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Pentacles
Pentacles are the suit of Earth. Their cards are about the material side of life: work and craft, money and resources, health of body in the everyday sense, home, nature and the slow growth of what is planted and tended. They describe what is solid and practical — what a person can hold, build, save, share or lose.
Element and character
Earth is steady, patient and concrete, and the Pentacles share its virtues and its weight. At their best they show reliability, skill, care, prosperity and the satisfaction of good work; at their worst, stubbornness, worry about security, possessiveness and a life narrowed to what can be counted. On the Rider–Waite–Smith cards each pentacle is a gold coin marked with a five-pointed star, and many of the scenes are set in gardens, workshops and fields.
Areas of life
Pentacles tend to speak about jobs and training, income, property and practical plans, about the household and family resources, and about physical comfort and routine. They also carry a sense of value in a wider way: what a person invests their time in, and what they are building to last.
In playing cards
The Pentacles correspond to the suit of diamonds. Older Italian and French packs show coins, which is why the French name is Deniers, and some English decks call the suit Coins or Disks.
The Golden Dawn signs
The Golden Dawn gave the numbered cards Two to Ten to the decans of the three Earth signs: the Twos to Fours to Capricorn, the Fives to Sevens to Taurus, and the Eights to Tens to Virgo. So the Two of Pentacles is Jupiter in the first decan of Capricorn, and the Ten of Pentacles is Mercury in the last decan of Virgo. These are the Golden Dawn's attributions, which most English-language decks follow.
The Ace as root
The Ace of Pentacles is the root of the suit: a seed, an offer or an opportunity in the material world, with the promise of growth if it is tended. The other numbered cards follow that seed through juggling, apprenticeship, holding on, hardship, giving, patient waiting, diligent work, comfort and, finally, the wealth and lineage of a family. The courts, from the Page to the King, show people or attitudes rooted in practical life.
When Pentacles dominate a spread
When many Pentacles appear together, the reading is usually about practical matters: work, money, home or the daily care of the body. The Golden Dawn's rule for a majority of Pentacles was "business, money, possessions". A reader may ask what the querent is building, what they need in order to feel secure, and whether that security is leaving room for anything else.
In astrology
The Golden Dawn's correspondences, which most English-language decks follow (French, Marseille-based tradition differs for some Major Arcana).
Element: Earth — the element of Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn
Numbered cards, sign by sign:
- Capricorn (cardinal): Two of Pentacles, Three of Pentacles, Four of Pentacles
- Taurus (fixed): Five of Pentacles, Six of Pentacles, Seven of Pentacles
- Virgo (mutable): Eight of Pentacles, Nine of Pentacles, Ten of Pentacles
Twos to Fours hold the cardinal signs, Fives to Sevens the fixed, Eights to Tens the mutable.