Card of the Day: Two of Pentacles

[caption id align="alignnone" width="526"]

The Wild Unknown Tarot [/caption]

This is one of my very favorite cards in the deck and I can’t believe I haven’t pulled it here before. Joan Bunning has a take I truly love: “the feeling of being graceful and effective at the same time.” Isn’t that the best feeling? As a triple Capricorn, it’s a peak experience and pleasure for me.

Traditional depictions show a person juggling two pentacles. Juggling is playful and requires concentration. “Work” can be “play.” I love this depiction because of the lightness of the butterfly. To me, it suggests being able to navigate all the ingredients of a day with a whole heart, but holding lightly outcomes and circumstances we can’t control.

When I had a tarot reading with Jessica Dore, we talked a bit about capitalism and paid work, and the conditioning that we all get that work is supposed to be hard. We’re supposed to struggle to make money. The idea that we can play, have fun, “whistle while we work,” get paid well for our time and energy, seems pretty counter to most people’s experience who I know. I also realize that capitalism makes it hard if not impossible for the vast majority of people to find work that is well-paid, meaningful or allows any space for “fun” or “creativity.” To even contemplate these issues indicates great privilege is at play.

There’s a way in which this card could feed into the toxic maw of capitalism: You can do it all! You can have it all! Just do more! Do it more efficiently! (Don’t forget to buy more!) Optimize your life! Here’s to resisting all of that. Here’s to de-optimizing. Here’s to “wasting” a little time during the course of a day--staring out the window, watching the cat be ridiculous, appreciating the miracle we are and life is.