An Introduction to Bird symbolism
Introduction
We use this hourglass shaped diagram in all our videos,
and it represents the mind.
It is divided into three.
The bottom bowl has the conscious and subconscious mind
- the Mortal soul, whilst the upper bowl has our Higher spirit,
- the Immortal soul or the Atman or Buddha nature.
And one of the major symbols used
to represent our Immortal soul is a bird.
With their wings like an angel,
birds symbolically thrive in Air and Water,
- two of the Elements associated with Ascension
and some birds, like the swallow,
are said in myths never to land on Earth.
Whereas the symbolism of the bird
represents the Higher Spirit in general,
each type of bird indicates something
of the nature of the Higher spirit
as well as the progress the Mortal soul has made
on the Spiritual Path.
Whereas the Pheasant [see video] symbolically can barely fly,
both Geese and Swans [more videos] are on their way to heaven.
Ba
In Ancient Egyptian culture, the Ba was the Higher spirit.
Giving us a possibility of out of body flight.
Joan Halifax - Shaman: the Wounded Healer
To the heavens, ... to the depths of the underworld,
to the bottoms of spirit filled lakes and seas,
around the earth, to the moon and sun,
to distant stars and back again does the shaman bird travel.
All the cosmos is accessible
when the art of transformation has been mastered.
It was the objective of all Egyptians on the spiritual path
to merge the ka [Personality - mortal soul] with the ba [immortal soul]
- producing as a result the concept of akh - a living god.
In this case Thoth.
The bird and death
It is still a practise in cultures where the nurses are more healers,
to leave a window open in order that the immortal soul can fly away.
Emily Dickinson - from the Poems of Emily Dickinson
There’s something quieter than sleep Within this inner room
It wears a sprig upon its breast And will not tell its name
Some touch it and some kiss it Some chafe its idle hand
It has a simple gravity I do not understand
I would not weep if I were they How rude in one to sob
Might scare the quiet fairy Back to her native wood
While simple hearted neighbours Chat of the early dead
We - prone to periphrasis Remark that birds have fled
Eggs and the Tree of Life
Back to the Mind and its three levels.
How do these three levels correspond
to the levels in the Cosmic egg [see video]?
We can see from this symbolic picture
that the Tree of life [see video] spreads out its roots below
in the realm of the subconscious,
below the flat disc of the Conscious self.
But the branches, leaves and canopy of the tree are way above
- and this is where the Higher spirits are - in its branches
and its nest is its home
meaning symbolically a nest is a palace !!
Kabir - A certain bird sits in the tree
A certain bird sits in the tree. The delight of life is where it dances.
Nobody knows where the bird is, nor what all the music means.
It makes a nest where the branches make the most darkness.
It appears at dusk and disappears at dawn,
and it never gives one hint of what all this means
Nobody talks to me about this singing bird
It has no colour, nor is it free of colour.
It has no shape, no form, no boundaries
It sits in the shadow thrown by love
It lives in what cannot be reached, where time doesn't end,
where dying things don't exist
and no one pays any attention to its coming or going
Kabir says: You brother, you seeker,
this whole thing is a great mystery
Tell all the wise men it would be a good thing
to know where this bird spends the night.
Song
There are people who are able to hear celestial music.
And although bird song is said to mirror celestial music,
we cannot reproduce it using our musical instruments,
because they are tuned to the ‘wrong’ frequencies.
Musical Myths and Facts, Volume II - C. Engel
feathered songsters possess an innate feeling for the diatonic major scale;
The nightingale, for example, produces a succession of tones
which nearly corresponds with the diatonic Major scale.
the two melodious sounds of the cuckoo come close but
do not exactly constitute a Major Third,
for which they are generally taken, ...
but the sounding of one or other of the diatonic scale’s intervals
a little ‘out of tune’ actually increases the beauty of a musical performance.
The Cage
The cage is symbolic of our Higher spirit trapped in a body.
The rounded shape of many cages
looks like the skeleton’s rib cage.
Gerard Manley Hopkins - from The Caged Skylark
As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage,
Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells
That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;
This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age
Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage
Both sing sometimes the sweetest, sweetest spells,
Yet both droop deadly sometimes in their cells
Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage
Not that the sweet-foul, song-fowl, needs no rest -
Why, hear him, hear him babble and drop down to his nest
But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.
In some cases
the cage is a symbol of the strength of the Will and the Ego,
in effect we have trapped ourselves.
Sir Richard Burton - THE KASIDAH 03 1
FIE, fie! you visionary things, ye motes that dance in sunny glow,
Who base and build Eternities on briefest moment here below;
Who pass through Life liked caged birds, the captives of a despot will;
Still wond'ring How and When and Why,
and Whence and Whither, wond'ring still;
But in more general use the cage is a symbol of the body
trapping the Higher spirit and stopping it ascending.
Nizami - Makhzanol Asrar (The Treasury of Mysteries)
- extract from On the Ascension
One midnight when the sun set ...
He left the seven spheres, the four quarters,
and the six dimensions in the secret chamber of creation.
With the cage of the body, the bird of his heart
flew away from this prison to its own resting place.