Let's Talk About Tears - Sea Turtles, Humans, and Finding Our Way Home
A recent news item caught my attention. Scientists studying sea turtles believe there may be something remarkable in their tears. Something that helps them navigate across oceans, then return with uncanny precision to the beaches where they were born. It’s not confirmed yet, but researchers think these tears may contain “magnetotactic” bacteria — tiny life forms sensitive to Earth’s magnetic fields. In other words, these ancient mariners might carry part of their navigational system inside their own eyes.
Think about it: A sea creature glides through thousands of miles of ocean, seemingly unmoored, and yet always finds its way home. Guided, perhaps, by its tears.
I wonder: What if our own tears contain a compass?
Not the kind that just points north. But a compass that points us toward home:
… the place where we find purpose,
… where we feel grounded,
… where we know in our bones that we are where we need to be.
Is There Wisdom in Our Tears?
As it turns out, we humans shed three kinds of tears:
- Basal tears keep our eyes lubricated.
- Reflex tears flush out irritants like smoke or dust.
- And then there are emotional tears — those salty expressions of heartbreak, grief, joy, frustration, or relief.
It’s the emotional ones that fascinate scientists. They’re chemically different from the others.
Emotional tears carry stress hormones and natural painkillers. Some researchers believe they help us regulate emotion. Others think they serve a social function — signaling to others that we need help, or maybe connection.
But I wonder if they also serve us in other ways as well. Quietly, internally. Like an emotional GPS, suggesting that we recalculate our route.
Because so often, it’s the tears that accompany the setbacks — grief, heartbreaks, disappointments — that also wake us up to who we are. Or who we long to be.
A Map Made of Longing
We live in a culture that doesn’t always know what to do with tears. We tell children not to cry. Adults are expected to “stay strong.” We’ve come to equate tears with weakness or failure — something to hide, rather than something to honor. But what if tears are actually moments of alignment? What if they’re not a breakdown, but a breakthrough — a clue that we’ve hit something important?
Think of the moments in your life when tears came uninvited:
- At the death of someone you loved.
- At the end of a job or a relationship.
- During a song or a memory — a moment of beauty that cracked your heart open.
Didn’t those tears tell you something?
They hurt because they remind us of what we’ve lost. But they also reveal what we still long for, what we need to find. There is truth in tears. And when we listen closely, they point us toward what needs tending. They can guide us home.
Sea turtles return to the beach where they were born — not out of nostalgia, but to begin again. To nest. To create new life. Maybe our version of home is like that too. Not a return to the past, but a return to purpose. A return to presence. To the people and places that help us remember who we are — and who we can become.
Grief, heartbreak, disappointment — they feel like detours. But what if they’re part of the route? What if each tear carries a tiny piece of that internal compass? What if the same things that break our hearts also lead us back to ourselves?
Finding Our Way Home
The poet Naomi Shihab Nye writes, “Before you know what kindness really is / you must lose things.”
Maybe before we know what home really is, we must lose our way. We need to cry — in parking lots or waiting rooms or some private corner of our day. We need to sit quietly in our own sorrow until the signal clears. And then we begin again, more tender, more aware. More alive.
What if the map we’ve been waiting for is already inside us…Written in tears.
Take a moment to hear Naomi Shahib Nye read her beautiful poem, “Kindness.” It made my day.
- Written by Sara Engram
You can read more from Sara Engram at Mortal Matters.
