I write about what it means when an animal crosses your path. Not in the abstract. Literally. You found a dead bird on your porch. A hawk sat on your fence three mornings in a row. A moth appeared at your window the night someone close to you passed.

You searched for an answer and ended up here. That is exactly who this site is for.

“Before you decide what a bird means, you have to see it clearly as a bird first.”

About the site

richardalois.com has been running since 2002. I started it as a photoblog, a place to put my photography I was already doing. It grew. There are now more than 600 articles, all written by me and my writers, covering animal symbolism, spiritual encounters, and the traditions across dozens of cultures that have tried to make sense of these moments for centuries.

Every cultural claim names the specific tradition, scholar, or text it draws from. Not “many cultures believe” but “in Lakota oral tradition” or “in medieval German folk belief.” When two traditions contradict each other, I say so. When I cannot find a reliable named source, I say that too. The reader deserves to know the difference between a thousand-year-old tradition and something someone made up last year.

Where the work comes from

I have volunteered in raptor rehabilitation near Black Mountain for thirteen years — mostly owls and hawks. The work is practical: injured birds, recovery cages, release days. It gave me something most writers in this space do not have. I know what an animal looks like before I decide what it means. Species. Condition. Behavior. The symbolism is downstream of that, and my articles are written that way.

The surname is Bavarian. My grandmother kept a small notebook of animal stories from the forests of southern Germany – local sightings, what the old people said, what the traditions held they meant. I grew up reading it. That is probably the real origin of all this.

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What I am not

• A shaman, medium, psychic, or healer
• Available for private readings or dream interpretations by email
• Selling courses, crystals, decks, candles, or subscriptions

The site is funded by display ads. If you find the writing useful, that is enough.