Card of the Day: Daughter of Pentacles

We seem to be on a court-card streak! One way to think of the courts is as moving into deepening levels of mastery of their suits. This young student is about deeply grounded learning from life—by close observation of the “mundane,” trial and error, trusting her body, connecting to the Earth, and immersion in process over goals and results.

I showed my co-worker a short video that a friend made of me working on a painting. He said, “You have to make Every. Single. Dot. Yourself!?” I had to laugh! I said, “That’s the Whole. Point.” The process gives me such pleasure—both in its meditative/emotionally regulating quality, and also in being able to externalize the process of seeing my mind. I can see where I was thinking about a conflict with a friend, where I was listening to King Princess and in my feelings, where I let my mind wander and made a “mistake.” Making my paintings is like Mind TV, and the energy of this young student is very much at play in the process of being in the process.

In a culture that prizes “progress” and growth at any cost, accumulation, achievement, winning, being front-and-center, knowing everything, and speed, this little Daughter is a student of being a student. Of learning how to learn. She immerses herself in process and not-knowing, at the same time that she takes risks through acting on what she’s learning.

It’s good to read it in a book. Better to test it in one’s experience and enjoy the benefit of life-feedback. Learning to fall and fail. From Ram Dass: “Of course it’s embarrassing not to always be infinitely wise, but I feel that what we can offer each other is our truth of the process of growing, and that means we fall on our face again and again.” Hallelujah.