Frog Spirit Medicine
A dear friend said that she came in this lifetime to be with Mother Earth. It touched me so much to hear her share this. This morning, it really hit me how I came in this lifetime to translate her messages, stories and teachings.
The teachings that I share come directly from the conversations that I have with her. Sometimes they are direct transmissions, and other times she provides me with symbols, words and images that I need to follow. I then create art, journey to her, write, sing, do dreamwork, hold ceremonies and have more conversations with her. Sometimes the teachings are given in a day, and other times they unfold over months or even years.
So, I include a sacred teaching from Mother Earth here about the spirit of Frog!
The journey of assent teaches us to quiet the mind, arrive at a place of equanimity, and merge with God consciousness. The journey of descent calls us to fully inhabit our sensing body, feel all that longs to be known within us, and reweave ourselves back into the sacred fabric of the Earth.
The journey of ascent is transcending the mind, whereas the journey of descent is alchemizing what is felt within the body. The ascent honours the divine masculine within us, and the descent reclaims the divine feminine within us. The ascent is to journey to the heaven within and know our light, whereas the journey of the descent is into the depths of our internal selves and to know our darkness. The ascent is the journey to seek Spirit, and the descent is the journey to know our own Souls. No being can ascend without making the descent. From my personal experience, the journey feels like a spiral, descending and ascending as we arrive closer to the centre of who we are.
If we look around us, the world is full of symbols, images and metaphors that teach us all that we need to know about how to make the journey to the centre of who we are. The outside world acts as a teacher for the world within us. When we open ourselves to receive the subtle signs of the outside world, we awaken the wise teacher within us. What once seemed mundane, frustrating or ordinary becomes sacred guidance to help us transform our lives.
Frogs have so much to teach us about ourselves and our divine feminine journey of descent into our own bodies and how to weave ourselves back into the fabric of the Earth.
Since the new year, I have been deeply drawn to frogs. As an artist, I have never been attracted to drawing or painting them, as I felt that any imagery I did see of them felt tacky in some way. So, it came as a surprise to me when I began to feel a pull towards the spirit of this animal. I began to see them in random places and just felt this intrinsic affinity towards them. Then, a few months ago, tiny frogs began to appear all over the land I am living on. I would see them hopping through the garden, hidden in the wetland and swimming in the pond. One day, while working in the garden with a friend, she asked, “Laurel, do you know the spirit medicine of the Frog?” I turned to her and said, “I didn’t”. I paused and then said, “I feel like they are the spirit beings that can travel between the seen and unseen worlds.” And, I have now learned this to be true.
Frogs are born into the primordial womb waters of Mother Earth, where for the first part of their lives they swim as tadpoles, before going through a metamorphosis and becoming frogs and then journeying onto land. As humans, we also spend the first part of our lives in the amniotic waters of our mother's womb, going through our own transformation, and then being born onto land as little human beings.
Frogs, like humans, need clean water to survive. As frogs breathe through their skin, they are prone to dehydration and require water to keep their skin permeable. And so, frogs constantly make the journey from land to water to survive. They are unique in that they can breathe on land and underwater. However, it is in returning to the water where they are hydrated and able to produce a mucus to temporarily breathe on land.
So, what do frogs and their lifestyle habits have to teach us about ourselves?
Well, as humans, we have become adapted to living on land, metaphorically speaking, thinking that this is where we belong. However, a life lived fully on land leaves us feeling psychologically empty. We have forgotten that we, too, need to descend into our psychic waters to hydrate our soul skins. This means descending into the inner world of our bodies and feeling all that longs to be felt, i.e. our emotions.
When we go to our inner waters, work through our blockages, fears and limiting beliefs, we are gifted ideas and dreams to enact when we return to living on land. This process becomes symbolic nourishment not only for ourselves, but for others. For when we act upon our ideas and dreams, they feed and inspire others.
As we swim deep into the waters within us, we arrive at our hearts, and we simultaneously arrive at the heart of the Earth. We learn that the longings and dreams that we have for ourselves are the same longings and dreams that the Earth has for us. We descend to receive our gifts and we ascend to share them.
Though frogs descend into the symbolic waters of the Soul and ascend back up knowing themselves more fully as part of Spirit, they also fully inhabit the world of their Body. When they are on land, they joyfully and playfully hop, explore and enjoy the pleasures of the Earth. This reminds us that we humans, too, are not simply meant to descend and ascend, but enjoy our time simply being human with all the pleasure that the body brings.
So, I like to think that frogs do travel between the worlds, the one of Soul, the one of Spirit and the one of Body. We can follow these little travellers to learn that we too can travel between the three.
With love,
Translator of the Earth