This Week's Writerly Tarot: The Six of Pentacles

Some of us, when confronted with an injustice, like to evoke Karma into a situation. Like if some jerk steals our parking space, we can rest easy knowing that Karma will key his door one night while he's sleeping.

This force of cosmic reckoning is a bit more complicated than that, of course. And also simpler. And also more paradoxical. And it's represented in the tarot by several cards, one of which is the Six of Pentacles (which last visited us over a year ago HERE).

We are governed in the universe by laws of giving and receiving. Even our breaths, except for our first one in and our last one out, occur in a pair. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed. What goes up, must come down (that's not really true, astrophysically speaking, but it's a good short form, like a haiku).

On this card, we see what appears an act of charity, a generous man of some station in life doling out coins to two grateful beggars. But consider deeper, as this card asks you to do. Pentacles are the suit of resource management, how we use and protect what we have—our material possessions, our job, our body. Because in the same way that a dollar bill is only a pretty piece of paper with some consensus behind it, our resources are actually our time and energy made manifest. They are symbolic of what we have already put in and what we hope to one day get out.

Karma is simply consequence, actions leading to effects. And the Six of Pentacles is simply the engine of the universe, neatly summed up by computer programmers everywhere as GIGO—Garbage In, Garbage Out.

This week, consider what you are putting into your creative engine. Are you giving it your best time, your high test premium? Or are you giving it the crumbs of your attention, the leftovers after the dishes and laundry are done? If you don't like the output, consider upping the quality of your input. You're certainly worth it, and so is your work.