“This Nine of Pentacles card indicates that the querent has reached a stage in their lives where they are confident, independent and self-sufficient. Through hard work, this person is now ready to enjoy money, leisure and material comfort.”

- https://labyrinthos.co/blogs/tarot-card-meanings-list/nine-of-pentacles-meaning-tarot-card-meanings

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Once I was halfway through secondary school, I think that’s when I found ways to manage being overwhelmed, stress and anxious more effectively. Don’t get me wrong, I still struggle with the anxieties of daily life now, but when I was around 15, that was when I had become aware of how to deal with certain difficulties in my mental health.

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I even went to school more. My attendance was still below average, but it was considerably improved from my previous school years. This was likely due to having picked my school options. With art as a subject that I would engage in my educational curriculum a few times a week, school became a lot more manageable.

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My art was so valuable to my mental health, in fact, that I’d doodle and draw all of the time in my maths lessons. It was the break from rigidity in my drawings that allowed me to enjoy other subjects a lot more, like English. I remember enjoying writing so much that I’d think all the time about how illustrations and words produce their own multifaceted semantic fields and interpretations.

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The value in this card, without a doubt, was my realisation that being an author/illustrator was possible, however lofty it may ever be.