Totem Animals: Frog

Frog

Frog holds the world up from beneath his secret pond. Each fall, frog swallows all the mud he can hold, collecting it with his long, sticky tongue. The mud contains the memories of all life that came before. For the world to continue, frog must remember anew each year. He consumes the mud for several weeks, filling his stomach until it presses all the other organs aside. Just before burrowing deep under the pond floor to hibernate over the winter, frog takes one last gulp of mud, and along with it, a single oyster's pearl. During hibernation, he will digest the mud, taking it into his cells and remembering each plant and animal whose liquefied remains make up his special sustenance. As the days get warmer, and the mud in frog's stomach is gone, all that remains is the pearl. He swims to the surface of the pond, and spits it into the sky where it becomes spring's new moon.