Frog: Healing

For me, one of the most welcome signs of spring is the evening chorus of the spring peepers who live in the ponds and streams which lace the woods behind my house. Their song heralds the earth's rebirth and renewal.

The idea of renewal is widely associated with water, which in turn represents the unblocking and flow of energy for healing. Frog, as an animal who spends its earliest life nurtured in water and who never is far from it, is in both North and South American Native and Celtic traditions identified with healing.

Frog is believed to call the rains when they are needed. Water cleanses and replenishes the earth, and in terms of healing, this animal's medicine can help when our lives feel dry and dull, when we feel mired in the mud of circumstances, or when we have allowed emotional toxins to poison our outlook on life.

The deepest levels of healing are accomplished on the emotional level. Emotions are associated with water, especially in the context of tears. If we are brought up to believe that tears are shameful and childish, we deprive ourselves of a powerful form of emotional release. With the help of frog medicine, we can begin to experience tears as being as natural and necessary as rain.

Frog is also strongly associated with magic and transformation. Beginning life as an egg, it becomes a polliwog, then a frog. It is thus a reminder to us that life is a miracle of change and transformation.

This message is particularly embodied in the story of the Frog Prince. In the Scottish version of this story, a queen who was ill could only be healed by a drink from the well of true water. When each of her three daughters tried to get this water, a monstrous frog refused to allow them access unless they agreed to marry him. The youngest daughter agreed and was able to heal her mother. She also later discovered that her unattractive bridegroom was actually a prince.

This story teaches us that to heal ourselves (and others), it is often necessary to face that within ourselves which we have buried because we find it unacceptable, or "ugly." When we can honestly look at all aspects of ourselves, we find that the "ugliness" washes away, and our true beauty shines, like the sun after healing rain.

Frog is one of the Wild Earth Animal Essences

Frog images are available in Power Stones, pocket totems, bracelets, and earrings.