Last night, I was looking back at the swan station mural. Lostpedia has a nice shot of the whole thing.
http://lostpedia.com/wiki/Image:Mural3.jpg
Suddenly some of the things that made no sense back when we first saw it, started to click. The little houses - the homes of Otherville, the sailboat of Desmonds. Obviously some clues were there right in front of us, that we missed. (On the other hand, maybe only I missed them.) I spotted what reminded me of a submarine in the bottom right corner, with "bubbles" rising from the top, and sure enough tonight we learn of the sub.
Another thing I caught onto last night, and even more tonight after watching EMFH, is the overall layout of the mural. It seems to be divided horizontally down the center by waves.
On one side (above) the waves, is Eko with his priest collar, a woman (possibly Danielle), a crowd of stick people (the crash survivors), and the sailboat. It appears to me that what is above the waves is the main island with our group of losties.
Below the waves, possibly representing the other island where KS&J are being held hostage, we see the submarine, little houses and fish.
In the central wave area there is a large fish, maybe a dolphin or shark, with a red tooth or wound on it. On the right are upside down stick people in the water. Drowning victims? Michael & Walt???
Diagonally up through the center joining the two halves of the mural is an arrow. But this arrow is painted in blue and white with contour lines that suggest that it is transparent and hollow. I can't help but wonder if that arrow is a tunnel connecting the two islands.
Something else I never put together this way till now is how the area all around the outer edge of the mural is all black with stars and a moon, like nightime. But the main central part of the mural representing the island(s) has a big glowing sun right in the center of it, as if the island is on a different time than the world surrounding it.
So how could the artist know about the crash survivors, the submarine, the priest,
the houses, etc. when it existed before some of these people arrived? If the artist was Desmond, than he most likely had visions of the future that he felt compelled to illustrate in this wildly emotional piece of hatch art. I personally believe he has had this power at least since he met Jack in the stadium.
Of course I had seen all these different parts of the mural before, I just never saw them from this persepective as a whole. And everything looks clearer in retrospect. Maybe there are some clues left of things yet to come.