St. Roche Paintings Reveal Symbolic Portals and Energy Flows

I got a "put down" about the St. Roche paintings showing a Guinea Worm (image C). Since this is a real disease, that settled the matter in this persons mind, and she was mean about it. Poof, no longer friends. Symbolism meaning is never literal. Literal recognition, accepting the first story, and then stopping a search for any other explanation is what amateurs do. ( I was that, now I'm not.)

The number of paintings showing a worm is just a few, but there are many hundreds of versions that just show a wound. ( A stigmata, a penetration through skin, a portal). Go to pInterest and search St./San/Saint Roche/Rocco/Roque and you'll see.

But this post has a teaching point. Image A has a white slender cloth with folds, (instead of a worm) making a downward point at the bottom. Zigzag cloth means a downward flow direction, https://ca.pinterest.com/stevenbhalls/zigzag-cloth/ and scarfs or slender fabrics with squared ends or tassles mean upward flow toward the core of the body. https://ca.pinterest.com/stevenbhalls/tassels/ https://ca.pinterest.com/stevenbhalls/scarf/

The bent leg usually means upward flow into the body, but the zigzag cloth, a downward finger, or the crook (which many paintings have), is the downward bidirectional kind of marking.

There are other contradictions. A bare leg and a cloth-covered leg are like opposite polarities, similar to the straight vs bent leg. https://ca.pinterest.com/stevenbhalls/one-bare-leg/ https://ca.pinterest.com/stevenbhalls/legs-straight-and-bent/ https://ca.pinterest.com/stevenbhalls/legs-different/

Bread is an outflow, ( the sacraments, the cup is an inflow symbol). https://ca.pinterest.com/stevenbhalls/bread/ They are often posed as opposite polarities, or, as portals. The dog nose usually points to a flow direction, but these Roche dogs point all over the place.

This fellow Roche/Rocco, may be fictional for the purpose of showing a bare bent leg and discussing puzzling nearby symbols as a teaching tool.