Thank you so so much! That really means a lot, especially surrounded by so much stellar artistry!

Working on getting back to my Underworld mythology/mental health tarot deck after years of burnout, starting with The Tower.

Got the writing and mock-up done, taped off the canvas, and now I’m blocking in the composition.

So am I. It’s literally one of my favorite shows. So many layers of symbolism and detail!

I bet a laurel and hyacinth bouquet would be quite lovely and sad. In floriography: Artistic victory through grief.💐

Corvus and Smintheus

Corvus is where we get the genus for crows and was a familiar to Apollo. Smintheus became synonymous with “mouse” due to the epithet given to Apollo. And an art studio seems like a great place to appeal to the God of Art! ☀️

A part of me wonders if Apollo Smintheus is perhaps the origin of the Pied Piper as an archetype, that of the mysterious musician that can control the mice and punishes the town if dues go unpaid.

As the Willard of his time, Apollo’s role in sending or staving off plagues via rodentia seems to me connected to his fathering of Asclepius, God of Medicine. Farmers in particular took extra care to honor the god so as not to incur his wrath in the form of diseases or crop-destroying mice.

Because mice had a proclivity for discovering the best wild and farmed grain and food stores and leapt from sinking boats prior to sinking, they were associated with rituals of prophecy and thus sacred to Apollo.