Monday Tarot: Ace of Pentacles

Today’s post is late since yesterday was spent doing Tarot readings that people had ordered. (A good reason for a Tarot post to be late, I think.)

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Every Monday I will do a quick one-card draw from one of my Tarot (or oracle) decks and interpret the card. This isn’t going to be ‘introduction to the Tarot’ or ‘intro to divination’ or anything like that, and my interpretations should not at all be seen as the only or correct way to read the cards. These posts will focus on the interpretation of the card as it is related to the Otherfaith and act as a jumping off point for musing and discussing the Four Gods & their work.

The way I read Tarot is very, very intuitive. I’m not writing these posts to teach, but rather to share my thoughts and hear other ideas about the cards and their influences. If you’re expected someone who has read endless books on Tarot or can tell you their history, I’m not your girl! I read the cards the way they speak to me, and that’s pretty much it.

Today’s card is Ace of Pentacles from the Shadowscapes Tarot.

Otherfaith Relevance: I’ve discussed the lizard and dragon imagery of the Shadowscapes’ Pentacles before here on Patheos. We can’t ignore the slaughter connotations that come from interpreting these cards through an Otherfaith lens, but the Ace of Pentacles does offer a new meaning. It is the start of the cycle of Pentacles, after all, and it is laden with the reptiles and horned lizards that later grow into dragons.

The story of the eradication of the dragons in the Otherfaith mythology is both a metaphor for environmental devastation and an explanation for why dragons are so scarce in our otherworld. In the Ace of Pentacles, we see flourishing greenery and an abundance of lizards, animals which in the faith represent a healthy ecosystem and world.

This card, to us, is a chance. In the myths, the Clarene leads the hunts of the dragons until they are all devoured and destroyed, and it is only through the actions of the wilder spirits that a few precious eggs are saved. And so there is still hope, that the world can be made ‘right’ again, and that the Other People learn from those mistakes and do not eradicate entire species.

So the Ace of Pentacles, to us, speaks about that hope and about our choices.

We can work to live in a more stable balance – taking but not taking everything – or we can go ahead again with the ways of the past: consuming, consuming, and consuming as if our consumption will see no end. (And if the gods can’t get away with that, we can’t get away with it either.)

The cycle of the pentacles is more than just swinging back and forth between financial or material stability and instability – it is instead learning to find balance. And in the context of the Otherfaith, it deals with creating a stable community, where we don’t burn ourselves or others out, where we don’t destroy the community in our pursuit of one single goal.

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New visitor and a little confused where to start? Head over to our About and Otherfaith pages, and then meander over to our ‘basics‘ series. Any questions can be directed to my email aine@daoineile.com or to the askbox on Tumblr (anonymous questions are enabled).

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