Unveiling Viola Lux Umbra's Garden of Poisonous Plants
Prune Your Poison and Bloom through Gloom
Amidst pretty petals of hope and triumph, more perplexing plants may lurk. Poison botanicals, oft-pondered yet barely grasped, offer an empowering purpose in Viola Lux Umbra. As we grow past harvest, blooms may haunt the heart with noxious forces, and yet that same venomous vein may be plucked to create. Be one pruned from peril or mended when once maimed, Viola Lux Umbra conjures the harm of another's poison into elixirs of strength, potions of progress, and tonics of fortitude.
Other Deadly Nightshades, such as Datura, remind us of the Moon's power to manifest intuition in daunting ways, from opaque to unfiltered fantasy. What feels like an illusion might actually come true, but beware clouds of confusion between others' dreams and you.
Mandrake and Hemlock can bring blessings in a crisis. "Peace provides room to rest and lulls refill our bounty of dreams," reads Mandrake's "IV of Swords" card. "Stubbornness repels the respite that gives us room to breathe." The III of Swords, aka Mandrake, echoes this need for a creation of space: "There is strength in finding the clarity of simple evils, as it pulls shade from all around it, letting light spread unfettered in its absence."
Shades of poisonous growth adorn the Major Arcana's Devil card with Foxglove and two species of mushroom appearing: Amanita Muscaria and Destroying Angel Mushroom. While seemingly disparate fungi, parallels abound in Viola Lux Umbra. "Such temptation need not be denied, for what we're drawn to fill our sight expands what's behind our eyes."
As the Winter breeze sways, night and day, each evening poses a choice: Shall I follow whims through candlelit shadows, or remain home where inner thoughts are composed?
We bloom with new light from botanicals, like a candle finds glimmers of hope through the gaze of a candleabra. The moon casts shadows on dead leaves, yet moves through the night to unlock those same unseen spaces — just at a different hour, upon different windswept mysteries.
Like a tiny moth's wings shone through streetlight beams, shadows grow vast beyond our being. Does our presence in this world have an exponential chance to grow? What begins as a wee flutter in the dark, may bloom into wings; into sharp-angled shadows that envelope all before the forest swallows us whole.