Reptiles, symbols of the natural world, carry both positive (light) and negative (dark) connotations. Symbolically they can represent healing, regeneration, and sacred salvation. The shadow aspects of reptiles are cold-blooded, morally contemptable, and devouring. In many cultures, reptiles appear in myth and legends. They are both deified and feared. Reptiles are sculpted, incised, drawn, painted, and embroidered.
Crocodile: light – life and renewal; a demiurge, worker for the people, who carries the world on its back; as life force, form of the Egyptian earth god, Geb; because it is tongueless, regarded by the classical world as symbolic of silence; in Christianity, the guardian of knowledge
dark – death and destruction; devouring; typifies deceit; being swallowed by a crocodile is the decent into hell; emblem of the Egyptian god, Set, as brutality and evil; as Sebeck, the crocodile god of Egypt, agent of death
Heket, Egyptian Goddess of birth
Frog: light – good luck; fertility; renewal of life and resurrection; sacred to Heket, the Egyptian goddess of birth; Celtic lord of the earth, represents the curative power of water; Chinese lunar, yin creature thought to bring the rain; Hindu symbol of the Great Frog, supporting the universe, represents the undifferentiated material
dark - evil, heresy, and sin; early Christian symbol of the sins envy and greed (my error to include frog symbolism in this reptile b/og post - frogs are amphibians)
(continued in Rethinking Reptiles ~ Part 2)