I pulled the little frog out of the metal, feather shaped case where she is stored. A Zuni carving, a fetish, a gift from two friends who have traveled to the Southwest many times over the last 20 years. Traditional storage is clay. But I like her inside the feather.
The frog is carved from serpentine, and has 5 small pieces of turquoise on its back. And 2 pieces for the eyes that fall in front of the rough outcroppings behind them, the parotoid glands. It’s the place where they store their secretions, sometimes poisonous, released when they are stressed. There are 7 pieces of turquoise, total. The frog fits comfortably in my hand or pocket.
Frog is about cleansing, refilling the well. And purging negative energies, people, places, and things that no longer serve the higher good. It’s a good time for me to carry her. When my friends gave the Zuni frog to me a few decades ago, I couldn’t relate to her purpose. I was more connected to the 7-year mysteries and cycles of the Lynx and the Snowshoe Hare, or the aerial view through the eyes of a Red-Tailed Hawk. Something as grounded as a frog, a tadpole, a pollywog, I had never been drawn in that direction.
That’s not true of Liz. I think Frog is one of her totems. Last weekend when she was mowing the lawn, I heard the lawnmower come to a dead stop – she bent down gently, and picked up a toad that was crossing her path, then carried him, cupped in her hands, over to the neighbor’s yard. I was looking out the window at them. The next thing I knew, he had the toad cupped in his hands and they were chatting about the release to freedom.
Later, after seeing ybonesy’s New Mexico photographs of toads, I asked Liz what color the Minnesota toad was. “Dark, toad-colored,” she said.
Frogs breathe through their skin. Tadpoles have tails they lose in adulthood (not unlike the lowering and flattening of the human butt in middle-age). The mythology of Zuni afterlife takes them, not underground, but deep under a lake where frogs, tadpoles, fish, and other water creatures protect and keep them safe. Frogs connect and restore.
I grew up with many superstitions about frogs – warts if you touch their backs or they secrete their fluids on you. I still cringe a little when I go to pick one up. But none of that is true. Fairytales from the storytellers of yore. I have never kissed a frog. But when I was out playing one sweaty summer day, a neighborhood boy named Buddy, who went to the same elementary school, blew one up with a firecracker. I’ll never forget that sound.
It’s been raining and thunder storming all week. I’ve been thinking about the frog’s association to the cleansing rains. Unlike the Southwest, it rains often and for long periods of time in Minnesota. It is green and wet and lush. Frogs and toads are everywhere. I’m listening to them as I tap these letters out on black keys, Frog resting quietly on the keyboard in front of me. He looks more like a horned toad. The serpentine is mottled, dark brown mixed with a cream yellow. I just realized I called him a him; earlier in this write, I called him a her. S/he is androgynous.
I’m going to carry her in my pocket for the weekend. Protection for when the green tornado skies belt out the siren song of the Midwest storm corridor. Mom called a few minutes ago to see if we were okay. She said there’s a lot of red on her screen indicating turbulence over south central Minnesota. For me, sitting here staring out the window, it draws its own picture of swaying, rattling oak leaves, frog choruses croaking from the pond, chimes going crazy, banging on the deck, and the remnants of last weekend’s storm piled in the front fire pit ring of Jade Creek rocks.
The 5th day of gray. Last night at the poetry group, thunder rumbled after one woman read the first Rita Dove poem. And it rumbled again when we sat in the silence. We remarked later how it sounded like an airplane, high above the horizon. Then the rain came, pummeling the grass outside the alcove windows. It was the perfect night for poetry. And after Rita Dove read Geometry, after passing around Gary Soto’s moving postcard, after hot tea and chocolate, we walked outside to see a pink-hued, rosy green sky, daylight filtering through streetlamp midnight.
And I thought of Frog, or maybe Toad, burrowing into the earth, reclaiming the 120 frog species we have lost since the early 80’s, waking us up with frozen spring rains, hiding from the cold in the Arctic Tundra. Back down to earth in humble Minnesota. Reclaiming the green sky slickness of Frog, the bumpy dry, water tank skin of the toad, the hundreds of thousands of lakes, calling me home.
-posted on red Ravine, Friday, June 6th, 2008
-related to posts: WRITING TOPIC – TOADS & FROGS, Green Is As Green Does, PRACTICE — Pink Frog Moon – 15min
QM, There’s something very soothing for me in the thought of you and others sitting around, listening to thunder and poetry while sipping tea and enjoying chocolate.
It makes me think of simple things that make a person feel good…and alive…and it makes me wonder why we tend to make matters so very complicated…when there is so much goodness to be found…if we open our eyes, our minds and our hearts to it.
H
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This was a lovely read, QM. Very soothing and grounding, reading about dear frog.
You remind me I have a small collection of Zuni fetishes from travels with my kids to NM. I have no idea where they are – how bad is that – but I think I must find them this weekend and re-connect with them. I was very attached to the set for many years.
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heather, thank you. That’s how we were feeling after the poetry reading last night — so full of gratitude.
And your line:
It makes me think of simple things that make a person feel good…and alive…and it makes me wonder why we tend to make matters so very complicated…when there is so much goodness to be found…if we open our eyes, our minds and our hearts to it.
We actually did talk about that last night. How meeting like that reminded us of all the goodness in the world, rather than all the negative we hear so much about all the time. It gave us hope to meet and read poetry.
Liz and I listened to a story this week on Public Radio about a woman named Rmega Tafari, a woman who was squatting in an abandoned foreclosed home with her family. When they last spoke to Rmega, the bank that owned the home had asked her to leave.
The host, Dick Gordon, did a check in with Rmega this week to find out what’s happened since then, and she and her family have moved to Tallahassee to a new home.
You wouldn’t believe the positive energy and joy Dua, Rmega’s 4-year-old son, brought up when he shared his thoughts on the home they’re renting and their new garden. What an amazing boy. So articulate.
His mother said even when they were living in their car, they tried to instill a sense of well-being in their son, because they thought it would be better than focusing on the negative or what was wrong with the world. Really moving story.
I heard another story this week of a local high school girl, a Sudanese refugee (her aunt was shot and killed while she was holding her as a little girl), who started out learning to write in the sand with her mother (they had no paper or writing utensils – she only owned half a pencil because she gave the other half with the eraser to her brother), and has become a scholar and is receiving a full ride to college and graduate school. A teacher took an interest in her and changed her life.
I’m hungry for good stories, good news about ordinary people. Basic goodness. Hope. Thanks so much, heather.
Here’s a link to the first story about Rmega and Dua:
The Story with Dick Gordon: A New Life In A Foreclosed Home (LINK)
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Bo, which animals do you have in your collection? I had put my fetishes away, too, and just recently ran into the feather container with Frog in it. I was just thinking today how I need to locate the rest of them. I used to have them on an altar in my old apartment. But since moving here, I’ve left much of that in boxes as we don’t have much room.
I was just scoping out a new little ledge on the bookcase though. It might make a good new home. I did purchase a little rabbit for Liz on one of my last trips to Taos. I’m trying to remember — I think it’s pink dolomite. Really fits her. I love learning about the stones and minerals the fetishes are carved out of, many of them local to that area of New Mexico. And I like the more unpolished carvings, those closer to the raw material, the earth.
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My son went away a year ago to live in a homeless shelter in Gallup NM. We dropped him off there. He’s got some indian in him from my side, and an allergy to alcohol on the jewish side, not a good combination.
So as the one-in-a-hundred who wasn’t Native he was pretty crazy and brave to go in there to walk the Good Red Road. He got schooled in the sweat lodges – herbs, prayers and jokes, and lessons in the streets of Drunk Town USA.
If you asked me I might say he was studying indigenous language in a full-immersion course. On full scholarship. It has been a steep trail but he is sober now, at least now.
My friend from Zuni gave me a tiny fetish – I guess that is what it is — a carved speckled granite little frog with red eyes. She said it was protection for me to think of my son when I saw it, and send my love and support with safety.
I forgot about it until I read your post today, I have that tiny frog right on the windowsill over my kitchen sink. It is between the paws of my howling plastic wolf-Coyote, looking at me with little red eyes.
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Amazing, lil. You know how we used the word “sobering”? Well, in this case, literally.
QM, I thought about those kids who blow up frogs or otherwise torment them. Imagine what kind of karmic kick-back that must produce. How sad.
Also, I was struck by how your totems have changed and how you recognize what you’re ready for and when. I mean, with hindsight, and in the present.
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I loved the lush images that came out in your WP. It’s funny how so many people dislike from frogs and toads, and indeed wet weather and storms. And yet if we can find the way to connect to these things, they can be so satisfying. The soul would dry out as fast as the land if we only had sunny days and fluffy animals!
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lil, that’s such a moving story about your son. Thank you for sharing it and your connection to Frog Medicine. I take comfort in all of these connections across the country.
It was the Writing Topic this week that prompted me to remember my little frog and take her out. And now I imagine your little speckled granite frog on your window sill when I look at mine. All connections, like a long prayer chain.
They say it’s best when fetishes come as gifts from another person. I have found that to be true, too. Spiritual gifts from the Universe. As always, I received much from the depth of your comment.
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ybonesy, thanks. Yes, a lot of hindsight goes into learning. But as you say, a connection to the present, too, being in the present moment. The last few weeks I have felt I have needed more cleansing, space, protection around vulnerabilities. It’s good to recognize and connect to people, places, and things that fill me up. I cycle through these times, and then am ready to head out of the shell again. I guess, at heart, I’m always going to be the Cancer crab. 8)
lirone, it’s the truth, isn’t it? We can’t have the sunny days without going through the rainy. I love rainy days. And it’s a good thing because it’s fairly cloudy and rainy in the springs and summers here (not like Seattle though!). It tends to be sunny here in the mornings, followed by afternoon and evening thundershowers. I have found I kind of get used to it!
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