediation or natural attenuation in the deep sea” and also that”together, these results suggest that the indigenous marine microbial communities could have a significant role in biodegradation of oil spills in deep-sea environments.”

Based on the results found in these studies, Oceanospirillum is one of the first responders among the microbial marine community, when it comes to deep water oil spills.