Back v1

This week’s Tarot-Draw is the back of the card.

When I started drawing Lance thru the Tarot it was not only important to refer to the classic Rider Waite Smith set., I also wanted to pay visual homage to the composition notebook.

I chose to use lined paper for the series.

Trust me I have plenty of unused high quality papers of various sorts and weights as well as piles of sketch books just waiting and begging to be used.

Maybe I find the blank page is too daunting sometimes.

So many mistakes to avoid…

Maybe I needed the reassurance of common and cheap (affordable) “canvas” just to sneak past my hypercritical overthinking tendencies.

All I knew is that I had a goal worth exploring and I HAD to figure out how to allow for the gut wrenching feelings of unfinished and unworthy (not good enough).

I needed space to let the creativity flow and just let my art suck because if I waited on finished or perfect I would never follow through even though it felt important to do.

That’s what went on for months until I was ready to share.

I’d send ones I liked to friends explicitly telling them I was after external validation only.

When I finally scraped together enough courage to start sharing more I was halfway through the 78 on a hiatus and desperate to trick myself back into drawing the rest.

I needed accountability and the encouragement of my closest friends (which they gave beautifully) because follow thru is one of my biggest struggles and it’s tied to a lot of my trauma and coping mechanisms.

All of that and more went on before I ever started publicly sharing these drawings.

For a moment consider the backing for a deck as what goes on behind the scenes, literally.

Often we look back and rehearse all of our successes to gain the momentum we’re looking for, but what about the daily struggles that we are so familiar with we don’t count them much less how much energy we expend dealing to them.

Victory or failure is a fun dynamic to play around with, but what about the times we stave off a craving, or distract ourselves from negative thought loops.

Instead of won or lost take a moment to to appreciate the effort it takes, whatever “it” is.

This week in Psychic Sleep we’ll touch on themes of: neither one nor the other; liminal space; and Schrödinger’s Cat.