Kissing Frogs & Creating Princes

You may have to kiss a lot of frogs before
you find your handsome prince.

Even though some frogs look a little green and slimy, there really is something irresistible about these wonderful amphibians!  Really, think about it - are you ever neutral when you encounter a frog and they spring out hippity-hop across your feet on the yard? When you see one of these fabulous brothers or sisters, it brings an instant feeling of happiness, energy, and smiles.  I've never kissed one (yet), but sometimes I'm tempted to just to see what might happen.

Years ago when working with the American Indian community in Dallas, one of the Muskogee Creek elders instructed me about frogs,  "When I was a boy, my grandpa used to tell me not to bother the frogs that would come up in his little garden."  When I asked why, the elder said, "He would just smile and say - 'they talk to me and tell me things.'"  I always like to tell that story because it tells me that the respected role of the legendary shaman-magician-blessing granting frog can be found in many traditions and cultures.

The story of a beautiful maiden or princess kissing a frog, undoing his curse, and restoring him back to a prince again is of course very common in mythology and folklore. We've all heard stories like that growing up and seen Disney movies based on that lovable theme.

I saw a frog in my back yard last night and watched with amusement as our little grand-doggie Sophie the schnauzer excitedly followed him around, jumping back every time the frog jumped!  I felt, as the Creek elder shared, that maybe the frog had come "to tell me things." So, I started remembering stories about Princesses kissing frogs and them turning into Princes. Yeah, maybe that frog was telling me something after all.

I did a little research on "frogs" and found that different cultures have revered them as symbols of:

• Luck
• Purity
• Rebirth
• Renewal
• Fertility
• Healing
• Metamorphosis
• Transitions
• Dreaming
• Opportunity
• Intermediary

Wow, not bad for our little green, living-in-two-worlds amphibian friends. I refreshed myself on the idea of "metamorphosis" and "transitions" in relation to frogs and found that their distinct life cycles mirror ours in a lot of ways - "egg"  "tadpole"  "metamorph" (in-between) and "frog."  And since frogs can live comfortably in "two worlds" - land and water - they are a symbol for a stage of development in which we are balanced between our physical and spiritual selves.  They can also symbolize the "shaman" - the medicine person who has the ability to travel between the worlds as an intermediary or shape shifter. Little creatures CAN be powerful, my American Indian mentors taught me.

Then, I went back and pulled up the most common version of the old Grimm fairy tale and read it again:

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/FrogPrin.shtml

So, here we have the beautiful young princess strolling out at night with her golden ball (or pearl) when she accidentally drops it into a pond of water. Weeping bitterly, she sits down by the water. Up pops the healing-medicine amphibian who informs her that he will be happy to retrieve the ball  - BUT ... with one condition. If she will let him "sleep with her" and eat off her golden plate, he will gladly remedy her loss. The Princess, thinking probably, "fine - whatever," sits back and to her surprise sees the froggy friend bring up her lost treasure from the water. She takes it and leaves, thinking to disrespect the sacred frog and with no intent to fulfill her bargain with him.

Nature & Karma Always Find Us: 

Froggy comes a' callin'

The next day, a knock at the Princess' door:

     'Open the door, my princess dear,
     Open the door to thy true love here!
     And mind the words that thou and I said
     By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.'

The persistent amphibian-prince-in-disguise is persistent and she finally fulfills her vow and he sleeps with her for three nights. This not so subtle allusion to sexuality relates to frog symbolism pertaining to fertility, dreaming, and rebirth.  I also like to think of this part of the story as a reminder to we nature-deprived modern types that like the Princess, until we re-learn to kiss, love, and embrace nature and understand that we are not really above and superior to the Earth Mother and all her creatures, we shall all be like the initially shunned and judged frog, having to come calling to remind others of our common Earth bond.

After the third night at Dawn, the Princess awakes to find not the frog but a handsome Prince lying next to her! He explains that her actions have resulted in the breaking of an evil charm that turned him into a frog.  Now, the two are married and ride off in a horse-drawn carriage to live happily ever after in his father's kingdom.

Blessings of the Frog: This wonderful story has rich meaning spiritually. When losses come, we all go through a grieving process and feel the incompleteness left by that lost loved one or that lost important aspect of our life. It is a time of transition. The ways things have been have been good, but now they're not working so good - a change is needed.  Water and water creatures symbolize the cleansing of our wounds, the need for healing, and the ability to change and transform ourselves and keep growing.

Sometimes at a time like that, I have seen a "frog-like" person come into my life - someone you would consider unlikely to be able to help you.  The fairy tale teaches otherwise.  Sometimes people who are dismissed or under-valued are the very ones with the most to offer.  Our culture is majorly enamored with physical beauty and the importance of looks and eternal youth.  The patriarchal elements of our corporate culture have created a pseudo-waif-princess-model standard for women that is unhealthy, unbalanced, and sometimes tragic. We unfortunately start early on doing a demolition job on the self esteem of women in this culture.

Who's Laughing Now?  I like to think of the frog character in these stories as a medicine man - a magic, blessing carrying being who is deemed ugly sometimes, but as a result has the power to ignore the silly, false models of female beauty presented by the media.  The frog can be a "Trickster" as in American Indian culture - a powerful and beneficial counter-hero who teaches us to laugh at ourselves.  Like the Muskogee elder taught me - "they tell us things" - they help us see how our eternal pursuit of physical beauty is ridiculous and perhaps begin to move toward a greater awareness that our physical bodies and life on the planet is TEMPORARY.

So, the frog is right. He really IS a prince! Its all about metamorphosis.  Its about learning to be fertile and believe in the power of our self to change, grow, and turn into something more than others or even we thought we could. 

GO AHEAD AND KISS THE FROG...  A GOOD CHANGE IS ON THE WAY!

Keith Overstreet   November 4, 2010