King of Pentacles.
The estate, held, by a man who has become it.
Upright, then reversed, as Waite gave them in 1910.
The man and the crop are drawn as one thing. A king in a garden outside his own castle, on a throne carved with bulls, in a robe so covered in vines and grapes that it takes a second look to find his hands.
Having, arrived at and settled: the estate, the long hold, the person who is not going anywhere. Kings are the outward face of their suits, and this one faces outward as ownership. You have arrived at something, and the card's question is whether you have noticed that you stopped.
Four things people go to on this card
- the vines
You went to his robe. It is covered in vines and clusters of grapes, and they are drawn as if they are growing on him.
Somebody who has become the thing he tends. There is no boundary in the drawing between the man and the crop; the pattern runs over the whole of him, and it takes a second look to find his hands.
That is the good version and the warning at once. He is prosperous and he is entirely identified with it, and there is no version of him in this picture that is not the estate. Where you have stopped being separate from the thing you built is worth locating, because that is the place you can no longer leave.
Where have you stopped being separate from the thing you built?
- the bulls
You went to the throne. Bull heads carved at the corners, above and behind him.
The most settled chair in the deck. The bull is the animal that stands where it is put and does not move, and there are two of them, at the shoulders, looking outward.
This one holds. If you need something to stay exactly as it is for ten years, this is the figure that does that, and he will not be interested in your improvement. That is worth knowing before you propose one, because he will hear it as a threat to the furniture.
What in your life needs to just stay the same for a long time?
- the castle
Behind him, on the right and close, a castle, and he is sitting outside it in the garden.
A man who does not need to be indoors. Everything he owns is behind him and he has come out to sit among the vines with the door open.
That is the difference between him and the Four of Pentacles, and the two cards are almost the same scene otherwise. One sits outside the city clutching it. This one has left the door open and is not watching it. Whether what you have made is a thing you guard or a thing you can leave the door open on is not a question of size; it is a question of whether you can stop looking at it.
Is what you have made something you sit inside guarding, or something you can leave the door open on?
- his foot
His foot, under all the grapes, is in armour, and it is resting on a carved stone.
The card remembers that this was not always a garden. He got here, and the getting here involved something the vines have grown over. One boot, in a picture of abundance, and no sword.
It is worth asking what the equivalent is for you. Something you needed to get here is still on, under the grapes, and it is either still needed or simply never taken off. The difference is whether you could unbuckle it tonight without feeling unsafe.
What did it take to get here that you are still wearing, and does it still need to be on?
On the Tree of Life, Book T puts the King of Pentacles on Chokmah, wisdom, in Assiah, the world of earth: the kings of all four suits sit there, one to a world. It is the second place in the Tree of Life spread.
Which zodiac signs does the King of Pentacles cover?
Twenty degrees of Leo to twenty degrees of Virgo: the last third of Leo and the first two thirds of Virgo, which the Sun crosses about 12 August to 12 September each year. Book T gives every king thirty degrees across two signs like this, which is why a court card belongs to no single sign. The three decans inside it are Seven of Wands · Eight of Pentacles · Nine of Pentacles, so a birth in any of them carries the King of Pentacles as well as its own card.
Draw a card, and if this one turns, press whichever of these four you went to and the reading is written from there instead. Pulled it in a spread of your own? Read the whole spread here.
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