Wild Gratitude

Wild Gratitude

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Wild Gratitude
Wild Gratitude
Find a Feather? Messages from the Birds

Find a Feather? Messages from the Birds

Discover your unique message based on the color, type, pattern, and species of the feathers that you find.

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Stacey Couch
Sep 24, 2024
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Wild Gratitude
Wild Gratitude
Find a Feather? Messages from the Birds
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Upcoming Workshops:
Intro to Shamanism on 10/17
Find Your Spirit Animal on 11/13

For the start of school, I’m offering a 50% discount on my “Learner Archetypes” online class thru the end of September. This class includes the student, seeker, and dilettante archetypes. Click this link to get the discount.

Immature Red-tailed Hawk left primary wing feather. Photo credit: Stacey Couch © 2018

Finding a feather of any kind brings a message of freedom. Feathers symbolize freedom from sorrow and suffering and from the weight of everyday problems. 

Like touching an angel’s wings, chancing upon a feather uplifts our spirits. Feathers symbolize an opportunity for transcendence and new perspectives.

Birds, by their ability to take to the skies, symbolize communication with the heavens. Their feathers are missives from the spirit world.

A feather is a simple, yet profoundly powerful, message from the spirits (or Spirit) saying, “We are with you.”

It may be a loved one who’s on the other side saying, “Hello” and “I love you.”

And… is there more? YES! With a little research, feathers have lots more to share.

In this article, we look at qualities of the feather you’ve found to decode the special message meant for you. These are:

  • 5 types of feathers (wing, tail, contour, semiplume, down)

  • Feather colors

  • Patterns in the feather

  • Size and species of the bird 

Want to know what your feather is? I am offering free feather readings to PAID subscribers. Post a description of the feather in the comments and I’ll reply with ideas on the meaning. Not a paid subscriber, but want to join? Here’s the link to upgrade.

Birds have seven types of feathers, five of which you are likely to discover on the ground. These five are wing, tail, contour, semiplume and down.

Wing Feather Symbolism

Wing feathers are among the most common stray feathers people spot because they are often colorful, robust, and big. They have a strong central shaft (known as the “rachis”) that tapers in size. Wing feathers are the ones used as pen quills for writing. They are ASYMMETRICAL, meaning that one side is significantly narrower than the other (see photo above). You can determine which wing (right or left) a feather is from by holding the tip of the bare rachis in the hand that allows the narrow edge to face forward. The side a feather is from has meaning too! We’ll get to that shortly.

Wing feathers symbolize spreading your wings and taking flight. They remind us to exercise trust in the Universe. Air, symbolizing Spirit, holds us aloft, helping us travel to new dimensions and seek new heights.

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