It's not about the hulk hand -- interpreting the Ace of Pentacles

PCS Commemorative 

Elemental dignities and affinities have become my favourite means of interpreting tarot. They add such depth, and are much more meaningful for me than wondering why a giant hand emerges from a cloud holding a big coin over a garden gate. Yes, you can do that, and at some point you should analyse images of course, but the elemental attributions cut closer to the spiritual level of tarot, for me. My spiritual concept of life is based on a balance of what is represented by the classical four elements, and tarot provides a fertile ground for exploration of how these elements interact.

Today we have Fire of Earth in Ace of Pentacles. (The other Fire of Earth cards are King of Pentacles, Four of Pentacles and Seven of Pentacles.) Whatever could it be referring to?

Fire of Earth is the will, passion and drive being directed toward achieving groundedness, security, and stability in matters of health, hearth and finance. The Fire of Earth personality is proactive to material gain and eager for growth, and so might be a very avid collector, a personal trainer, an exercise junky, a first responder, emergency services worker, mountain rescue, or a financial advisor. You might think that an insurance salesman, stock broker, or CEO might fit the bill for Fire of Earth, but not really. The Earth element does not allow for much risk taking. The Earth element is fired up by security, not playing the market. It's not interested in power so much as safety and security. When you get into risky behaviours, you're moving into the actual element of Fire, the Wands suit, whereas with Fire of Earth, we're talking about how 'Wandsy' a Pentacle will allow itself to get. (Unsurprisingly, not very -- Fire and Earth have a neutral relationship, in traditional elemental dignities. Some would say that Fire and Earth actually have a negative relationship, because earth won't burn and will actually smother out fire. I suppose it's up to the reader what your take is on that.)

In any case, today is an Ace of Pentacles day for me, Fire of Earth. I have lots of Earthy tasks I could and should focus on today. Tax returns, researching the home buying process, finding an IFA, earning the money I've been paid by doing a reading that's been ordered. I ought to work out, eat well, and go out and buy some needed supplies for my physical upkeep -- healthy food, some vitamins, and some cream for an itchy spot on my skin that's come up. Lots of activities that promote stability, groundedness, and security, with the added fiery sense of growth and improvement.

What earthy aspect of your life needs a bit of fire today?

Summer Solstice Reading

A reading for Summer Solstice. I found this spread at a blog called Indigo Spirit Tarot. It seemed like a nice spread, so I thought I'd try it out here as my Summer Solstice reading. 

1

2 ............... 3

4 ..... SUN..... 5

6 ............... 7

8

1. Live with passion. Embrace the power of the Sun.

2. Upcoming possibilities. The door to success is opened by...

3. Time to play. Enjoy this gift.

4. Time to be serious.

5. Welcome advice.

6. Beware what lies in the shadows.

7. How to improve, now that you're aware. 

8. A burden lifted. Let it go.

I've chosen to read with Tarot Illuminati (Erik C Dunne, 2013) because -- what's more appropriate on Summer Solstice than a little illumination? 

1. Embrace the Sun - Princess of Swords. 'If the Princess of Swords is anything,' writes Kim Huggens in Complete Guide to Tarot Illuminati, 'she is firstly the power of invention and secondly of revolution.' 

2. Upcoming possibilities - Five of Swords. We often look at this card as indicating defeat, but there's no reason not to sometimes see ourselves as the ones having the upper hand. Kim Huggens supports this, writing, 'If the other cards around it are positive and supportive, it suggests the querent has a unique advantage in the situation and they need to make the most of it.' 

3. Enjoy this gift - Eight of Wands. This card suggests that whatever I start in the coming months will progress swiftly. I have the gift of fast movement and swift progress. 'Often this card indicates that the querent will be involved in a number of events that could be described as synchronicity, carrying them forward in a series of coincidences that they could never have expected,' Huggens writes. 

4. Time to be serious - Ace of Pentacles. Time to be serious about good hard graft, and reminds me to cultivate, process and make use of all my resources to be applied in each situation. I'm seeing it as saying don't get ahead of yourself. Be methodical. First things first. 

5. Welcome advice - The Empress. The Empress advises me to nurture myself, my life, my surroundings, my projects, and other people. She advises me to indulge my creative impulses, which, like childbirth, require sometimes painful effort to reap the rewards. 

6. Beware what lies in the shadows - 3 of Swords. Huggens makes an interesting point about this card. It is not the card of personal heartbreak, which is better reflected in 5 of Cups. Rather, this card represents the suffering of existence, 'the profound sadness felt when seeing the state of the world and the suffering of mankind,' as Huggens puts it. It represents existential angst, a feeling with which I am quite familiar. 

7. How to improve, now that you're aware - Death. I suppose few cards confront and dispel existential angst as effectively as the Death card. Acceptance. 

8. Let it go - Five of Pentacles.  'Worry is a self-destructive behaviour that perpetuates the cycle of lack and loss,' writes Huggens. 'It keeps us firmly in the past or in the future, and never in the present: we rarely worry about this moment, right now; we only ever worry about something that has happened in the past or what may or may not happen in the future. As such, worry does not allow us to take proper action in the present.' So clearly I need to let go of worry about lack, loss, deprivation, hardship, instability, etc. 

Interesting.

Full Moon Reading

Today is the full moon. Let's see what I need to release and embrace:

-------Release-------------------------Embrace------

The Greenwood Tarot (Ryan and Potter, 1996) is telling me to release my need to be in firm control of everything and to embrace feeling frustrated and out of control.

Aaaaaaaaaaagh!

The Ace of Stones (Ace of Pentacles) is a standing stone on a stark white background, decorated with prehistoric 'cup and ring' markings. No one knows what these markings signified to the people who made them, but they are found widely throughout the prehistoric world. For that matter, we don't know why they stood stones on their ends, or configured them in circles. But in any case, we have on Ace of Stones a standing stone, marked with cups and rings, an ancient monument. Chesca Potter says: 'Mythically the foundation stone means the first dry land on which life could begin. Also the first created form, matter, the mother stone, the firm ground from which one can begin one’s journey and measure the eight directions, the birthing ground, the navel stone. The Labyrinth is the place where your journey begins; the first steps; the cup and ring marks represent the source, your emergence into this world. The mare’s hoof mark, considered vulvic in shape means the source of life-the first steps on dry land; following the original horse herds led to your food source. A new stability enters your life.' Which, to be honest is what I thought it meant. Stability in life. Well, this draw is telling me to let go of this need for stability and instead to embrace Frustration.

The 5 of Arrows (or Swords) shows an archer shooting at a flying goat or ram. I can see how this could be frustrating! 'A double edged card depending on whether you are the hunter or the hunted. The card can be a warning -- either take flight or stand firm and face the situation. Ungrounded aims and fears,' writes Chesca Potter. I believe the card is telling me to get used to the feeling of being ungrounded, of things not going right, of things being unstable. 

It reminds me of this poster:



Ugh. This is hard for me. I love control. Even if it is an illusion. (Those are usually our favourite things.)

Get movin!

It's the Ace of Shields from Legend: Arthurian, in other decks known as the Ace of Pentacles, and I think I know why it has turned up today. Some very basic body maintenance will be going on today as I go to the dentist again to see to this blasted tooth. It's not going to be cheap, I'm guessing. And I'm working from my 'original' work base today, so it will be good to see everyone at the library. Haven't seen them since the end of Feb!

This particular Ace of Shields is the Shield of Evalach, a character from the Arthurian legends. Evalach was an eastern king from Sarras, and was befriended and converted to Christianity by Joseph of Arimathea, the rich man who donated his own prepared tomb for the body of Jesus, and who according to Grail lore came into possession of the Holy Grail. Someone called John of Glastonbury wrote that Joseph of Arimathea travelled to England, arriving in Avalon (Glastonbury) and bringing with him a container of the sweat and blood of Jesus. This later became mixed in with Grail lore, and thus Joseph of Arimathea became linked to to the Grail. This Evalach, the converted Christian king, brought his magical shield with him to Avalon. On his death bed Joseph of Arimathea smears some of his own blood on the white shield, in the sign of the cross. (John of Glastonbury also claimed that King Arthur was directly descended from Joseph of Arimathea.) In other versions of the story, Joseph's son, Josephus, gives Evalach a white shield with a cross of red silk tacked to it, as a sign of protection against a foreign invader to Evalach's homeland.

I'm really not sure that any of this has any real bearing on how to read this card. I would just read it with the meanings of the Ace of Pentacles in mind, and forget the details of Evalach unless the suddenly and spontaneously leapt to mind. I certainly wouldn't try to force the reading to fit with elements of the Arthurian legend. They'd have to be 100% clear and the connection would need to leap spontaneously to mind before I'd try to fit a client's (or my) situation with the story.


Accompanying the Ace of Shields card is the Lancelot card from Camelot Oracle. There's Lancelot under the Ace of Pentacle-y moon -- holding a shield. He looks like he's wearing tartan thigh-highs, a kind of Celtic 'Pretty Woman', but tougher. Alas, though, I think that's really a chain mail tunic over a pair of Will Worthington's beloved loose-fitting tartan trousers worn by most of his 'Celtic' characters.

Now Lancelot was troubled, we know this. Extremely good and pure, but also quite narcissistic and arrogant, his affair with Queen Guinevere leads directly to the downfall of Camelot. His first appearance in Arthurian legend is in Chretian de Troye's 'Knight of the Cart' in the 12th century, where the themes of his extraordinary perfection and his adulterous relationship with Guinevere are first seen. He is not connected to the Grail until the 13th century, when he appears in the Vulgate Cycle. After the downfall and death of Arthur, he retires to a hermitage, becomes a priest, and many years later presides over the funeral of Guinevere, who has become a nun and subsequently an abbess. Six weeks after her death, Lancelot dies.

But in his youth and before all the chick trouble, he was one formidable dude. And so the card represent heroism, strength, faith, devotion, and all that good stuff, tempered with caution not to get too cocky.

And is that a hedgehog sitting on his head?  ;)

In the Camelot Oracle, one method of reading the cards is to use them in relation to the path drawn. Yesterday I drew The Doubtful Path, and so I will read all subsequent cards in relation to that, until I draw another path card. The question of Lancelot for me on the path to the Hermitage (The Doubtful Path) is 'How can you best answer this challenge?' My challenges for the day are to get my work done, get some parcels in the mail, and go to the dreaded dentist. And the best way to answer these challenges is just to DO them and not put them off. So...off I go! Get

Star of Babylon

Babylonian Tarot (Cicero 2006)

The Ace of Disks in Babylonian Tarot is very similar in design to the Ace of Disks from the Thoth Tarot. The Babylonian one is simpler. The circle in the middle is said to be the Babylonian symbol for the sun. At the top of the card is the cuneiform symbol for 'one', and at the bottom left is the cuneiform symbol for 'grain'.

The Thoth card is also known as 'the root of powers of the earth', and this is an apt description of the Ace of Disks (also known as Coins or Pentacles). As always, the ace of the suit represents the full potential of the power of the element of the suit. It is truly a purely elemental card. In the case of the Disks, it represents all things having to do with the physical, the material, the financial. So here we have material gain, prosperity, health, the faculties of the senses, work, labor, possibly even power and wealth. Aces can always suggest the beginning of something as well, or at least that the energies are positive for the beginning of the something. An auspicious time for starts in projects focusing on the earth realm. It might also suggest that now is the time to get back to basics in the realm of the earth element. This could mean having a fresh look at one's finances, being on the alert for new opportunities in work and career, or a good time to start a new health regime or make an appointment to see the doctor about something that's been bothering you. It's a good time to do something new in any or all of these areas of your life.

Thoth

The Thoth card is more ornate than the Babylonian card, but that is true of every similar card in the pack. Lady Frieda Harris's art style is quite different, more accomplished and ornate than the Babylonian Tarot's. Still the similarities are obvious: green coloration, a star inside a circle in the middle, the oval or lozenge shape with the rather pointed ends has a name and esoteric significance, but at the moment I can't recall what it is nor remember what book I read it in! It has something to do with perfection in the world--if I remember it I will come back here and add the information. :)

I don't feel very filled with the potential energy of the suit today, having only slept 4.5 hours last night. But, still gotta go to work, so who knows what the day may bring.

Life is luscious - taste it

Aquarian Tarot

What a great card to draw today, because I got up this morning and did some yoga, and my intention for the
morning is to try to be as in my body as possible today. Also, I'm taking care of a health-related thing today, as I travel to the audiologist and otolaryngologist to have my 6-monthly hearing test and review of my ears. When I get home today, I hope to fit in a workout.

Apart from all that, I think this is a beautiful Ace of Pentacles. I love the ace cards in nearly every deck. There's something really magical about them. When I was a little kid, I used to play with my sister's poker decks, sorting and looking at the cards, and I would always take out the aces and the courts. Aces and courts are my favourite cards in the tarot as well. I guess it's a lifelong attraction, me and cards. I've always loved cards, even before I started using tarot. They are just so tactile and delicious.

I'm really into my five senses today. This card seems to be 'spot on', as they say!

A friend of mine said the other day, 'Since all life is futility, then the decision to exist must be the most irrational of all.' That really irritates me. I, too, believe that there is probably no ultimate meaning to life, but so what? Life is an amazing thing. We are all aggregates of the elements of the universe, come together in distinct and unique ways, for a brief time, then for mysterious reasons, those elements dissolve back into the universe again to converge somewhere else. Who cares about 'meaning' in the face of something as awesome as that? Life may not have meaning, but so what? That frees you up, if you ask me. Life has no meaning, so just enjoy it. What a concept! If there's nothing to accomplish, that takes the pressure off, doesn't it? An it harm none, do what ye will.

Ancient Italian Tarot Pairs: Day 3

'Forget about your life situation and pay attention to your life. 
Your life situation exists in time. Your life is now. 
Your life situation is mind-stuff. Your life is real.'
 ~ Eckhart Tolle

Embrace                                      Release

The Ancient Italian Tarot (LoScarabeo) offers two aces this morning for my 'Embrace -- Release' daily draw.

Aces are pretty amazing beasts. They contain the full, untapped potential of the energy of a tarot suit. The message here is stark and clear. Today I am to embrace all aspects of the fleshly, physical, earthly plane aspects of my existence, and to release all aspects of the logical, planning, organizing, thinking aspects of my existence. It is an unmistakable message. It is almost like someone grabbing your face in both hands and looking straight into your eyes and shouting:

'STOP THINKING! START EXPERIENCING!'

Stop thinking about what everything means. Stop looking for signs or patterns. Just notice what it feels like to be alive. Use your five senses. Pay attention to the flesh. Pay attention the tactile, material, solid, concrete world. Experience how your body interacts with, engages with, and merges with the all. 

Our bodies do not exist separate from the material world. This is obvious, but easily forgotten. We take in air--without it, we quickly die. We take in food and water. Air, water and food are all made up of the same substances that we ourselves are made up of. In this way, we are merged with the totality of existence on the material plane. And with the fire of our awareness, the air of our breath, the water of our blood and flesh, and the earth of our very physical manifestation, we can sense and feel this continuous interplay going on at all times. 

So for today, feel the air going in and out of your body. Experience being air. Feel the food in your mouth. Experience being made of the same carbon-based atoms. Feel the warm morning shower rushing over your skin, the moisture of your eyes, the saliva in your mouth. Experience being water. Feel the heat of your body, and watch the movement of your thoughts. Experience being fire. 

Pretty big stuff for a Monday. :) 

If you don't mind my saying, you can see I'm full of aces!

(apologies to Kenny Rogers for the title. :) )

I decided to continue with Kat Black this week, using the beloved Touchstone Tarot. Can you believe I drew another Ace?!

I really love the Touchstone Tarot (Kunati, 2009). It's Kat Black's second deck. Originally the cards had very wide borders designed to look like wooden frames, and heavily gilded edges. I hated the gilded edges because they hurt my hands, and so I cut the top and side borders off the cards. I was very pleased with the result,  though I have to warn that if anyone is thinking of doing this, be very careful. Unlike some cards where there is a clear line to cut along, the Touchstone deck has dark borders right next to dark backgrounds, making it really hard to see where to cut, so on a couple of my cards, the edge is crooked. I don't mind it, but it would devastate some people. I even bought a second copy of the deck so I would have one 'whole' one, but I have extremely limited storage space and always feel it's a waste to have a spare deck around, so I sold it. It's going for stupid money now in some circles, but I can't be worried about that. When it comes to decks, I don't look back. Lots of decks have come and gone in my collection, and I have never re-bought one (though I know some people do that) and I've never wasted any time regretting or pining for what I gave, traded or sold away. Plus, I think it is unconscionable to sell a product that originally retailed for £20 for £100, £200, £800 or whatever. It's greedy of the sellers and just plain stupid of the buyers. There will always be more decks. And after all, they're only cards.

Hmm, I guess from that ramble it would seem the Ace of Coins may be pointing toward money thoughts today! Among other earthy, material, physical plane concerns.

Roots go even deeper today

The Crystal Tarot (Philip Permutt, 2010) gives me another message to focus on grounding today with the Ace of Pentacles. The roots in this card go even deeper than yesterday's card, and the chakra associated with the card is the root, or base, chakra. The crystal here is moldavite, which my Essential Crystal Handbook tells me is a tektite with a green transparency. It goes on to say that moldavite 'blends cosmic and earthly energies, expanding awareness of the universe,' and that it represents 'transformation, evolutionary process and spiritual growth.' I'm seeing everything as pointing to my yoga practice lately! Doing yoga twice a day certainly makes it stand uppermost in one's awareness. The Crystal Tarot companion book says: 'You are entering a good period in your life and will see the physical rewards of your hard work.' Well, yay!

Traditionally this card can mean a new job or promotion. It so happens I'm on a recruitment team today and doing interviews all morning, so someone will be getting a new job--just not me. Well, I'm involved in someone getting a new job, anyway.

Hope everyone has a great Thursday. Did you see that full moon by the way? Awesome!

So much potential!

Touchstone Tarot, Kat Black (Kunati 2009)

My draw today from Touchstone Tarot is so encouraging! I drew three cards with no positional meanings (most of my 3-card draws are done without positional meanings, and read either from left to right, or using Robert Place's 3-card method. I'll do a post on that soon!)

The 6 of Cups suggests approaching life with childlike wonder and openness, while the two aces speak to me of potential energy in the two areas that have been of major concern to me lately, the material and spiritual realms. I love that both figures in the ace cards have wings, but are not using them. Again, the potential is there, but just waiting for the first flappings to soar away!

In the Ace of Coins, there is a dog, which always symbolises faithfulness and humility to me, loyalty and even a kind of nobility. The lily behind the winged figure reminds me of purity. I believe this to be purity of intention. The Ace of Coins figure faces the 6 of Cups, even is pointing one finger at it! So surely the message here is that in order to move forward in the material realm, I must access my childlike openness and wonder. For my exercise, to rediscover the joy of movement. For my nutrition, to be willing to learn new things and even to be retaught things I once knew. For my livelihood, to trust that I will be provided for by a loving universe. Now, that's truly childlike trust!

The Ace of Wands figure also inclines her head toward the 6 of Cupse, but the shoulders and torso point away. This suggests to me that in the spiritual realm, I must keep an openness, but may need more emotional maturity to move in the direction that I wish to go in. This makes perfect sense, as I want to grow and mature in my spiritual practice. The figure holds a wand and seems to be nurturing a bowl of hot coals. These represent to me smouldering potential, and also call to mind the practice of burning ground herbs and resins on coals in a cauldron or other vessel. The castle in the background on the hill reminds me of the attainment that awaits with diligent practice, and the humble cottage below reminds me that the day-to-day living of the spiritual path involves very little glory. And of course, between the figure and the castle, there's a very tangled wood to be negotiated. What are her fingers pointing toward? They both point away from the Ace of Coins. Maybe a reminder that the answer doesn't lie in materialism--like buying new decks and books every other day? (Ouch!)

May I remember the messages of this draw as I move through the coming week: retain my wonder, enjoy my physical existence, and begin the trek through those tangled woods of the spiritual realm. Hello, meditation cushion!

How the heck do you say 'Huitzilopochtli'?!

And why would you put him on the Ace of Coins?

Click here to hear it said

That was easy enough, but figuring out why Sol Invictus Tarot creators Kim Huggens and Nic Phillips chose 'Wheat-see-la-poached-lee' as the Ace of Coins is a bit more of a mystery. I must admit to being completely ignorant of Aztec mythology, so the name meant nothing to me when I drew this card this morning. I tried to read the 3 pages of densely packed text in the companion book explaining all about Huitzilopochtli, but I get very frustrated if I can't see an immediate connection between the back story of a card and its traditional meaning. This is why I usually dislike decks that are too heavily themed. I dislike when deck creators seem to have to labour hard to create a tenuous link to the traditional meaning, or worse, give elaborate back stories to the card illustration, then provide the traditional divinatory meaning which seems to have no connection to the illustration whatsoever. That's not to say this is what happens in the Ace of Coins of Sol Invictus, but it's the first truly frustrating card I've encountered so far in the deck. (Admittedly it's early days with it!)

To make a very long story mercifully short, 'Wheat-see-la-poached-lee' seems to have been the primary Aztec god, and was a god of war and the sun. Like many gods of various traditions, he sprang from his mother fighting his siblings, and slew 400 of them to defend her...each night he journeys to the underworld to do battle with darkness and emerges victorious the next morning to provide the day's light. Okay, that's familiar. But what has the sun god got to do with the Ace of Coins? Battle for earthly power, material wealth...possibly...I can sort of see that. But for this card to work for me, I'm going to have to make it work through imagery alone.

So, at the top of the card, the blazing sun, Huitzilpochtli, is actually a giant shining coin, hovering over a temple. In the foreground is a marketplace. There are small figures of people in the background walking, carrying things, greeting each other, trading presumably. On the market stalls we see food, drink, jewelry, weapons--all the things that would have been very important to this war-like Aztec culture, I would think. When you look at the card as a whole, it certainly reminds me of this image:

Eye of Providence

It's the 'Eye of Providence', seen on US currency. To my mind, this card instantly makes me think of money, wealth, commerce, material gain, etc, because it is so similar to an image from the currency I grew up with. So in that way, I can instantly associate it with the Ace of Coins, particularly as I also associate this image with the one dollar bill, the piece of US currency that is most in transaction and that is the basis of accumulated wealth. I mean, you can't have a million dollars before you've got one dollar, right? So...Ace of Coins. Beginning of the material realm.

The market stalls also help me understand the meaning of the card, because Ace of Coins is all about physical health (the food), abundance, competition for material success, pretty much anything to do with inhabiting a body and surviving on the earth.

So, I don't get why 'Wheaties' was chosen for the card, but the picture works for me, anyway. AND it's appropriate for my daily draw, as today is the first weigh-in for a weight loss group I joined online, and I've embarked on a personal challenge to complete 260 workouts over the next 365 days. All earthly concerns!