Seven of Pentacles.
A thing going well and not fast.
Upright, then reversed, as Waite gave them in 1910.
Six coins are growing on a bush like fruit, and a seventh lies on the ground by his foot. The man leans on his hoe with both hands and looks down at the plant. He does not look pleased.
Everything he did, he did months ago, and the rest is not his to do. Not a failure, a yield that is coming and will not be hurried. Whatever you have been growing, it is not ready, and the part of you that has to wait for it is not ready either.
Four things people go to on this card
- the coin by his foot
You went to the one on the ground. Six are on the bush; that one is lying by his foot, apart from the rest.
Part of the yield is not on the plant. Something has come off already, or was never on it, and it is the only thing in the picture he could pick up right now. He is looking at the bush instead.
Slow is not the same as failed. Everything here is working; nothing here is finished; and one piece of it is finished and lying at your feet while you watch the rest ripen. The likeliest reason you have not picked it up is that it is smaller than what you were waiting for.
What has already come off this that you could pick up today rather than waiting?
- his face
You went to his expression. He is looking down at a bush covered in fruit and he does not look pleased.
The specific unhappiness of a thing that is going well and not fast. He is not looking at a failure. He is looking at six coins growing and feeling nothing about it.
That is worth naming exactly, because it is usually mistaken for a problem with the work. It is a problem with the waiting, which is a different thing and has a different fix. You have been trying to fix the work, and the work was fine.
Is the problem the work, or the waiting? Which one have you been trying to fix?
- the hoe
He is leaning on the tool with both hands, resting his weight on it, not using it.
A pause inside the work rather than a stop. The tool is still in his hands. He has not walked away; he has straightened up for a minute and is looking at the thing he is making.
Two things look exactly like this from the outside. One is the rest the work needs. The other is the beginning of abandoning it. Only you know which this is, and if you do not know, that is itself the answer, because a rest has an end to it and you have not set one.
Is this a rest or the start of walking away? Which one do you want it to be?
- the bush
Six coins on the plant, growing out of the leaves like fruit.
Something with its own timetable. You cannot argue a plant into ripening, and this one is in no hurry. The leaves are full and the coins are on it and none of that was done today.
That is either a relief or intolerable depending on the day. The card is on the side of relief: the work is done and correct, and the remaining variable is time. What you did properly, earlier, is holding; the only thing being asked of you now is to leave it alone.
What have you already done properly, where the only remaining variable is time?
Its ten degrees
The Golden Dawn gave the Seven of Pentacles 20° to 30° of Taurus, ruled by Saturn, and Book T calls it the Lord of Success Unfulfilled. The Sun is in it from 10 May to 21 May. The decan page for this card.
The wheel runs on from here. The decan before this one is Six of Pentacles, the Moon in Taurus, 30 April to 10 May. The one after is Eight of Swords, Jupiter in Gemini, 21 May to 31 May. All thirty-six, in order.
On the Tree of Life, Book T puts the Seven of Pentacles on Netzach, victory, in Assiah, the world of earth: every seven is Netzach, in its own suit's world. It is the seventh place in the Tree of Life spread.
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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