This is my favorite picture of Krampus at the moment because it looks so much like a Tarot card…like an unknown Greater Trump springing up out of the meme-detritus of collective culture.  At first glance, the Krampus imp is almost like a xenomorph bursting out of St. Nick’s chest.  At second glance, it looks like they are lovers.  The third glance becomes a gaze gradually revealing a potent iconography.

     The spiral formed by the Bishop Nickolas’s crosier is reflected diagonally as the very pronounced tongue of the homunculus he holds.  Two forces are inferred: The pull of external taboo and the pull of personal appetites.    Krampus holds his birch-switches in such a way that they are a continuation of the motion of the tongue. It is as if the Devil (Atu 15) from the Tarot, and the Hierophant (Atu 5) were conjoined in a portrait of the conditioning of humanity’s internal motivations. 

     What did this mysterious bishop, Nickolas have to repress in order to become recognized as a Saint?  His  shadow sprang forth as Krampus.  Together they rule the darkness of winter.