Can toads/frogs be a totem animal?

Question

I'm a pagan and lately I've been seeing frogs/toads. If they're totems, what are their strengths?

Answer 1

This depends, but here are some associations:

(1) Frogs can be associated with the mysteries of childbirth and fertility. The ancient Egyptian goddess of childbirth and midwifery, Heket, was a woman with a frog's head. The frog's head reminded Egyptians of the flooding of the Nile each summer in the Dog Days, which is the basis of the fertility of the Nile valley. (The Exodus narrative of the Ten Plagues of Egypt parodies ten prominent Egyptian deities with plagues, and the Plague of Frogs parodies Heket.) Ancient Egyptian women attempting to conceive often wore amulets or talismans with the figure of a frog on it. Similarly, among Mesoamerican cultures such as the Olmec, the goddess Ceneotl, a frog-woman, is the patron goddess of childbirth and fertility also. The frog as an ancient fertility and childbirth symbol appears in other cultures as well; the fertility associations of the frog were related in part to the prolific character of amphibian reproduction.

(2) Frogs and toads may both be associated with healing, particularly magical healing and transformation. The frog appears in numerous European folktales (most notably "The Frog Prince") as the bearer of a magical curse of transformation that requires healing. This is derived from earlier myths in which the frog or toad is the mythic symbol of magical transformation and healing; this is also the derivation of the importance of the frog in folktales about witches' cauldrons.

(3) Cycles of death and rebirth are other associations with the toad. The Aztecs represented the Earth Mother in her Death aspect as Tlaltecuhtli, Toad-Woman. The ancient world often understood the mysterious transformation of the tadpole into the adult frog or toad as symbolic of the transmogrification of the soul from a living form to a dead form to a new living form.

(4) Frogs and toads appear universally in many cultures' mythologies as symbols of the element of Water. Obviously, their amphibian character makes them an ideal symbol of the Watery Part of Earth.

So, here are some possibilities:
--healing
--fertility & the birth-mysteries
--self-transformation
--Water

These are rooted in conventionalized, mythic, allusive meanings of the frog or toad as archetypes. But there is also always room for your personal associations of this animal with a particular aspect of your experience to be foregrounded; such is the nature of totem animal work. What does the frog or toad mean to you?

Hope this helps. The frog is a sacred symbol for many Neo-Pagan practitioners; this is a very legitimate sacred totem for your own spiritual practice.

Blessed be.

Answer 2

Toad Animal Totem

Answer 3

yes in my totem i have a frog and in my old man's totem he has a toad.

strange isn't it?

i also have a dragon and lizard and a cockerspaniel.

awww.

Answer 4

There is one in particular that can totally shut down it's body... no heart beat at all... and it actually freezes over the winter and comes back to life in the spring... great metaphor for someone who is resilient, don't you think?

Answer 5

ask the owners of the totem...

Answer 6

Yeah, maybe your power animal.