Mythology is a result of people being very good at noticing patterns in nature and very bad at distinguishing between correlation and causation. Zodiac killer.
I was prompted to look into it by the posts by this great account @Michssspp82096 about this panel which depicts a bull standing under a willow tree, with 3 cranes perched on his back. The inscription reads "TARVOS TRIGARANOS" or "Bull and Three Cranes" in Gaulish... 
Mithra was directly associated with lotus, to the point where on the most famous relief of Mithra, the one from Taqe Bostan, he is actually depicted standing on a lotus flower, radiating light, while witnessing Ahura Mazda giving ring of power to king Ardashir II... 
This is an ancient symbol found throughout Iran, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Levant, Crete. The reason for that is that in all these regions, year is divided into two halves: 
If we interpret the animals as animal calendar markers, which they always are in compositions like this, The Dude (with big D) stands in the moment when bull (summer) ends and lion (autumn) begins (end of Jul start of Aug)...
Why earthquakes? Look at this: Map of the Greek region showing the epicenters of the intermediate depth earthquake activity...
An anthropomorphised, Hellenised, version of the winged sun disc...Like this one depicted on Stele to Assurnasiripal II at Nimrud (9th c. BC)... 
Mother (vulva) surrounded with grain...This symbol is hidden in plain sight on this strange object. This is one of many mysterious Early Cycladic "Frying Pans" found on Cycladic islands in Greece and dated to the second half of the 3rd mill BC 
Maybe this has something to do with the old Celtic calendar which divided the year into two halves:
The reason why we find goat flanking the tree of life in Iran, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Levant, Crete is because in this part of the world, the climatic year is divided (roughly) into hot/dry summer (Apr/May - Oct/Nov) and cool/wet winter (Oct/Nov - Apr/May)... 
In the recent geological past, Earth’s magnetic field reduced to ~10% of the modern values and the magnetic poles shifted away from the geographic poles, causing the Laschamps geomagnetic excursion, about 41 millennia ago...
Is this the symbol? Christmas cake from Serbia with the sun and "the hands of god" cross. The hands of god cross by itself in the next picture. The hands of god represent 4 seasons with 3 months each, which means that the god whose hands these are is the Sun 
What about this detail? A curly swastika with each arm connected to a sun. Two of which are red and two of which are black. 
I wondered if he did this because Romans depicted Winter as a woman covered with a black veil...
Two most famous Cetuses 🙂 were so called Æthiopian (Levantine) Cetus and Trojan Cetus. This thread is about them, the two beautiful babes that were supposed to be sacrificed to them to appease them and the two heroes who strongly objected to such arrangements...
Reeds were an important crop in Mesopotamia, as important as grain. Reeds were used as building material for building irrigation canal dams, houses and boats, and for making baskets, mats and furniture...Reeds were also used as animal fodder... 
2nd article about the link between Nergal and Apollo:
...Mead said that the first sign of civilisation in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die...