What Does it Mean When Animals Start Showing Up

Artwork: Lisa Nelson

Animals are always around us. Most of the time, we don’t give it a second thought. A gecko on the window. A hadeda in the morning. A moth by the light. It’s easy to ignore, to write off as nothing. But sometimes, it’s not nothing.

Sometimes, something about the moment catches. You notice the way an animal looks at you. Or the way it appears three times in a week. You’re mid-thought—lost in a decision, overwhelmed, asking for help—and an animal arrives. You don’t know what it means, but you know it means something.

That’s the beginning.

Not every animal encounter is a message. But some of them are. And many of us are starting to notice again. Noticing how the same creature shows up in dreams and waking life. How certain animals hover, linger, seem to arrive with the intensity we’re feeling. It’s subtle, but once you start paying attention, it starts happening more. Not because the animals changed—because you did. Because something in you began to remember a way of relating that predates logic.

Before colonisation, Christianity, and capitalism dismantled our indigenous relationships with the land and the spirit world, this kind of connection was normal. It wasn’t strange or special. It was just how life worked. Animals carried messages. They arrived at turning points. They brought warnings, blessings, companionship, and direction. They still do.

And the moment you start recognising that? The moment you say, Wait, something’s happening here—you’re already back in relationship.

You don’t have to be a shaman. You don’t have to know what it means right away. Just start by noticing when the contact is real.

What Does it Mean When Animals Start Showing Up? A Pigeon in the Kitchen

When I asked for a sign, I meant it.

I was sitting at my desk, struggling with a big instruction from my guides. I’d been told—clearly—to make a serious, unconventional shift in my diet, to support my body in healing from an autoimmune illness. The message felt true, but I needed something to hold onto. Something tangible. I said aloud, “If I’m hearing you right, please give me a clear sign. Something I can’t ignore.”

I stood up to get water. And when I walked into the kitchen, there were four pigeons standing calmly on my counter. That’s the space where I prepare food. They weren’t fluttering or distressed. Just still. Looking at me. Present.

I greeted them. Thanked them. They flew out easily.

When I walked back to my desk, another pigeon was waiting beside my chair. Same energy. Same presence. Watching me. We’d never had a bird in our home before. Not one. Not since.

But that day, they came.

I didn’t need to look up a meaning or interpret a symbol. I’d asked for confirmation about food, about healing, about trusting the guidance I’d received. And a group of birds walked into the place where I cook and eat and nourish myself. They looked me in the eye. And I knew.

This is how animal communication works. It doesn’t always speak the way we expect. It doesn’t offer neat metaphors. It speaks in timing. In location. In context. In the shared electricity of a moment.

You might not get pigeons in your kitchen. You might get a sudden stillness when a butterfly lands near you in a moment of grief. You might find a snake on your path just when you’re shedding a layer of yourself. You might dream of the same animal for weeks, until it starts feeling less like a dream and more like a visitation.

It’s not about collecting animal sightings. It’s about learning to notice when the encounter carries weight. When something is happening beyond your mind.

And it’s about letting those moments take root. Not for answers. But for connection.

What It Means When Animals Visit You Spiritually (A Shamanic Perspective)

In my work as a shamanic practitioner, animals don’t just appear—they participate. They guide, respond, initiate, and sometimes even challenge. Over the years, I’ve come to recognise several distinct ways they interact, each one carrying its own texture and teaching.

When an animal shows up spiritually, it’s not always subtle, but the meaning often unfolds slowly, through context, timing, and the quality of presence they bring.

Here are some of the ways I’ve experienced animal communication—not as metaphor or superstition, but as relationship.

1. Physical Visitations

Some animals arrive in the ordinary world, but under extraordinary conditions. An animal that lingers longer than expected. One that shows up right as you're feeling something deeply. Another that won’t leave until something in you shifts. These moments are not random to me; they’re a form of contact.

When I’m with clients, I pay close attention to these moments. If a bird flaps wildly outside the window during a session, I pause and listen. Often, that’s the exact moment someone is breaking through an old identity or speaking a long-held truth. The animals don’t interrupt; they witness. They mark thresholds.

2. Dream Visitations

Some animals don’t show up physically, but they keep entering your dreams. You wake with their presence in your body. Sometimes they speak, sometimes they just move beside you, silently watching. And then they come again. And again.

I’ve learned to pay attention to repetition. When the same animal returns over days or weeks, I sit with it. I ask what’s being stirred in me, what phase I'm in, what they might be pointing to. Dream animals often bring medicine for transitions. They arrive before the conscious mind can name what’s happening.

These dreams aren’t always poetic. Sometimes they’re strange, disjointed, even disturbing. But they carry a charge. They don’t leave easily. That’s one of the ways you know you’re being visited and not just dreaming.

3. Trance and Spirit Allyship

In shamanic work, I don’t go looking for animal allies. I meet them in the spirit world, during trance or ceremony. Some come only once, for a specific ritual or client. Others walk beside me again and again. When I journey, they appear as guides, companions, or protectors.

I’ve had animals show up before I know what a client is working with. Their presence helps me understand what’s needed: steadiness, confrontation, softness, rebirth. Flies sometimes hover or circle around a client when they are overwhelmed or dysregulated, and as soon as I help them ground, the fly disappears, and I thank the fly for supporting me. Once, I witnessed a client’s cat quietly appear beside them during a moment of deep transformation, anchoring the space. These kinds of visitations speak volumes. They guide my attention before words are even spoken.

4. Shapeshifting

There’s one way animals visit that’s harder to explain, but deeply real to me. This is called shapeshifting, though it doesn’t mean becoming an animal in the physical sense. It’s more like being entered. My body changes. My senses recalibrate. My way of breathing, feeling, moving—everything shifts.

Shapeshifting has different names across cultures and traditions—nagualism, theriomorphosis, spirit embodiment. It’s been described as merging, riding, or being ridden. Not everyone experiences it this way. It’s not necessary for deep animal connection, and it’s not something to strive for. It often comes as a calling or a gift, particularly for those who serve as translators between species, worlds, or states of being.

It usually begins with an uneasy pressure in my body. My muscles hold tension in unfamiliar ways. My mouth feels full, like a pebble pressing against my teeth and tongue. I close my eyes, and I’m no longer in a human shape. I feel the posture, the instincts, the worldview of something else. That’s how I learn who has come.

A bear once moved through me to teach me about trust. Not as an idea, but through its way of being. It showed me how it trusts the forest and the seasons, and how I need to trust the forest and the seasons of my own life too.

More recently, a black leopard has begun to appear in my journeys. Its purpose isn’t clear yet, and I’m not trying to force understanding. I’m letting it walk beside me as I stay open, letting the relationship reveal itself over time.

Shapeshifting isn’t something I perform. It happens. And when it does, I treat it like any other sacred visitation. With attention. With humility. With care.

How to Respond When an Animal Comes (A Shamanic Perspective)

There’s a temptation, especially in the online world, to treat animal encounters like riddles to decode. You see a crow and immediately search “crow spiritual meaning.” You have a dream about a lion, and the first instinct is to look up what lions symbolise.

But from a shamanic perspective, the meaning doesn’t come from the internet. It comes from context. From your body. From the energy of the moment. From the relationship between you and the being that arrived.

1. Acknowledge Them

Don’t brush it off. Even if you’re unsure. Pause. Say hello, even just in your mind. Speak to them. Greet them. You don’t have to know why they’re there to recognise that they are.

2. Notice What’s Happening Around You

If you’ve been wondering what it means when animals start showing up in dreams, near your home, or during emotional shifts, the key is not to search for one fixed meaning, but to enter into dialogue.

Instead of asking “What does this animal mean?”, ask:

• What was I just thinking or feeling before they appeared?

• What part of my life am I in right now?

• What are the qualities of this animal’s presence—stillness? Chaos? Curiosity? Calm?

  
  

3. Sense It Through Your Body First

The first place animal medicine lands is in the body. You might feel your chest open, your breath deepen, and your stomach turn- trust that. You don’t need to make sense of it straight away. Just feel what changed.

4. Give Something Back

If an animal brings you a message, it’s a gift. And gifts deserve gratitude. You can make an offering—water, herbs, a song, a prayer. You can light a candle or leave a little food near a tree. You can simply sit quietly and say thank you.

5. Let the Meaning Reveal Itself Over Time

Some visitations are crystal clear. Others unfold over weeks or years. Don’t force the meaning. Don’t turn the moment into content. Let it stay sacred. Let it stay alive.

If you want to reflect, dream with it. Draw the animal. Write down the feeling. Ask it to return if there’s more to show. This is the rhythm of listening in the old way.

On Cultural Appropriation and Honouring Lineage

It’s important to speak to the roots of this work.

Many cultures around the world—particularly Indigenous, animist, and land-based communities—have long-standing traditions of animal allyship. These aren’t aesthetic symbols or spiritual metaphors. They’re part of cosmologies rooted in land, ritual, community, and ancestral responsibility.

Words like “spirit animal” and “totem” come from specific peoples, and in many cases, are still in active use by those communities. When these terms are taken out of context, borrowed without understanding or permission, they can become disconnected from the cultures that birthed them.

This doesn’t mean you can’t have a deep, meaningful relationship with animals. You absolutely can. But it’s important to walk slowly. To honour the lineages you are drawn to, and to also seek the pathways within your own heritage and living experience.

You don’t need to claim what isn’t yours. You can build a relationship with the animal world in a way that is honest, humble, and rooted in respect.

Spiritual connection doesn’t require taking—it asks for listening, reciprocity, and care.

Closing: Begin with Listening

If you’ve made it this far, something in you already knows.

Maybe you’ve had moments you couldn’t explain—an animal that appeared at the perfect time, a dream that wouldn’t leave you alone, a subtle feeling that something was trying to reach you. Maybe you’ve dismissed it before. Or maybe this is the first time you’re letting yourself take it seriously.

Whatever brings you here, know this: you don’t have to become a shaman to be in relationship with the animal world. You don’t need special training to pay attention, to say thank you, to wonder what a creature might be showing you.

You just need to begin with listening.

Let the meaning take time. Let the relationship grow. Don’t rush to interpret or explain it. Walk it. Live it. Ask questions. Make offerings. Share your dreams with the land. Speak to the hawk overhead. Acknowledge the fly in the room when something in you is unravelling. The more you show up, the more the world speaks back.

This is not a metaphor. It’s not a mindset. It’s not a trick for insight or clarity. It’s a relationship. One that’s older than language and deeper than belief.

And if the animals are finding you, it means something is ready to return.

Let it.

If you feel called to explore this work more deeply, I offer one-on-one sessions, ceremonies, and mentoring for those drawn to animal connection, spiritual awakening, and shamanic guidance. You can learn more or reach out to work with a free exploratory call.