Ten Of Pentacles

one and stepping from the dark to light and
two so have a spine a vector, fire and
three curls into form, a vessel, frame and
four has mercy, offers blessing, love and
five cuts the crap and builds the wall and
six sacrifices balances rewards and
seven decorates with verve and passion
eight does the math and learns the words and
nine opens up the trapdoor in the roof and
ten brings you to the root the end the whole.


We're done. There's this huge ongoing process and we've reached the top of it. We're fulfilled; we're complete. This is about the work we do with our hands and our minds, not about anything more subjective. It's about turning the last page and reading/writing THE END.

(Where does anything end? You could say it doesn't, ever. But, me, whenever I've finished a bit of fiction - a story, a chapter, a difficult scene - I like to give thanks, even if there's more to come, more polishing to do, even if it's never over...it's still good to take a moment to be quiet, look at what you've done, and let it go.)

The Intuitive Tarot makes this card look really damn interesting - it shows a long chain of pairs of people, huge discs in the backdrop giving it the feel of a production line in a factory...and at the vanishing point at the top of the card, that line curves, and we see not human figures like those at the end, but our ancient ancestors; crayfish, curled things, long-necked dinosaurs, mammoths. The road was there a long time before we stepped foot on it, and will remain a long time after we get off. (More on this when I finally pull down the Moon).


Images of the Ten of Pentacles

The RWS, and some other decks that are in love with Western qabalism, like to array the ten coins in the form of the Tree of Life; a triangle, two inverted triangles, and then Malkuth alone at the root. I like this because it shows the Ten as being not just part of a process but also as being the process itself, the entire road and not just the final step. The other thing about this road is that it zigzags, veers from one extreme to another before finding balance and losing it again - you won't find perfect here, only whole. The image itself, behind all that, is of three generations of a family, home, garden and pets, crest and tower, an entirely practical state of comfort and fulfilment.

The image in the Scapini deck is colder but fairly similar in scope; we have our high castle and the tall tree outside it. No people here. This Ten of Coins is not about the people in your life, but about the strong walls and strong roots that you've built up over time.

The Osho Zen Tarot has a Ten of Pentacles that's all about people; I'm unavoidably reminded of my very favourite Edward Monkton cartoon. This is how we make worlds, and how our world is made.