Symbols - What does heaven look like
Ibis
The Ibis takes on the symbolism of all birds.
The following quote is helpful in explaining the symbolism............
A Dictionary of Symbols – J E Cirlot
The ibis is related to Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom. According to the Greek scholar Aelian, in his De Natura Animalium, this bird was chosen because it tucks its head under its wing when it sleeps, so that it comes to resemble the shape of the heart; and also because of the fact that the stride of the ibis measures exactly a cubit – which was the measure used in the building of temples – and because it destroyed harmful insects.
There were two kinds of ibis; the white bird (associated with the moon) and the black. The belief was that Thoth hovered over the Egyptian people in the form of an Ibis religiosa, and that he taught them the occult arts and sciences.
The Ibis is thus yet another bird used as a Means of transport and in shape shifting. Thoth was a human being made god through the Mysteries and annihilation, who had chosen to use the Ibis as his emblem and 'shape'. He wasn't the god of wisdom per se, he had become wise through the process he had been through - he had attained wisdom, he was not a personification of it.
If we examine what is being said above, the first probably meaningful reference symbolically is to insects.
Insects are universally symbolically the spirit beings of chemicals such as drugs and some of them [as will be seen from the observations for insects] are not at all pleasant. The pharmaceuticals invented by man have produced some truly evil looking spirit beings in the form of insect like creatures within dreams, visions and hallucinations. Ibis eat insects.
There is also a reference to Darkness and Light - the balance between the intellect and the emotions that is essential to becoming a god.
The added symbolism is derived from the fact its beak resembles the Crescent moon.
It also straddles the worlds of Water, Earth and Air and is competent in each.
Observations
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