The eagle is present across a range of beliefs or philosophies;

The Eagle represents spiritual protection, carries prayers, and brings strength, courage, wisdom, illumination of spirit, healing, creation, and a knowledge of magic. The eagle has an ability to see hidden spiritual truths, rising above the material to see the spiritual. The eagle has an ability to see the overall pattern, and the connection to spirit guides and teachers. The eagle represents great power and balance, dignity with grace, a connection with higher truths, intuition and a creative spirit grace achieved through knowledge and hard work.

The dictionary of scripture and myth, describes the eagle as;

A symbol of the holy spirit, which flies, as it were, through the mind (air) from the higher nature (heaven) to the lower nature (earth) and soars aloft to the self (sun).

In ancient Egypt and Babel the eagle was;

The symbol of the noon sun, which signified the Great Spirit.

A sermon written by T. Rhonda Williams explores the tradition within the English church of placing the bible on the outstretched wings of an eagle, and concludes;

In sacred symbolism the eagle stands for that power of rising above the earth, above the physical and the literal, into the heavens of rarefied faith, a mystic intuition, and a penetrating spiritual intuition.

Many native cultures accept, with some variances, that;

The eagle carries prayers to the creator.

This description of the connection between the holy spirit and the eagle from an unknown source, includes reference to the nature and the power of the eagle spirit;

The message to the soul appeared through the higher side of the consciousness. It sped forth with a directness and sureness of aim that might be compared to the flight of an eagle, which is a symbol of the holy spirit descending. It took possession of the soul mightily, so that it had to express outwardly that which was communicated to it from within.

In Types Of Genesis, A Jukes suggests;

The eagle's lofty flight and keen vision represent but another form of the same divine spirit.

According to Swedenborg;

Flying eagle signifies the divine truth of the word as to knowledge and thence understanding.

To the Egyptians;

The eagle was the messenger to the gods and the sun, a symbol of eternal life.

To the Romans;

The eagle was the carrier of Jupiter's thunderbolts and a sign of power, which was adopted as a symbol of the Roman emperors, and was carried before the Empire's legions.

To the Greeks;

The eagle was the messenger to the Greek God Zeus, and Zeus took the form of an eagle when he carried his young lover Ganymede to Mt. Olympus.

A more detailed meaning of the eagle to Native American cultures is;

Eagle represents a state of grace that is reached through inner work, understanding and passing the initiation tests that result from reclaiming our personal power. Eagle Medicine is the Power of the Great Spirit. It is the spirit of tenacity. It is the gift of clear vision with which one can truly see the things one sees. It is the patience to wait for the appropriate moment. It is to live in balance with heaven and earth. Eagle reminds us of our connection with the Great Spirit. It tells us that the universe is giving us the opportunity to fly above our life's worldly levels, or above the shadow of past realities. Eagle teaches us to look above in order to touch Grandfather Sun with our heart, to love the Shadow as much as the Light. Eagle asks us to grant ourselves permission to be free in order to reach the joy that our heart desires.

Another Native American spiritual meaning of the eagle is;

The eagle is the brother who flies highest and closest to the Creator. His vision, wisdom and courage are gifts that we each possess.

There are very many Native American references to the spirituality of the eagle which Wambdi Wicasa summarises well;

The Eagle has long been the symbol of honor, bravery, love, friendship and mystical powers for the Indian Nations. The Eagle gives visible form to Wakinyan (He who speaks Mystery), the Being who moves between man and Wakantanka. Wakinyan shows up in endless variations of eagle-likeness in Indian design from the southern tip of South America to the North Pole area. Each Tribal group has its own stories and legends concerning the Eagle and Wakinyan (Thunderer, Thunderbird). It has to be more than mere coincidence that many of these stories are identical in tribes widely separated in both Americas.

Another Native American reference to the Eagle being the messenger of God is…

We communicate with the Creator by listening to the spiritual voice of the eagle. The eagle has many important teachings. Through eagle the knowledge of the Creator is channelled to the people.

The eagle also features in Native American Blessings….

May you have the strength
Of eagles' wings,
The faith and courage to
Fly to new heights,
And the wisdom
Of the universe
To carry you there.

The Eagle Dance

The Eagle Dance is done by a warrior in full Eagle Wing regalia who depicts the grace and beauty of the majestic Eagle in Flight.

As the prayers of our drums
invoked us into sacred space
another circle
faint at first
emerged from the ethers
around our own.

Figures soon became visible.
Women and men, young and old.
Faces of brown, red, yellow and white,
Feather headress, carved staff,
white robe, wooden mask.
We recognized
through inner sight or sense
the familiar essence
of our guides and teachers,
those who walk with us in spirit.

From this outer circle
came a native man
dressed in white buckskin.
His arms were the wings of an eagle;
the golden eyes and curved beak
resting over his crown and third eye.

They began, eagle and man, to dance
the eagle's dance
to each drummer in turn.
"Summoned by your soul's call
we have come to dance you awake,"
the man would say
in a direct, yet humble way.

With those words
the essence of his spirit
and that of the great winged one
entered into our beings
borne through the ecstasy
of their dance and our pulsing rhythms.

And in those sanative moments,
this we knew:
that our spirits joined not only
with the man and bird
and those in the outer circle
but also with the earth and heavens;
and seeped deeper still
into the web of all our relations --
with the Great Spirit in all things,
and we became One.
And in that world among the worlds
secrets of an inner universe
were made known to us.

And so it was,
as it always has been
and always will be
that Spirit comes to awaken us
soaring upon the wings of rhythm
encircling our forgetfulness
with the rapture of being alive
in the temples of our bodies
at the altars of our souls
in the bosom of Mother Earth
here and now.

Author Unknown

The eagle is a prominent spiritual link between heaven and earth within many traditional European pre-Christian belief systems as well;

The Welsh Lleu and the Scandinavian Oðin both transform into an eagle. Lleu does not die, but is transformed into an eagle reaches the otherworld in the shape of an eagle. Oðin, seeks protection and knowledge as an eagle.

To the Germanic people the eagle was representative of Wodan, the ruler of the gods, and came to symbolize the German Kaisers.

The Rig Veda describes how the god Indra;

Riding on an eagle, stole the drink of immortality from heaven.

The Bible carries references to the eagle as the messenger of God, and as a link between heaven on earth. Two examples are;

…….I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Exodus 19:4

…. but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:31

On Eagles Wings

Sumerian culture also refers to the eagle as a means to travel from earth to heaven;

One of the earlier legendary kings in Kish was Etana who was later believed by the Babylonians to have rode to heaven on the back of a giant Eagle so that he could receive the 'plant of birth' from Ishtar. Etana was said to have ascended to heaven on the back of an eagle.

The eagle also appears in a similar vein within spiritual symbolism. An example is the Perthro Rune;

On the side of human nature this Rune is symbolized by the flight of the eagle. Soaring flight, free from entanglement, lifting yourself above the endless ebb and flow of ordinary life to acquire broader vision.

The Life Force

The teachings of Juan Matus refer to the Eagle as having the supreme consciousness.

A being pops up into the known once the force of life has bound all the needed feelings and awarenesses together.

As soon as the force of life leaves the body at the moment of death, all the single feelings and awarenesses disintegrate and go back to where they came from; the unknowable.

What an impeccable and humble universal being does after attaining the third attention, is very much like dying, except that its cluster of single feelings and awarenesses do not disintegrate, but glide into eternity without losing the togetherness of the thousands of different feelings and awarenesses.

At death however, those feelings sink deeply into infinity and move independently as if they had never been a unit, and the consciousness that housed all these independent units is consumed by the supreme consciousness of the Eagle.

The Legend of Eagle Spirit