Card of the Day: Five of Pentacles

Loving this day-after-Valentine’s-Day mood! Reader/teacher Joan Bunning has a take on this card that I’ve found useful: “afraid that misfortune will take away all that we’ve worked for.” When this card appears, I ask myself, “What are the things that misfortune can’t take away?” Love, friendship, nature, creativity, gratitude, the ability to recognize beauty, self-acceptance, and the capacity to use the mind well through storytelling, meaning-making, and adopting a broader perspective. What can you think of?

Another theme that comes up for me with this card is the way relationships can hold together through dysfunction. Codependency, addiction, us vs. them. It’s a powerful glue, but it doesn’t lead to happiness or joy or fulfillment. If our early experiences of love were mixed in with rage, neglect, fear, addiction or abuse, love might feel unsafe. We settle for bonding through hardship rather than risk being vulnerable. This is understandable, but limiting.

This card also points to the experience of grief. While I can understand in the abstract the idea that grief is not a judgement on my choices or who I fundamentally am, practicing the reality of it can be hard! When grief swells up through me, thoughts start swirling: “maybe you made a mistake,” “see, you don’t deserve to be happy.”

Thank Goddess I have a practice that lets me put some space around those thoughts so that I can let the energy of grief alight on my chest, surge through my belly, squeeze tears and sobs from me, and depart when it’s ready. I never fail to feel cleared out and light inside when I’m actually able to do this. When I’m not able to, I try not to be too hard on myself: gentle, gentle, gentle.