Rana
catesbeiana o. Lithobates catesbeianus = Bullfrog/= Ochsenfrosch
Vergleich: Siehe: Amphibia
[Roland H. Guenther]
The Bullfrog: a C4 trituration experience
In November 2014, I met with students and teachers of the Northwestern
Academy of Homeopathy in Minneapolis to do a C4-trituration of a bullfrog (Rana
catesbeiana, lately sometimes classified as Lithobates catesbeianus). We were
thirteen gathered to go on this adventure, myself being the only male
participant. Three of us knew about
the nature of the substance we were going to triturate; the others did
not. Grinding down a substance with mortar and pestle is an ancient act which
healers of all cultures
all over the world have performed for thousands of years. In
pharmaceutical terms, this is called a trituration. When we use milk sugar as
carrier substance and follow a
specific sequence of grinding, scraping, and diluting, this is called a
homeopathic trituration. In the past, triturations were thought to be merely a
mechanical process necessary to prepare a remedy. However, this is not the
case. In grinding down a tiny bit of a substance, which might be of mineral,
plant, or animal origin, we set free the energy held
by that particular substance. This creates an energy field vibrating in
the room. Now we resonate with that field. This process is called a
C4-trituration. During the 20 years
of immersing myself in these exciting experiences, my personal style
evolved. I call them Shameeah. A Shameeah is a sacred ceremony of communion
with nature, the mechanics of which come from homeopathy.
The transformation taking place during the process is alchemical in
nature, and the ceremonial aspect comes from the wisdom of indigenous peoples.
Where homeopathy, alchemy and shamanism meet, this is where I am at home. Let
me take you with me on the journey into the world that arises, when bullfrog
and humans meet on an energetic level. In quotation marks you find the exact
expressions of what the participants experienced.
Some interesting sensations came up on the physical level. Throughout
the experience we felt chilly. “My nose is cold” - “The right side of my body
feels cold.” - “Ice cold thighs and a hot face”.
One participant felt that her fingers and toes were very much elongated;
she had the feeling to touch her neighbour with her toes even though they were
still far apart.
“My tongue is getting restless and feels bigger than usual. I am licking
my lips with a sensual feeling.” - “My tongue feels coated with mucous.” Salivation was common
in the group. ”My jaw is tense as if I am ready to bite.” - “My whole
body is getting more flabby, especially my sternum loses its stability, it
feels as if it could bend.
I am crouching, slumping down in my seat.” - “I need to pee but don't feel like getting
up. Why do we make it so complicated instead of just letting it run?” It
expressed
a vague feeling that we are dealing with a more primitive energy.
Several of us felt nauseous, “I could vomit” and “as if I was pregnant”. This
later became a sense of disgust.
Several times participants mentioned to be attracted to bright colors
(yellow). Symptoms showed up that we know to be general for all animals. “I
feel territorial. This is my spot, my tea, my chair! Stay away.” Or the
tendency to compare oneself with others, leading to jealousy. “What do the
others have that I don't?”
Imagine a girl playing innocently in a beautiful landscape. The sun is
shining, she feels calm and strong, no worries. “I am content with things.” She
is longing for someone
to hold her. “I want to be held, to be caressed.” - “I am looking for my
mother.” - “I am a little girl soaking up the sun. I want to sleep like on a
lazy summer day.”
One participant indulges in innocent sexual fantasies. “I have a
sensual, erotic desire of melting into each other.” She was drawing a doodle in
which the fish she was intending to draw looked almost like sperms, and a bunch
of round balls seemed to be “eggs in the womb”. Later, when she learned that
she had triturated bullfrog, she discovered that the sperm-like fish looked
like tadpoles and the “eggs in the womb” closely resembled a batch of frog
eggs.
At the same time many women felt a desire for mothering and caring. Both
the longing to be cared for and the desire to care had an undertone of sadness.
“I feel a deep sadness and empathy. I want to help my boyfriend, I want to help
my cat.” - “I felt an incredible tenderness. This (showing the mortar she was
grinding in), this is my baby.
I want to caress it, to rock it, to hum lullabies to it. Then I felt a
wanting to be held, wanting to be caressed.” - “I am having a huge grief,
sadness, tears and loss.”
Into this tender yearning for physical comfort quite a different energy
burst in with a shock.
“I feel like a sexual predator. 'Ha, I'll get
you! I do not care who you are, I do
not care what you want or how you feel. I want you and I'll get you.' It
feels like a very physical desire. The desire to swallow something, to devour
and a sexual lust exist
at the same time or even are the same. 'I'm gonna get you, no matter
how.' This you is almost exchangeable, it is whoever attracts my attention. But
once this attention is attracted, then I am totally focused, it is as if I attach
a slimy sticker on her saying: 'It's you that
I want.' I feel fat, like having a large body, a big belly. There is a
total shamelessness. It is as if my craving for someone attracts her. This
craving is insatiable. I could eat and eat and still have the same lust for
more. At the same time I feel like lurking, waiting for my chance. There is no
drive for activity. It's the feeling: 'I'll get you. I simply wait
for my chance.' This waiting is not a hidden waiting in the shadow. I
feel bold, openly visible. I see obese men in suits, a cigar in their broad
mouth, belly hanging out, shirt open. Broad, primitive faces, a broad grin in
their faces. 'I'll get what I want.' What is it that I want? Money, jewlery, a
Mercedes, sex. There is not the least sensitivity for others, no empathy. 'If
I'll buy women, trap them, drug them, surprise them, it doesn't matter. I'll
get them'. “I saw myself opening the legs of a woman, pressing my thumbs into
her thighs. I know what I want, I only see that; otherwise I am completely
empty and unfeeling. Penetrating without empathy. I want to penetrate,
so I do it. There is no anger, no violence, no vengeance. I simply want
it, so I do it. I feel numbed, walled off towards any other feelings or
influences.” A participant dreamed that a man was wrestling her from behind. It
is clearly a frog dream as a male frog embraces the female from behind during
mating.
“I am completely fearless. It is not bravery. I do not care nor worry.
This fearlessness feels like: Fuck you! Very unsophisticated.”
“I hear the song: 'Money, money, money makes the world go round'. I see
people dancing around to the music putting golden coins into bras of women and
underpants of men. It is about gluttony, indulgence and debauchery, totally
unrefined.”
“I do not feel any remorse. There is not any feeling that there could be
something wrong with satisfying my craving in any way possible. I even feel
attracted to an easy prey, to an unsuspecting girl, to a sad woman in an
unhappy marriage yearning to be loved. I would give them alcohol or drugs. It
makes things easier. Connection? I do not feel connected, for sure not to
women, maybe to buddies who are in the same game. When I'm through with one,
move her aside, get her out of my sight. Like after a meal, get
the dirty dishes away. I do not have the least moral feelings. None. It
is as if this part of my brain is missing. I do not have the feeling that I
could learn or wake up.
Even if I would have to face a woman in pain who got hurt, I would not
have any feelings. What a drag! It is disgusting! Get her out of my way! Do you
keep staring at
a half eaten pie that starts rotting? Get a new one. There are enough of
them!”
Dirty sex and child abuse came up.
Footnote: the expression “Dirty sex”
is a very accurate description of what is going on here. There was no
mentioning of violence or rape, as is the case in remedies like Bufo, Anas
platyrhynchos or Lyssinum. Research shows also that even though
Bullfrogs have a very intense and compared to other amphibians exceptionally
long lasting breeding season, mating only occurs when the female had signaled
its consent. This is quite in contrast to the toad Bufo bufo. The expression
'Get her out of my way, make room for another one' might be a pretty accurate
translation of the biology into human terms as male bullfrogs have a breeding
season of three months, the females are receptive for mating only for one
night, then breeding season is over for them.
Images connected to the source came up. “I have an image of mud
wrestling, of rolling in the mud. Then Jabba the Hutt comes up from Star Wars.
Things should be easy and not hard work.”
The joy and the complacent feeling of safety and calm, the desire for
caring and being cared for turns more and more into deep, “piercing” sadness.
“I feel lost and alone.” –
“I curl up like an armadillo.” - “I am sad, quiet, dark and empty. I
want to be consoled but at the same time I do not want to be consoled.” - “I
need to hide. I do not feel
safe anymore.” - “I felt joy and now I am sick. I had an innocent desire
and now I am pregnant.” - “I had been trapped.”
It was hard to recognize and almost painful to acknowledge that both
sides, the credulous girl / the caring woman and the primitive sex predator are
two sides of the same energy, both representing a pathological state. One
cannot exist without the other one. Both in the end will require the same
remedy.
A sensation as if drugged came up. “My forehead is numb, as if
paralyzed. I don't care anymore, I should care but I don't.” - “I am thinking about cocaine.” - “I would
give alcohol or drugs to my victims. It makes things easier.”
Perception seems to be distorted or deluded. “What's in the bowl smells
like perfume.” It actually had a disgusting smell. “I follow a beautiful snake
into a forest with bright colors. The snake disappears and I am alone in
beautiful nature.” Are these statements expressions of the theme of being
drugged?
A conflict was obvious. “I want to be noticed but then want to hide. I
want sexual attention but then I do not feel safe. Be careful, men can hurt
you. But I want to say yes
to life, yes to everything.”
Irritability starts to rise. “I feel impatient and irritated. Stop
making this noise!” - “I am getting angry. I want to throw something against
the wall, smash it. Fuck it, I had enough! I am so sick of it. A little later I
want to be totally passive, want every inch of my body to be massaged.” - “I
want to bite people, want to bite a junk out of their legs. It feels great!” In
a dream a participant had “strapped a man to a board and cut him open alive
with great joy and delight.” I was deeply touched as it reminded me that I had
been doing similar experiments with frogs in the beginning of medical school, a
memory that keeps haunting me and fills me with great sadness. The same evening
a friend of mine, a seasoned veterinarian, wrote in an email that “I had to do
horrific anatomy and neurology experiments on frogs in my first year at vet
school; I will carry that torturing memory with me for ever!” Once more a cold
and unfeeling way of hurting others showed up as was also the case in the
following dream: “Aliens treated us as if we were bugs that needed to be
eradicated. They did not have any empathy with us, they just beamed us down
with their weapons.”
After the whole drama had been laid out, after all the pain had been
felt and expressed, we started to understand. Some of us felt like trapped,
like cursed, caught in a body,
in a role that was both not their own and at the same time they felt
completely helpless in that situation. “It feels like a punishment, like being
cursed. As if I had been condemned to an existence of a very primitive being,
of something that I am not. There is no chance that I can help myself because in
this state, I cannot even see that I am
in a prison. I cannot see my ugliness, I am completely in a delusion. I
feel completely helpless, completely hopeless. I can only hope for someone to
help me from the outside, for someone who sees through the guise, who
recognizes who I truly am. Or someone who destroys me, kills me, destroys
completely this shell I am caught in. I feel utmost dependent on a miracle, on
something that is very unlikely to happen. Because I would soil, I would hurt
or even ruin everyone who tries to come close to me.”
“How do I get out of it?” That was the question we asked.
We were hungry for clarity, craving to understand what's going on here.
“I have a desire for purity and innocence. The bowls have a muddy sound, I want
them to be clear.”
Simultaneously four participants saw that we are carrying masks here,
that we are engaged in a role that is not who we truly are.
“I saw masks, Halloween masks and I get a giddy, bubbly feeling of
apprehension like going for a party in my 20ies.”
“I am wearing a mask and I am oozing across the land. I am getting a
head pressure because this mask becomes too tight, so I am getting foggy, dull,
sleepy. I am trapped inside and I can't get out.”
“I am Kali now, sheer blood lust. I want to destroy everything.” And
then a while later: “I take off the Kali mask, I am a woman again. Now what?”
“I saw a group of people with scary masks on and one by one they took them off.
There was a completely different face underneath, like cherubs, these angelic,
innocent, beaming faces, innocent and pure. They look so convincing, these
masks. One with lips like as if to kiss came really close, I was a bit scared,
they were not like romantic lips, they were scary. Those lips were coming
closer and closer and closer, and I had all these feelings of getting away and
just in that moment, the mask comes up and underneath there was a face that was
very sweet, innocent, pure and light. It was a golden yellow, warm light. One
pure kiss would be needed to transform it all.”
We had a lot of similarities in our story with the fairy tale of the
Frog King. The innocent princess playing in a peaceful place in nature, the
frog showing up, a lady being
so upset that she wants to smash something against the wall, the frog
being in reality a cursed prince. Still, the bullfrog story does not quite
follow the script of the fairy tale.
A major difference is in the way transformation happens.
Even though we all had degrees of anger leading even to cold blooded
cruelty, no one felt that this would lead to transformation. Anger and
aggression surely was a part
of the process, maybe even a necessary one, yet it did not end the
curse; it could not remove the masks and bring forth the pure truth. It is one
pure kiss that is needed.
One pure kiss has the power to break the spell, to remove the masks we
are wearing and to bring forth the pure, innocent and shining truth of the
cursed being who had to
wear the mask. Getting angry and violent could lead to the princess
taking off her mask also and becoming real. Now that there was violence and
abuse on both sides, the conditions are met for seeing each other's truth. Only
then can the one pure kiss happen, this one pure kiss that ends the masquerade,
that re-establishes the transformational power of love.
At the same time as this solution showed up the visions of the source
became clearer. “I am on a river bank, the birds are singing, the sun is
shining, the water is flowing by.” This sounds like the description of a
bullfrog habitat; it is exactly what a bullfrog would experience basking on a
stone by a river. “A snake is oozing across the land. No, I am not a snake.” -
“I see frogs and lizards.”
This was the first day of our trituration. At this time (C1, C2 and C3
had been completed), the participants told that they had been experiencing the
energy of the bullfrog.
In the morning of the second day, we shared our dreams. The dreams with
frog themes had already been mentioned above. We went to triturate a fourth
hour, the C4 level.
In the C4-level we usually find completion of a problem, we touch the
spiritual level and often can feel the sacredness and wisdom which is in the
core of every natural substance, in every mineral, plant and animal. This is
something that is hard to express in words, it truly has to be experienced. For
homeopaths it might be mentioned, that
C4 usually is not part of the remedy picture anymore. It is not what we
prescribe on, it is the solution.
“The nausea is gone.” - “It feels
like a deep integration.” “I let the pieces come together now. I can look at my
own traumatic experiences now with a detached but compassionate feeling.”
“I had gathered all instincts. With those in place I reached a new level
of completion. Now it is possible to leap forward, to make more than a big
step, to truly leap into
the future.” “It was beautiful. I was waiting for the anger but I found
stillness. The pressure that I had felt in my head before, was released. I
could see the divine in the bullfrog. All judgment was wiped away.”
In the end, we were grateful for this adventure even though it surely
was challenging to allow all the painful or embarrassing feelings and to
express them. We thanked each other; we thanked the bullfrog.
I want to express my deepest gratitude to the participants who dared to
go into unknown territory, who had the courage to face pain and who had the
trust to go the path all the way until they reached healing. May this remedy be
a blessing for many people who had been traumatized or abused in a cold
unfeeling way as we experienced it here. It is an honor to go through a painful
process until the healing is reached, it is a privilege to pass it on and to
support others in their healing. I want to thank the leadership of the
Northwestern Academy of Homeopathy in Minneapolis for the opportunity they
provide for the students, to experience a remedy inside out, to experience the
intensity and clarity of the process of a C4-trituration and the miracle of
transformation of pain into a gift. This is truly a gift for every student to
know that solutions are found in the core of a problem and not somewhere else.
May we learn from triturations how to make a sacred ceremony of the problems we
face in our lives, to cherish them as mysterious questions waiting to be loved
until the answer shows up.
1. The male bullfrog
has a bright yellow throat, which it shows to attract females.
2. This is an
interesting detail. The thumbs are in some amphibians very important during sex.
In some toads they have so called nuptial pads during mating season. These are
dark and rough swellings that help the male to have a solid grip on the
slippery skin of the female during the amplexus which is the embrace of the
female from behind. In that position the toad males really press their thumb
very forcefully into the soft body of the female toad. Bullfrogs do not have
this feature of nuptial pads.
That it still shows up here might be evidence that in homeopathy the
importance of the thumb could be a symptom of the whole class of amphibians).
3. Some of the most
poisonous creatures on earth are amphibians. The native Rough Skinned Newt is
one of the most poisonous animals in North America, deadly poisonous. Many
toads, frogs and salamanders have poison glands in their skin, some are even
hallucinogenic. So the drug theme is not far away. The connection to cocaine
is also interesting, as under the influence of cocaine people experience
the perfection of physical sexuality without having to deal with any emotional
problems.
4. Native tradition:
this is frog medicine. The frog is the teacher of taking a leap, of daring to
jump even from a place from which you cannot see where you might be landing. It
is a leap of faith.
Vorwort/Suchen Zeichen/Abkürzungen Impressum