Wise Ways To Happiness

In My Face–An Amazing True Tale of a Close Encounter of the Frog Kind

Posted by George Shears | Filed under Global Crises

I would like to share here an amazing personal story that I think you will agree is stranger than fiction.  In my lifetime repertoire of memorable experiences with the world of Nature, it holds undisputed first place.

When I retired on May 28, 1999 from my 34-year career as a psychologist and psychotherapist, I wasted absolutely no time in returning to my boyhood roots in the north woods of Minnesota; as a matter of fact, we closed on our house in the Twin Cities on that same day and arrived at our new home on Pioneer Lake near Cotton, Minnesota late in the evening with our final trailer load of belongings.

In spite of (or perhaps BECAUSE of) having been city-bound for 41 years, the Call of the Wild beckoned to me relentlessly and evoked a deep longing to be embraced once again, as I was as a child, close to the warm, healing bosom of Mother Nature.

As soon as I opened the door of our truck upon arriving at our new retirement abode, the very first sound I heard was the soulful welcoming yodel of a loon on the lake.  It was truly music to my ears and instantly carried me back to the rich, magical memories of delight from my first seven years of living on a very similar small lake in northern Minnesota.  Any doubts that I may have had about deciding to return to my roots were instantly and permanently dispelled in that validating moment.

During the ensuing days of that first summer on Pioneer Lake, I deeply and mindfully savored the manifold rich delights of living close to nature again and, especially, of communing with the ever-changing moods of “our” beautiful jewel-like lake.  I found it particularly enchanting in the very early mornings when a light mist commonly drifted slowly above its mirror-like surface.  In order to partake of this soul-satisfying ambience, I typically rose with the sun each morning, brewed a cup of tea, and sat in meditative repose on our front porch, drinking in the healing energies of Great Nature with each mindful sip of tea.

As I was preparing to engage in this “holy communion” early one Saturday morning, I remembered something that I’d forgotten to do inside the house.  As I was about to open the screen door, I saw with considerable surprise what I initially thought was a mass of bright green moss on the handle.  I quickly discovered, however, to my much greater surprise that it was a highly unusual creature that I had never seen before.

After capturing it and inspecting it carefully, I concluded that it must be some kind of beautiful, rare toad.  Its color was a deep, bright green—identical to that of the grass on our lawn—and it was less than an inch in length.   Although, as a boy, I was intimately familiar with what I believed were all the toads and frogs that are native to this habitat (and, in fact, collected many of them as pets), I had never before encountered any that even remotely resembled this remarkable specimen.

I was sufficiently impressed, therefore, to get my camera and photograph it before placing it in a large pasteboard box, along with lots of fresh grass that I hoped would help it feel at home.  Since I was home alone at the time, I wanted to keep it so I could show it to my wife, Mildred, and grandson, Zach.  In placing it in this temporary new home, I noticed that it instantly all but disappeared from view due to its color merging with that of the grass.

Although Mildred and Zach seemed to share my enthusiasm about it so some degree, I don’t believe that they were quite as enraptured by the mystery it presented as I was.   In any case, I decided to keep it captive for some time in hopes that someone could help me identify it.

Later in the evening of that day, I went out to our screen house to get something from the auxiliary refrigerator that we had there.  As I was returning and preparing to open our back door, what did to my wondering eyes appear on the handle of THAT screen door, but yet ANOTHER specimen of the identical species of toad (as I continued at that point to believe it was)!

With great excitement I announced this second amazing discovery to Mildred, exclaiming that it seemed unbelievable that—after living for 65 years in these parts without EVER seeing even one of these creatures—TWO of them had presented themselves to me ON THE VERY SAME DAY!  Even more amazingly, that both of them were determined to make sure that I would find them by positioning themselves on the very handle of a screen door that I would open.  Little did I know that this was but a mild prelude for the even more amazing surprise that lay in store for me.

This second mysterious specimen was slightly larger than the first.  I decided that it might enjoy the company of the other member of its clan and thus placed it in the same large box where the first one continued to reside.  I carefully folded the covers of the box securely shut to ensure that these mysterious guests would not escape until I (hopefully) was able to identify them.  I then placed the box in the back entryway of our house

As my bedtime drew near that evening, I continued to ponder the extreme improbability of these two creatures coming into my life on the same day in such a dramatic, unusual and seemingly orchestrated way.  It then occurred to me that I might be able to identify what specific toad species they were by going online, which I promptly did.

In spite of searching exhaustively for toads, however, I was unsuccessful in finding any matches for them.  Then, through another minor miracle, a crack suddenly opened in my narrow-minded cognitive rigidity as the sudden epiphany dawned on me that perhaps they were FROGS, instead of toads.  Duh!!!

Then, almost immediately,  as I did a new search for frogs, I discovered a photo that was a dead ringer for these two new herpetological friends; moreover, as I listened to the sound file that accompanied the photo, I was delightedly surprised to recognize the beautiful song of “Spring Peepers” (Pseudacris crucifer) that had enchanted me regularly every spring throughout my boyhood years and again here on the shores of Pioneer Lake; but never before this day had I actually laid eyes on even one of these reclusive amphibians

The explanation for this auditory familiarity, combined with a complete absence of its visual counterpart, emerged clearly as I continued to read that these small tree frogs are decidedly nocturnal.  This fact, along with their ingenious camouflage, had effectively kept them hidden from my view until–on this special, magical day—two of their highly extraverted representatives had graciously deigned to present themselves quite ostentatiously to my wondering and admiring eyes.

Having achieved this satisfying degree of closure to at least part of the mysterious enigma of their sudden orchestrated appearance, I decided to call it a day and go to bed.

Now In order to help you, the reader, to fully appreciate the next chapter of this amazing saga, I need to mention that we live immediately adjacent to a railroad track that forms the western boundary of our property.  Each day, several freight trains rumble by loudly, shattering the exquisite degree of quietude that otherwise prevails—a highly intrusive and contrasting reminder of the loud, non-natural world we have left behind.

Since there is a railroad crossing about one-quarter mile south of us, the engineers on these trains commonly sound  their ear-splitting air horns just as they’re passing by our house.  Most people—as well as animals and birds in general–who are unaccustomed to this sudden, massive explosion of sound, are strongly startled by it.  This was markedly true for me.  Each time when a train came through during my first few nights of sleeping here, I would suddenly awaken with an overwhelmingly strong sense that the train was coming right straight through our bedroom.   In keeping with the lawful principle of adaptation, however, I very quickly grew so accustomed to these loud intrusions that I would commonly not even wake up to hear them.

So now on with the story:  Sometime around three in the morning, a train came through, shattering the peace and quiet.  I was sleeping on my back at the time.  In retrospect, I’m not quite sure whether its sound actually woke me up; but in any case its loud noise was decidedly secondary to another, much more aversive intrusion—namely, the shocking sensations of something cold, wet and clammy suddenly landing in the middle of my face!

I don’t know how to explain it, but I immediately knew without a shadow of a doubt—even in the dark—that one of my new frog friends had decided to come to bed with me.  As soon as I turned on the light, my intuition was confirmed.  It was, indeed, the larger of the two Spring Peepers.

Now, in order for the reader to fully appreciate the astronomical improbability of this amazing event– on top of the preceding improbabilities, let me describe what this ingenious frog had to do to pull off this amazing feat.  First of all, it must have been a frog Houdini in order to have escaped from the sturdy and tightly sealed pasteboard box where I had placed it.

Following that impressive feat, it then had to find its way through our kitchen, take a right turn, go down a hallway to our bedroom, take another right turn through the door, proceed straight ahead to the foot of our bed, take a left turn, continue to my side of the bed, take another left turn, and continue to the head of the bed.  Then, with the laser focus of a precisely guided Tomahawk missile, it had to make a mighty leap upward for over two feet in the dark in order to land squarely in the middle of my face.

But there’s even more to this unbelievable story.  Mildred was, of course, also rudely awakened by my loud exclamation when the “frog hit the face” so to speak.  She got up and accompanied me into the kitchen.  As I returned Houdini Frog back into his guest room, I discovered that his roommate was also missing.  Mildred then notified me that our cat, Cinnamon, was guarding it in front of our kitchen sink.

While I was rescuing it, Mildred walked into our entryway to check out Houdini.  She suddenly exclaimed, “come and see this—you won’t believe it!  It’s sticking its tongue out at me!”  And, sure enough, that’s exactly what it was doing as I returned the other frog to the box.

I’m extremely glad that I had a highly trusted witness to verify that this entire saga unfolded precisely as I have described it here.  Otherwise, I’m afraid that I may well have concluded that it was all a fantastic dream or that I was the victim of a transient psychotic episode.  In many ways, its high level of implausibility seems to place it in the same league with, say, having witnessed the landing of a UFO, having returned to life after being clinically dead, or some other far out paranormal experience.

Here is some further documentation of this stranger-than-fiction story in the form of a rather poor picture of my two frog friends, taken by a neighbor.  (Unfortunately, I lost some much better photos of them due to a computer crash.)

Apart from its great entertainment value, the main lasting impact of this remarkably weird experience for me has been to repeatedly ponder questions such as these:   What does this mean?  What am I to learn from this experience?   Did these two frogs have some important purpose or intention in coming into my life in this dramatic way?  If so, what was it?

In spite of having reflected on these gnawing questions from time to time over the past eleven years, this strange, close encounter of the frog kind has continued to be as mystifying to me as when it originally occurred.  Over the past couple of weeks (in May, 2011), however, a somewhat plausible explanation has started to gradually unfold for me.

Shortly after the ice went out on our lake on Easter Sunday of this year, after a particularly long and challenging winter, I began to revel in hearing some of the familiar and highly welcome sounds of spring that have brought me great comfort and joy for as long as I can remember.   I’ve always been especially delighted by the  early chirping of the first few courageous frogs in the springtime as they emerge from their winter dormancy in the mud at the bottom of the lake.  Along with the songs of robins and other early migrating birds, these cheery harbingers of spring proclaim lustily that a new season of verdant rebirth is about to burst forth after many monochrome months of dreariness and cold.

Unlike in most previous years, however, this promising early prelude did not lead into the full, rich, deep-throated chorus of many hundreds of frog voices that I eagerly anticipated; rather, they continued to perform—even as the days grew warmer and longer–as a scant few, widely scattered soloists close to the shore of the lake.  Even more disappointing, however, was that the sprightly Spring Peeper section of sopranos was completely missing.  Unbelievably, I have not yet heard even ONE of their pure, sweet voices join into the festive frog chorus thus far this spring.

As they became conspicuous in their absence, I recalled that they were also much less abundant than usual last spring.  I’m also aware that this is in keeping with a massive depopulation of many species of frogs all over the world.

This realization caused me to flash back to my experience with their brazen ancestors eleven years ago.  Through this reflection, I suddenly experienced an “aha” moment.  For the very first time, it occurred to me that these wise ancestors may possibly have been making a desperate appeal to me to help save them—and, perhaps, all of their threatened relatives as well—from becoming extinct.  Even more expansively, I found myself fantasizing that perhaps they were in some way ambassadors of ALL the threatened and endangered species that greedy, deluded humans are wantonly destroying all over the planet.

In just the last week, this seemingly preposterous hypothesis has grown somewhat stronger through my reading an exquisitely crafted book by Stephen Harrod Buhner, entitled The Secret Teachings of Plants.  Buhner, who seems to be around my age, is a master herbalist who has devoted his entire adult life in developing deep, intimate relationships with all manner of plants as a means of gaining knowledge of their profound healing potential.

In describing this intuitive, heart-based pathway to deep knowing, Buhner sets forth the thesis that the human heart– far beyond being just a pump–is actually the locus of the most important part of our nervous system.  He holds that by patiently and persistently developing this heart/mind, we are actually able to merge with the electromagnetic, informational fields of all other life forms and thereby directly communicate with them.  He posits that it is through this direct knowing that all of the indigenous peoples of the world have come to understand and accumulate a highly sophisticated body of knowledge about the unique healing powers of plants.

He points out, however, that in order to develop a deeply intimate relationship with any plant, it’s crucially necessary to convey unconditional love and respect to it from one’s heart; moreover, in order to receive the reciprocal healing wisdom it has to impart, one must transmit a sincere and respectful request for its healing assistance.

Although his focus is predominantly on plants, he makes it clear that this same kind of direct knowing and communication can be developed vis-à-vis ALL life forms.  As I’ve progressively immersed myself in this delightful book and the gentle wisdom it imparts, I have gradually begun to develop a tentative hypothesis that may possibly offer a way to understand my visitation from the Spring Peepers in 1999.

In terms of Stephen Buhner’s heart-based communicational paradigm, I’ve realized that through my mindful and heartfelt devotion in listening to their ongoing choral presentations in the days prior to their visitation, I may have unwittingly developed a deep informational resonance to their electromagnetic fields.  Instead of me calling out to THEM for assistance, however, as Buhner does with plants, perhaps they were calling out to me; and having sensed my loving respect and deep receptivity, could it be that they were drawn to me in order to meet an important instinctual need—namely the need for protection and survival.  Might it even be that their literally “getting in my face” could be understood as a kind of determined “empowerment” to mobilize and urge me in doing my utmost to protect them—as well as the rest of the biosphere within which we and they are seamlessly embedded.

As outlandishly fanciful as this interpretation may seem, I have yet to come up with a more intuitively satisfying way to understand my “one night stand” with these exquisitely beautiful creatures.  I might add–whether or not it’s a valid interpretation—that I know for sure that during the intervening years since that encounter, I have experienced an increasingly passionate and compelling inner drive to do everything possible to help reverse the tragic destruction of the biosphere that has been perpetrated by humanity.

This seemingly bizarre interpretation is also in keeping with the famous “confusion technique,” that was devised by Dr. Milton Erickson, who is widely recognized as the greatest hypnotherapist of the 20^Th century—and who is also on my short list of psychology heroes.  He discovered early in his career that he could put people into a deep hypnotic trance simply by eliciting a state of confusion in them while simultaneously offering a skillfully delivered suggestion; and, most commonly, the subject of this maneuver would then carry out the suggestion with no awareness of what had happened.

In any case, I think Milton would be very favorably impressed with the hypnotherapeutic skill of his herpetological counterpart.  Perhaps even my writing of this article can be understood as resulting from the post-hypnotic suggestion that was instilled in me through its precise implementation of his confusion technique.

Sadly, however, in spite of its highly artful implementation by these local frog emissaries, their descendants may have become victims of whatever environmental toxins that are contributing to decreasing frog populations all over the world.  I earnestly hope, however, that through the sharing of this amazing story, their heroic mission will not have been completely in vain.

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Tagged : amphibians, frog, hypnosis, milton erickson, mother nature, Nature, spring peepers, tree frog, tree frogs

Comments (2) | June 5th, 2011