The Frog Return Moon — Stone n°17 in Sun Bear's Medicine WheelFrom April 20 to May 20

Beside a Provençal pond, in the memory of a May night, the frogs sang their prayer to spring. It is from this place, so charged with the invisible, that I wanted to speak to you of the Frog Return Moon, the seventeenth stone in Sun Bear's Medicine Wheel. A moon of purification and discernment, that invites us to build with patience and vision, to distinguish what truly nourishes us from what slowly drains us, and to seek, in the right gesture of everyday life, our own illumination.

The frogs’ song

A Place Between Two Worlds

This Frog Return Moon reminds me of a place in Provence that I particularly love. The Moulin de Gémenos.

It sits on the road that climbs toward the Sainte-Baume, at the edge of a forest that is no ordinary forest. The forest of Saint-Pons. Where the familiar Provençal garrigue suddenly gives way to something unexpected, almost Nordic — beeches, hornbeams, towering linden trees, maples, century-old yews. Species you would never expect to find beneath this southern sky. The mountain shelters this valley and creates a world apart, suspended between two climates, two times.

It is an exception. The locals know it. The trees too, it seems.

At the heart of this forest flows the Fauge. A stream of rare purity whose source never runs dry. Even in the height of summer, when everything around it withers, it continues. Constant, discreet, faithful. Cistercian nuns of the 13th century laid their stones along its banks, as if they too had sensed something.

And above all of this, the Sainte-Baume watches over. In its cliff face lies the cave of Mary Magdalene, a sacred forest long before her time. The ancient Greeks of Marseille already honored Artemis here, goddess of the feminine. Mary Magdalene did not arrive by chance. She came to join something that was already there.

There are places where the invisible is closer. Gémenos is one of them.

My companion and I stayed there several times, beside the water, in communion with nature. And in this season, at dusk, when the world finally settled, they would begin.

The frogs.

A song at first discreet. One voice. Then two. Then dozens, rising from the reeds, from the dark waters, from the invisible. A prayer lifting into the warm night.

"Winter has finished its work. We celebrate spring. It hears us. It unfolds."

The light on the water. The motionless willows. The Fauge murmuring in the darkness, faithful, inexhaustible. Here the cycles are not concepts. They are seen. They are heard. They are lived.

It is the memory of this place that I wanted to share as I speak to you of this moon.

The Frog Return Moon in Sun Bear's Medicine Wheel

The Frog Return Moon in Sun Bear's Medicine Wheel is the seventeenth stone of the wheel. It spans from April 20 to May 20.

It is the second moon of Wabun, Guardian of the East, direction of awakening, renewal, and the light that opens our eyes after the long sleep. But where the first moon of Wabun, the Red-tailed Hawk moon, carried the momentum of the first breath of spring, the one that rises and leaps forward, this one is slower. More earthly. More grounded.

It calls us toward the concrete and toward commitment sustained over time. It invites us to move forward step by step, with solidity and discernment, remaining connected to reality.

It rises from the mud.

It comes from the awakening waters, from the depths where something has waited in silence all winter long. And it sings.

Sun Bear tells us that this moon encourages us to seek whatever spiritual illumination we can find. Mary Magdalene chose thirty years of silence in the cliff face of the Sainte-Baume. A radical and absolute way of answering that call.

For us, it is in the everyday that this moon invites us to find our own. In the right gesture. In the way we prepare the ground before sowing. In the quality of presence we bring to what we build.

This is a moon of conscious action. Of transition between desire and act.

The Medicine of the Frog

The frog is a creature of two worlds.

She is born in water, breathes beneath the surface, and one day she transforms and comes to live in the open air. She belongs fully to neither one nor the other. She is the living bridge between the depths and the sky. Her medicine is that of purification.

In many traditions, she is guardian of the waters, messenger of the rains, ally of all great transformations. To call the frog is to call the rains that cleanse, that fertilize, that bring to life what lay as seed beneath the cold earth.

She also teaches us something very subtle: the capacity to live in two states at once. In what we are leaving and in what we are becoming. In the water of the past and in the air of what is opening.

Is that not exactly where we are right now?

The winds of March have shaken everything. The momentum of the Red-tailed Hawk set us in motion. And now, in this turned soil, still damp, still tender, something seeks to break through.

The frog sings to call it forth.

Like the Fauge that flows without ever stopping, even when no one is watching, there is something within us that continues. That waits. That knows the moment will come.

This moon asks us to trust it.

The water that never runs dry

The Allies of This Moon

Every moon in the Medicine Wheel offers us companions for the journey. For this Frog Return Moon, four allies walk beside us.

The Beaver is the totem animal of this period. Patient, ingenious, tireless builder — and the native peoples also call him the dream builder, for he holds the vision of what he will create before he begins. He does not build in urgency or in the burning enthusiasm of a beginner. He builds over time, branch by branch, with a deep understanding of what he needs to carry him through the seasons ahead. He does not wonder whether his work will be admired. He builds it because it is necessary.

What am I truly building? And are my foundations solid?

Chrysocolla is the stone of this moon. Soft, blue-green, like the water of the Fauge in spring. This deep and quiet blue that marries sky and water, the visible and the invisible.

The color blue of this moon. This color radiates feelings of peace, happiness and subtle energy. Having this blue close to you will help you find joy in what surrounds you, feel satisfied with your emotional life, and live in harmony, savoring the happiness that life brings.

The Blue Camas is the medicine plant. This beautiful wild flower of the lily family, in a deep and generous blue, was a staple food for many Native American peoples — a giver of life, they said. It nourishes both body and soul in those who know how to recognize it. But it also carries a teaching of discernment: a neighboring plant, almost indistinguishable from it, is mortally toxic. Nature poses here a simple and radical question.

Not everything that resembles nourishment is nourishment.

Knowing how to distinguish what truly feeds us from what slowly poisons us — in what we eat, in what we watch, in what we listen to, in the bonds we maintain. This is one of the most precious wisdoms this moon invites us to practice.

And you — what are you continuing to absorb that no longer nourishes you?

Let these questions work within you. They have their own rhythm.

The allies

The Shadow of This Moon

The beaver is an admirable dream builder. He sees before he builds. He holds the vision and moves forward, branch by branch, without losing heart.

But he can also become imprisoned in that vision. Unable to see beyond what he has imagined. Confusing constancy with rigidity. Stability with immobility.

This moon carries within it an invitation to look honestly.

Am I building with vision and constancy — or am I clinging to a way of doing things that no longer lets anything in?

Am I seeking stability — or am I hiding in comfort to avoid having to change?

And these emotions I keep buried beneath the work, beneath the projects, beneath the agitation of doing — what would they say if I gave them a little space?

The frog keeps nothing in silence. She sings everything she carries.

There is also in this moon a notion I particularly love — that of luck. Not the luck that falls from the sky, but the kind that emerges naturally from aligned work. When what we build comes from the right place within us, when the gesture is just and the intention pure, something begins to coincide. The right encounters arrive. Doors open without having to be forced.

Luck, in this moon, has the taste of the Fauge. It does not run dry. But it asks that we remain aligned in order to keep receiving it.

It is when we have done this inner work honestly, without sparing ourselves, that we can truly receive what spring offers. And what it offers is breathtaking.

What This Moon Asks of Us

There is this moment of spring that we often miss because it passes too quickly.

These first leaves of such a tender, luminous green, almost transparent in the light. Fragile. New. Not quite fully here yet.

It is not yet the leaf. It is the promise of the leaf.

We are there.

And it is precisely there that everything begins.

Because witnessing what blooms is not enough. We must know how to accompany what is emerging. To accompany it. To build around it the space it needs to last. Like the beaver who does not yield to impatience. Like the Fauge that forces nothing and yet never stops.

This moon invites us to prepare the garden of our lives — not as a list of tasks, but as the gardener who knows that spring cannot be forced. It is sustained. It is protected. It is watched over as it grows.

And behind every gesture, it poses this question:

Does what I am building come from fear, from the need to be seen — or from something deeper, more silent, more true?

The promise of spring

Practices to Honor This Moon

Listen to the waters. If you have access to a lake, a river, a pond or a simple stream, take the time to stop there. Not to do anything. To listen. Water has much to say right now. And if frogs make themselves heard, let their song move through you. Do not analyze it. Receive it.

The Camas journal. Take a moment to write with this double question: what am I continuing to absorb — in my food, my relationships, my habits, the information I consume — that harms me without my having truly chosen it? And on the other side: what truly nourishes me, deeply, and to which I do not give enough space?

Prepare your inner garden. Concretely or symbolically — plant something. A seed in the earth, an intention in your journal, a project you have been carrying too long without giving it soil. The gesture is the prayer.

A simple ritual with water. Fill a bowl with water in the morning. Hold it between your two hands. Give thanks for the waters returning, the rains that cleanse, the frogs that sing. Then lightly sprinkle your face — or pour this water into the earth, as an offering. Simple. True. The Earth Mother knows how to receive.

And You?

This evening, if you step outside and listen carefully, perhaps you will hear them.

That song rising from nowhere and everywhere at once. That patient, continuous chorus that asks for nothing and offers everything.

The frog does not hold back her song. She does not sing to be heard, nor to convince. She sings because it is her way of being fully alive in the night of May.

"Winter has finished its work. We sing our prayer that celebrates spring. It hears us. It unfolds."

And what if you too allowed what has been singing within you for too long to rise?

Not for the world to hear.

For you to hear it.

Sing your prayer. The earth always hears it.

Going Further

If this moon has spoken to you and you wish to explore Sun Bear's Medicine Wheel more deeply, I invite you to discover my teachings and join our community to journey together through the cycles of the Earth.

You can also book a drum healing to accompany this period of transformation — a powerful practice for releasing what is still stagnant and fully welcoming what seeks to be born.

And if you are in the Bordeaux region, join me at the workshops at the Yoga With You studio in Le Bouscat to experience these teachings in a group, in a space of gentleness and connection.

Walking Through the Moons of the Wheel

Sun Bear's Medicine Wheel is lived as a continuous journey, one moon after another, one stone after another. If you wish to walk through all the moons I have explored, here are the articles already published:

🌑 The Purification Moon — January

🌒 The Great Winds Moon — February

🌓 The Budding Trees Moon — March

🌔 The Frog Return Moon — April/May

Every moon is a doorway. Every stone,

an invitation to go further on the path.