One more Sketch

Seven Coins

(it's not extraordinarily clear in this picture, but her two buttons are pents...)

Sketches

Princess of Pentacles

Princess of Swords (maybe...)

The Hanged Man


The Magician

Princess of Cups

Temperance

Star

Ace of Swords

Devil

XVII STAR

In death I'll be no longer fair,

my life leaves me forlorn--

but in the heart of my despair,

a STAR of hope is born;

and though the field is cold and bare

and I will not last long,

the purest songbird fills the air

with sweet, renewing song.

The STAR is a card of inspiration, hope, spirituality, and renewal, and this card is inspired by Emily Dickinson's poem, Hope:

"Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune--without the words,

And never stops at all,

"And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

"I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me."

Although the girl is dying (and very, very cold), there is a quite literal silver lining, for in her death she has freed herself from her binding garments and let out the star of inspiration. Too, rivers bring change, and birds bring beautiful song.

XV DEVIL

I drunk the Devil to my death

for I've a tortured soul--

the Devil stole my final breath,

I took from him his role;

You'll not escape my fire,

for I've stol'n away the eyes

of every thief and liar

that Hellfire did dis-guise.

"The devil is a woman in a red dress."

"Whiskey, you're the devil!"

This devil is also inspired by the ladjables (lajabless), the goat-hooved soul-eating devil woman of Caribbean folklore.

Her heart has been cut out, her soul (button eyes) is broken, and she has stolen the souls of her bodiless prisoners--their souls float in the currounding flames, and the DEVIL is crowned by the inverted pentagram (though a symbol of many other things besides the devil, also fitting).