It's me, your humble tarot servant, writing to you from under a mound of blankets with a thermometer stuck in my mouth and a box of tissues at my elbow.
Yes, it's a sick day. An early summer cold, the nastiest of the breed. At least in the winter one can sink into the misery of being inside because the outside isn't much better. And I don't mind an August cold, either—any port in that hundred-degree storm. But on days like today, mild and ripening, with gardenias scenting the air...
Bletch.
So instead of getting germs all over my tarot deck—which tarot decks do not like, let me tell you—I decided to write about the card that the Universe pulled for me, the Five of Pentacles (you can read about a previous time it showed up, around the Winter Solstice no less, HERE).
The Pentacles are the suit of foundation, and of all the ways that we experience being physical in the world. Therefore they tend to show up with information about earthy things: our homes, our jobs, our health. Money and wellness and—as this Five demonstrates—the lack thereof.
As material abundance goes, these two sad souls have nothing. Bandaged and limping, hunched over and freezing, their clothes not nearly warm enough for the bitter cold surrounding them, they are misery personified. But look behind them, to the glowing stained glass window of what appears to be a church. It seems warm and blessed in there, it certainly does.
So why are our beggars not choosing that sanctuary? Are they blind to the comfort there? Unwilling to take it? Or have they been rejected by those who would prefer to keep that comfort all to themselves?
The tarot lets us decide. We use the surrounding cards to give the image nuance and subtext. Today, I am sick. But I have a family to care for me, money to buy medicine, soup from the neighborhood restaurant, and a comfortable bed to recuperate in. In a divinatory sense, the Five of Pentacles often shows up at times of physical illness or material discomfort. That's appropriate enough for my situation today.
But, as always, it carries a potent reminder that our day-to-day struggles and joys are part of a larger cycle, a cog within a great wheel. This is an especially important reminder to those of us who do creative work, which can often feel very introverted and solitary, an island in an enormous sea.
Even islands are not separate. They are connected to the water that laps on their shores, to the sun that shines and the birds that perch and the air that moves. Isolation is an illusion. A necessary one at times (like free will) but an illusion nonetheless.
This week, there is probably something that could be better in your physical surroundings. It may even be something affecting your creative work, like a lumpy chair or a noisy dog or a nasty cold. Do your best to ameliorate it. A solution could be close at hand. You might be a little snowblind. Or perhaps the unpleasantness this week is actually a key, one that you can use to unlock a door that you didn't even know was there, one that leads to an outside rougher than you imagined. Perhaps you will then realize that even in your particular misery, you have a lot of share.
Open the door a little wider. That's how the light gets out.
Let's be honest — there's very little appealing about this card. Whenever I see it, I get a pang in my stomach and my chest constricts. It's a touchstone, the Five of Pentacles, and as such, it opens up a world of hurt for me. I remember every sad story I've ever heard, every lost puppy, every broken heart.
There are many interpretations for this card, and there's grief at the heart of every one. There are questions: who are these poor and needy people? Why are they in the cold when the lights of the church are lit and warm and right there? Is this a criticism of the church, rich in stained glass but poor in compassion? Or are we to question the down-trodden, ponder what leads them to prefer the snow over the sanctuary? Do they not recognize it? Have they sought and been rejected?
We do not know. Arthur Waite was clear in his interpretations that this card meant material trouble, although perhaps not as dire as depicted. So what are we to make of it, we who ask the tarot for guidance on creative matters?
I'll take a stab at that. Our creativity is a living thing, and as such, it must be nourished and nurtured, it needs care and tending. Ask yourself: in this season of bright lights and parties and shopping and indulgences, is your creativity being neglected? Are you giving your Muse the attention she deserves? Or have you spent your energy and attention in other areas? Closed the door on your art and left it in the cold?
This week, consider your creative soul. Is it well cared for, warm and safe? Or is it right outside the circle of your everyday, hunched against a rising cold?
Only you know the answer. And only you have the power to open — or close — the door.
Oh, but we have all been there. And here we are again.
The Five of Cups turned up earlier this year—you can read about its previous incarnation here—and its energy has not changed. It is still the card of loss and grief, of missed opportunities, of the pain that comes when something that matters very much is gone. Gone is a natural and necessary part of the cycle, of course, but gone is also hard.
Very hard.
We are much more comfortable with the "building up" part of the cycle, construction and manifestation. Having our hopes and dreams become tangible (like last week's Three of Pentacles) appeals to our sense of reward. It gives our actions purpose. Word by word, day after day, and soon enough you've got a novel. Yay us! Accomplishment feels right and good and, darn it, we deserve a little rightness and goodness after we sweated through all that work.
And then there's this guy. AGAIN.
He's always there, of course. Even when we have pushed up our shirtsleeves and gotten to work. Even when the sun is shining with optimism and clarity upon our plans. Even when the Universe Herself is giving us a loving pat on the back.
This week, even if things are going swimmingly for you (and I sure hope they are), make some space for the Five of Cups. The building blocks of success didn't just materialize out of thin air—everything comes from source, and every source material was something else not that long ago. Something that crumbled and dissolved and changed and transmuted. Acknowledge that. Sit with it through whatever discomfort arises. Let it arise. It is actually your friend.
Be grateful for empty spaces. Despite what you have been told, Nature loves a vacuum. Nature rushes to a vacuum with everything she's got.
It was bound to happen. Where there is milk, there will eventually be a spill.
Such it is with bounty and abundance. Such it is with the universe, galloping headlong toward entropy. "Nothing gold can stay," Robert Frost reminded us. As does the Five of Cups.
There's a reason that the suit of emotions is represented by a vessel. Feelings flow. They surge and ebb — they roil and tumble. Without containment, they would have no form, and without form, we wouldn't be able to understand them. We'd drown in them, the tidal wave of them.
Our gentleman here is grieving. Three cups lie on the ground at his feet, their contents split and running. They may as well be a flood, even though all that remains is a puddle. And soon, even that will be gone.
Creative folk will recognize this feeling. It comes with the rejection letter. It comes with the bad review. It comes with contracts that aren't renewed, signings that go unattended, readers who walk by with their eyes averted.
But let's not get too personal. Suffice it to say, we've all been there.
So mired is he in his pain that he cannot see that two cups still remain full. There is still some good in his life, some sweetness. It is the tendency of those who love us is to press those brimming chalices to our lips and bid us drink, and drink deeply, of what we still have to be grateful for. We can forgive them this. They want us to be happy.
But first — and this is perhaps harder for them than us — we must grieve. We must be in the moment. Yes, the past is water under the bridge (note the stone bridge and flowing river in the background, a not-too-subtle reminder of that very truth). But right now, right now...we mourn.
What is it in your life that is passing away? Are you mourning it properly? Are you giving it the full eulogy it deserves? Are you capable of standing present in your grief?
I hope so. And I hope that soon you taste hope on your lips once again.
Uh oh.
That's all I can say for us this week, writerly folk. Nobody likes to see the Five of Swords pop up. Indeed, the Swords as a whole are renowned for their double-edged ways. Swing them with proficiency and precision, and they're dead useful -- swing them with malice and/or clumsiness, and they're dead dangerous. Which is to be expected for a suit associate with all things mental -- to paraphrase the old saying, a mind is a terrible thing to let loose without any balance from the heart or body or soul.
So now we have the Five, traditionally associated with slander and betrayal, with dirty deeds done and not a small amount of gloating. Also winning. Lots of winning going on here, though it will come at a price, you betcha.
So what to do? Our first impulse is to watch our backs, be on guard for Those Who Have It In For Us. And, okaaayyyyy, there's something of that in this card.
But let's look deeper for a second, shall we? This energy exists only if one has a scarcity mindset, which goes some like this: there's only so much pie, better grab my slice. In the creative world, this translates into only so many readers, only so many good reviews, only so much attention, better grab my slice.
No. Just no.
Being creative is to participate in abundance. The well will not run dry. Do not be envious of others' successes (not even E.L. James's). Do not schadenfreude over others' come-uppances (not even E. L. James's).
Tap your source. Do your work. Honor your process. Share and receive. Let Karma, the Great Mistress of Tit-For-Tat, write the rest of the scene.
