9 of Pentacles

Immense, unstoppable force. Accurate delivery thereof. Success - but with strife. Victory - after fear.

I think the repetitive webs of lines might've been inspired by looking at some of Freida Harris' work on the Crowley Thoth; that sort of thing is strong through at least half the cards.

Big thanks to my boyfriends for offering helpful comments that pulled this one from 'meh' into 'wow'. Only one more pentacle, not counting the courts! The end is definitely in sight, though it will feel like it's across a mountain until I sit down and gather all my thoughts on the Court cards to create some good roughs.

In the kitchen, a little earlier in the evening, it struck me: This is the furthest I've ever gotten in a big project. (Hopefully Absinthe will out-do that by quite a lot, sometime in the next few years!) When I was younger, with what looked like a whole life stretching out to infinity, I could never have seriously tried doing something like this; I just couldn't see myself sticking to anything that long. Now that I'm getting older, with the midpoint of the century or so an unbroken human life tends to stretch to nowadays, I can think about the end of my life, somewhere out there - and I can take on projects that will take a serious chunk of that time, too.

Of course, it helps that I can casually do a finished picture in a day, when I can maintain focus on it.

And if I measure my life against my father's... well. Not too long after I finish Absinthe, I'll have outlived him. Some part of me is still afraid I won't. My 42nd birthday is going to be cause for a big celebration and some serious self-examination. Of course, that's a year after the end of the Mayan calendar anyway, so who knows?

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