Eel Spiritual Meaning & Symbolism

Eels are mysterious fish that live in water and are somehow both snake- and fish-like. Their connection to Earth is signalled by their earthy coloring, and the electric eel conjures up a burst of fire-like energy. Eels can attack without warning because they have sharp teeth and can swim really fast.

They're flexible, helping old folklore that says these fish can change their shape. Eel larvae are born almost invisible, making them symbols for trust in the flow of life. Eel pearls were once believed to be charms for fertility, luck, and adaptability.

The main qualities of eels are camouflage, endurance, quiet observation, and transformation. Electric eels sense their surroundings.

In Hawaiian tradition, eels are linked to the emotional self, so you might get an eel visit if you need to honestly explore your feelings instead of shoving them aside. Eels are slippery, clever and adaptable. You might get a visit from an eel as a sign that it's OK to give yourself permission to be those things instead of forcing things.

Eels often retreat from danger and blend into the background until it's safe to return. Maybe you're taking this approach right now or will be soon. The spiritual lesson of eels is that there's strength in retreating.

In Hinduism, eels have kundalini energy that's coiled in their bodies and rises through the body toward higher awareness.

Eels need to surface for air from time to time — don't hold your breath and make yourself feel bad anymore. When you see an electric eel, it means things will suddenly change and help you get past whatever's going on.

People who have the Eel as their totem tend to just be more natural about all of their feelings. You could even say that they're sexier.

As a lover, they're attentive, imaginative, and they're really into the idea of being in the moment. A lot of their life is about spiritual things.

They've had this feeling ever since they were little that they can sometimes kind of predict how situations are going to unfold, which can make other people feel a little uncomfortable.

But the people who can tolerate that end up finding a really good friend.

Water is actually this totem's real home. You know, whether it's like taking a soak or jumping into a lake or river or something. They really feel like they're at their core when they're in water.

Their body is just kind of whatever it wants to be at any moment in time. Their gender identity moves between male and female as they see fit because Eels are hermaphroditic early in life so for those people who have the Eel as their totem that attachment to a rigid identity around gender doesn't feel particularly important for them.

If you want to slip out of a difficult situation unnoticed, try turning to your Eel power animal. This is also a good animal to call upon if you need to adapt quickly to rapidly changing circumstances, or if there's any kind of murky water you need help getting clear about.

Use it when you know you've been deceiving yourself or others, or when you're suffering from emotional suffocation and need to surface for a deep breath and change of perspective. Eel power also comes in handy when you want to maneuver past obstacles with stealth, flexibility, and confidence rather than brute force. You might also use it if there's a powerful energy waiting for release inside you that needs to "coil" up and rise slowly.

A legend about an eel from Samoa, Sina and the Eel, tells the story of how coconut trees came to be. In this story, a king in Fiji hears that a girl named Sina is beautiful, and he turns into an eel so he can go to her village and not be noticed. When Sina sees him she doesn't know what it is, but it looks so strange that she's afraid of it at first. But then she likes the eel and keeps it as a pet. Years go by and its magic form starts to weaken, and it asks Sina to bury its head in the ground. Then from that place comes up the first coconut tree. And you can see that there are some features on a coconut that remind you of the face of an eel — so in a way it's like you're kissing the eel when you drink from a coconut.

Melanesian legends talk about Abaia, a giant eel who watches over and protects the creatures that live in its freshwater lake as if they were his own children. Anyone who tries to harm these creatures finds themselves overwhelmed by a big wave created by Abaia thrashing his tail, or drowned by a flash flood that he summons down from the sky — a powerful symbol of dangerous guardianship.

The Japanese eat freshwater eels in the summer months, believing that it helps with stamina and endurance. Huahine, one of the islands of French Polynesia, has a stream that's crossed by a small bridge and where giant eels live. People from Huahine believe that the eels are sacred guardians of the freshwater. The belief that eels are special beings is a longstanding one in many parts of the Pacific.

An eel in dreams is often symbolic of male energy, or fertility (both meanings having specific applications depending on the context of the dream). For example, it may be dreaming about a real-life friend or relative who exhibits strong masculine attributes, and whose presence may be a little unsettling but ultimately helpful in some way. The meaning of eel dreams can change depending on circumstances — here are some specific situations and their possible meanings:

• If you see a moving eel, then it may symbolize that a period of change is approaching, and you should be flexible rather than rigid in your attitude.
• If you see two eels together in your dream, then this could represent a new romance or the deepening of an existing friendship.
• If you dream that you cannot catch an eel, then this could mean that an opportunity has slipped through your fingers — however, it may still be possible to act quickly and recover the opportunity in reality.

• Lastly, if you dream about holding or catching an eel, then this could symbolize that you are successfully grasping something elusive in reality, such as an idea or feeling.

What many people assume is weak is actually a tremendous source of strength and one of Eel's greatest life lessons: the ability to wait.

Eels come into your life to help you find your own best pace — your own sweet spot — whether you're in an emotional swamp, in some kind of transition, or dealing with the powerful forces of an external current that's drawing you into the unknown.

The deeper your discomfort, the more willing you'll need to be to let go of your expectations about how things should work out and instead flow with their unfolding and trust that what looks scary or impossible is only the inevitable discomfort of change, from which a new state will emerge.

It takes a special kind of wisdom, borne not only of knowledge but also insight and patience, to navigate each step as it comes without overreacting. But Eel teaches you that it's a power you already have. That gentle ebbing and flowing toward your authentic self is not an act of defeat but an opportunity for growth and revelation.

If you go under for air at precisely the right moment — when conditions shift, when you've outgrown something that doesn't work for you anymore, when trying harder isn't working anymore — then you'll come up stronger.

Long before Eel earned its reputation as myth's great shape-shifter, biologists spent nearly a century chasing an even stranger truth: no one had ever witnessed a wild eel spawning. Both the American and European Eel are believed to hatch in the Sargasso Sea, a drifting patch of the Atlantic bounded by ocean currents rather than shoreline, and every adult eventually swims back there to breed, completing a round-trip that can take fifty years or more to even begin.

Newly hatched eels emerge as leptocephalus larvae — flat, glass-clear, and barely fish-shaped at all — before drifting on the current toward the coast, where they become the paler, needle-thin glass eels that so many cultures once described as arriving from nowhere. Only after decades spent as a freshwater predator does an eel begin its final transformation.

When the pull to return finally comes, the eel's body performs what feels like a second metamorphosis: its eyes enlarge to gather what little light exists in the deep ocean, its skin darkens into a countershaded silver-and-white built for camouflage in open water, and its digestive system shuts down entirely — it will not eat again for the rest of the journey, living only off its own reserves. Seen this way, Eel's ancient reputation as a creature that changes shape at will isn't only folklore. It's biology performing its own kind of magic.

Every skilled hider earns a shadow reputation, and Eels are no exception. Their patience can look wise in one story, deceptive in another: They're even called tricksters in some traditions, with their slipperiness suggesting that someone—perhaps even you—is lying rather than facing the truth. If an eel shows up when you already feel uneasy, honor those feelings instead of dismissing them. It might be showing you a hidden situation or a fake situation, or your own habit of avoiding difficult conversations. The message isn't to distrust eels; it's just to ask yourself: Are you hiding wisely, or are you really trying to hide?