Every animal is hiding a mysterious message behind it and learning this message and symbolism can give us a completely different outlook on it as a living being. We can all learn so much from our surrounding and from the nature, so we should always keep in mind that nature is where we came from, and what connects us all.
In today’s text we are going to learn more about sparrows as animal totems, their symbolism and meaning. We will see how their magical energy can influence our lives and what can we learn from them as mysterious beings.
Sparrow – Meaning
The sparrow is the symbol of joy. The Greeks granted the sparrow being Aphrodite’s pet. During the middle Ages, the sparrow was the symbol of the peasants and the lower classes. In ancient Britain, the sparrow was the symbol of the spirits of the welcoming and hospitable home
The sparrow is a totem that helps open our eyes to our own value and instills dignity and autonomy. The totem sparrow teaches the importance of the voice, of communication. The sparrow tells you that it is time to sing your song.
The sparrow is the totem of joy, the ideal totem to increase self-esteem, humility, protection and friendship. Also to survive and go unnoticed in dangerous situations. The sparrow is a protective totem that makes invisible those it protects.
The sparrow, a common and opaque bird that nests in several domestic areas of the United States, has much mythology and associated symbolism. They find a place in religious iconography and folklore, representing anything from life to death to rebirth. The powerful presence of the sparrow as a cultural symbol has been with us for hundreds of years.
Have you had a dream of flying sparrows or dream of a sparrow on a branch, then accept its message and work? You may be busy and want less work or more peace and quiet at work.
On the other hand, sparrows in the dream also point to gossip in your immediate private or professional environment, to which you should not attach too much importance. A sparrow in the dream warns but also to divulge secrets.
The sparrow in dreams is linked to delicate feelings, the need for protection, to love. The sympathy that in general collects affects its symbolic meaning, while the ease with which it is possible to see it in the city and in the countryside, makes its image deeply impressed in the collective imagination, and makes it equally easy to see it in dreams.
The inconspicuous appearance, with the colors of the feathers turning from brown to gray, is offset by a graceful appearance, which arouses tenderness. It is a fluff of feathers that has great physical energy and considerable ferocity and courage, when it has to defend its territory and its food.
Beyond the real characteristics, to fully understand the meaning of the sparrow in dreams we must first of all reflect on the sensations it causes in us. In most cases, these feelings are associated with tenderness, protective desire, sentimentality, pampering.
Seeing it in dreams is frequent, precisely because it represents a secret and somewhat infantile inner core, which has links with the inner child and expresses the dreamer’s vulnerability, his need to give and receive love, his delicacy of mind.
To dream of a sparrow is to participate in his being a creature of the sky, capable of flying, vibrant and fast, defenseless but also combative, fragile and decisive at the same time.
These qualities make him a symbol of freedom and independence, and of all the strength that lies in vulnerability, while like all birds in dreams he indicates the world of air and logos: quick and lively thoughts and ideas.
Dreaming of flocks of sparrows that fly chirping, can refer to an explosion of creativity in the dreamer, to so many ideas that overlap and that perhaps are a source of chaos, but can also be connected to chatter and gossip, to the annoyance caused by so many and too many opinions and voices surrounding him.
Dreaming of a caged sparrow is a sad image, which indicates the possibilities, the dreams, the desires, the goals that are controlled, limited, kept in check, kept in a cage, as the most tender and defenseless part of oneself to which one does not is allowed to express itself.
To see a sparrow fly in dreams must make the dreamer reflect on the need to find a balance between fragile and defenseless parts of himself, and those that are courageous and perhaps a little reckless, but above all on their dignity, and on their ability to reclaim and defend own rights.
Sparrow – Symbolism
References to sparrows are numerous in the Bible, which causes Christians to find a particular meaning in the symbolic sense of the bird. The sparrow represents the recognition of minors or aspects that seem insignificant to life by God.
Some Christians, usually Catholics, are adorned with images of sparrows to signify their importance to God. Additionally, at the beginning of Christianity, Christians would use simple sketches or sparrow marks to signify secret meeting places in places where Christians were persecuted.
After a trip, the sailors would sometimes tattoo themselves sparrows on their bodies, to symbolize the achievement of completing a long trip. These tattoos were not only images of sparrows, they were special nautical sparrows that could have cardinal directions.
Sparrows, which also symbolize the acquisition of love, have a meaning for sailors that they have found something they have been looking for. For the sailors, this bird symbolizes completing a long trip and having finally found a destination.
Sparrows have a great presence in the literature. A well-known example is the poem “The Blossom” in William Blake’s song “Songs of Innocence” featuring a sparrow. In the poem, he uses the sparrow as a metaphor for passion, sacrifice and sexual exploits.
Blake ties the traditional and spiritual bonds between sparrows and Christianity with the passionate act of sexual intercourse, making the sparrow a symbol of quick action. Blake’s poem has disparaged several other references to sparrows and “The Blossom” in the newer poetry.
In various folk tales, ballads and poems, the sparrow and other birds have been borrowed as a symbol of travel or soul searching. For example, an old folk tale from Japan describes a sparrow as a symbol of moral action, in which a man and a woman dispute each other’s care as pets. The story tries to exemplify the way in which the sparrow should be respected and considered as a powerful creature, although it may seem minuscule to humans. The association of sparrows with moral action positions it as a special bird for humans.
Sparrows are small gray-brown songbirds, which belong to the species of sparrows and feed mainly on plant food such as seeds, leaves, herbs and grasses.
Sometimes they also pick up buds and berries and leftovers from people like breadcrumbs. Their cubs even feed sparrows with insects. As a cultural successor, sparrows are now to be found almost everywhere, but their distribution is limited to the northern hemisphere – that is: Europe and Asia.
In colder regions such as the Arctic and the Antarctic, as well as in subsequent cooler regions such as, e.g. in Iceland, Scandinavia and Finland the sparrow is almost completely absent. The most well-known and at the same time domestic species in Europe are the field sparrow under house sparrow, which are popularly also called “sparrow”.
Sparrow – Spirit Animal
Dagr, the Germanic god of the day, is escorted by a sparrow on all his travels, who – like Odin’s ravens Hugin and Munin – tell him news and deliver news. In Norway, for the sparrows, at Christmas, food dumplings or torn tufts of grain are hung so that the sparrows do not starve and do not take on the harvest and the winter stock of people.
It can be said that the sparrow is sacrificed to some extent and indirectly an agreement is made between the sparrows and humans (roughly: I give you something to eat, but only if you leave me my food). In Christianity, the sparrow has to serve for a comparison, because Jesus is said to have said that even God takes care of the smallest and every believer can come to the Kingdom of Heaven, if only he is religious enough – no matter if it is a human or an inconspicuous sparrow is.
In the vernacular, various phrases and expressions such. “Sparrow” and “My Spit” developed for beloved people. However, because the sparrow can also be bold and courageous, when he collects food and at the same time does not seem to be afraid of the immediate proximity to the people, the sparrow in popular belief is also considered a haughty little rascal.
However, since his prey is usually quite small and barely worth mentioning, the proverb “shooting cannons on sparrows” is probably also derived from this, which suggests that it is not worth making a huge uprising because of a few lost or stolen trifles.
However, the saying “Better a sparrow in the hand than a pigeon on the roof” makes the sparrow again a valued guest, who tells of modesty and the ability to compromise. You would rather have little, than nothing. The erroneous names “Drecksspatz” and “Spatzenhirn”, which have held to this day, one must not believe much, since they in no way correspond to the truth.
Neither is the sparrow dirty, nor can one measure intelligence in body size (which can best be illustrated by the example of humans.) Why the sparrow feels in the dirt has the background that it freed itself of parasites – so actually one quite hygienic ritual and anything but “dirty”.
Sparrow – Spirit Animal
This is another animal that lived in the unicorn forest. It was very small and nimble and most of the foresters did not even notice it. It was the sparrow stalemate, from where he got his name, nobody knows and why he lived alone and did not start a family. He seemed to have had bad experiences, otherwise it could not be explained. Patt still loved building a nest.
But he never called the mating call. Only the unicorn knew why. Patt was the only one of his kind here and he only lived there in spring and summer. The rest of the time was spent in the far away zoo, where there was plenty of food and warm shelters.
For Patt it was heavenly that he could scurry back and forth in the zoo between the enclosures, so he had a rich selection of various delicacies and he also had no problem fluttering in cages of predators to pick up a larva there, which itself from a forgotten piece of meat from a fly egg.
The sparrow had practically a land of plenty here in the zoo and while Branus hibernated in the cave and lost weight all the time, Patt became more and more full and his favorite place in the gable roof of the guinea pig house was warm and comfortable. His quickness allowed him to gain access everywhere, flipping through the mesh of the wire fences at 60 kilometers per hour and having a lot of fun with it.
He just did not like the humans, he avoided them, but they were not often seen in winter, but he liked to use the wool fibers from left-over, forgotten gloves and caps to pad his sleeping place. So he could endure it wonderfully. But when the zoo visitors became more frequent again in the spring, it drew him more and more into the unicorn forest and finally he moved.
Sparrow – Totem
If the little sparrow hops or flutters into her life as a totem animal, then he wants to warn you against talk, hasty conclusions and exaggerated actions. You may be doing more than you really want, or you want to hit the same number of guns because you have heard that you are being talked about.
Let people talk and take the chatter left. It is nothing more than the usual sparrow concert in the park on a sunny morning, where the sparrows argue about the food and afterwards calm down again.
They can never correct everything and who really knows and likes them, gives nothing away to the talk and takes you as they are. Once you begin to correct things, you will soon have nothing else to do because there is always something that is misunderstood or narrated.
The totem animal sparrow, however, can also point to the opposite case, in which you have begun to talk about someone behind the back or just talked to neighborly gossip & gossip without thinking. You should be more careful with your comments, as they are not really safe for anyone.
The sparrow as a totem animal tells you that they may be about to divulge intimacies, secrets or private things that are not intended for strangers’ ears. If you get a few unpleasant things over your tongue and you feel like it’s already too late, then you’ll be better at rest the next time around. What has happened, you cannot change, but you have influence on the future events.
Come in and see if you really need to focus on great stories and if you really like that. Sometimes less is more and that is exactly what the sparrow wants to say to you as a totem animal. Hold back and do not talk too much, so that when you say something, your words have more meaning and power.
Do not lose confidence and do not play with the trust of others. If you ask someone to keep something to themselves, then you do it too, otherwise the totem animal sparrow will make sure that they experience first-hand what it is like when something is rumored undesirably and comes into those very ears to which you wanted to withhold that – for whatever reason. Talking is silver, silence is gold!