Two of Pentacles.
Two things tied together, kept in the air.
Upright, then reversed, as Waite gave them in 1910.
He is dancing. A young man in a red hat twice the height of his head, two coins tied together by a green ribbon in a figure of eight, and behind him two ships climbing waves taller than their masts. He has not looked round.
Juggling is the usual word, and the picture is more exact than that. The two things are joined, and he is moving to keep them up. You are managing both of yours, and managing them well, and the thing that could tip them is not in your hands.
Four things people go to on this card
- the ribbon
You went to the ribbon. It loops the two coins into a figure of eight, and it is one continuous piece.
This is not two separate things being balanced. It is two things that are already tied together, which is a different problem and usually the real one. The loop has no break in it anywhere.
That is why the arrangement works and why it is dangerous. Drop one and you find out at once that it was attached to the other. If you have been thinking of your two commitments as separate, look for the ribbon; it is there, and it explains why you cannot put either of them down on its own.
The two things you are juggling are tied together. What happens to the second if you drop the first?
- the ships
Past him, out at sea: two ships on green waves higher than their masts, behind a man dancing on dry ground.
He is keeping his footing while something much larger goes on out of his control. The waves are enormous. He has not noticed, or has decided not to.
Whether that is admirable or a warning, the picture will not say. What it does say is that the thing making you anxious is inland and small, and the thing that could actually turn this over is out at sea. You have been watching your hands, and the weather is behind you.
What is going on out at sea that you have not looked up at?
- his feet
You went to his feet. One is off the ground; he is mid-step, or mid-dance, and not standing still.
Motion is the only way he has of holding still. Stop and the whole arrangement comes down. That is not balance, it is cycling, and cycling works right up until it does not.
So the question is not whether you can keep it up, which you clearly can. It is how long you have been doing it without a pause, and what a pause would cost. Most people in this position have not asked, because the asking itself feels like a wobble.
How long have you been keeping this moving without a proper stop?
- the tall hat
The hat, which is absurd: red, twice the height of his head, and the card is not embarrassed by it.
There is a sense of humour in this card, which most people in the situation do not have. He is coping and he is also performing, and the performance is part of how he copes. The hat is the tell.
Underneath it there is a real question about who would help if you stopped making this look easy, and whether you have given anyone the chance. Performing competence is a way of refusing assistance before it is offered. You are good enough at it that nobody has noticed the refusal.
If you stopped making this look easy, who would step in?
Its ten degrees
The Golden Dawn gave the Two of Pentacles 0° to 10° of Capricorn, ruled by Jupiter, and Book T calls it the Lord of Harmonious Change. The Sun is in it from 21 December to 31 December. The decan page for this card.
The wheel runs on from here. The decan before this one is Ten of Wands, Saturn in Sagittarius, 12 December to 21 December. The one after is Three of Pentacles, Mars in Capricorn, 31 December to 10 January. All thirty-six, in order.
On the Tree of Life, Book T puts the Two of Pentacles on Chokmah, wisdom, in Assiah, the world of earth: every two is Chokmah, in its own suit's world. It is the second 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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