Bird

A message, or the wish for one. Birds move between ground and sky, which is why they sit in the symbolic vocabulary as carriers — of news, of a change in season, of a point of view that is not available from where you are standing.

In the traditional vocabulary it is not read as a warning. A message, or the wish for one. The animal is treated as a description of a situation — usually involving timing or a person — not as a prediction. The most common bird dream is not a specific species at all but an unnamed bird seen at a window — which traditional readings treat as news rather than as symbol.

Traditional readings ask what the bird is doing. A bird in flight is read one way, a caged bird another, a flock another again. The species matters less than the movement. It is grouped under Wood (木) in the five-element system.