Queering the Tarot, page 14
THE FOUR OF PENTACLES
The Four of Pentacles denotes success, but it's one I've always had a hard time connecting with. The figure pictured in a traditional Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck is holding on to his coins tightly, refusing to let anyone else touch them—and refusing to take chances or move forward in his own life for fear of losing them. This, then, is a card about conservatism and, worse yet, stinginess. It's a card that leads to loneliness, and it's a card that indicates a wildly unpleasant, if technically successful, life. This Four shows up when someone is overly concerned with the financial part of a career they don't love, but the most common manifestation I see in clients and friends is more of a metaphor. If this card is about being ungenerous, that doesn't always mean money. Most people getting tarot readings are not money-centric to a fault the way that this card indicates, though it has had the traditional applications when querents were asking about their boss, a parent, or a partner where things were turning sour. Most often, though, this is a card of holding your hand too close to your chest and refusing to let go of information people close to you may need about your inner workings. It's very often a card of not being generous of heart or spirit and can indicate a seeker who wants to open their heart but can't. Much like the traditional figure holds his coins close to his body, if this card is showing up as you or an energy you're putting out there, it's showing you that you are holding your mysteries, secrets, or capacity for love too tightly and keeping them too internal.
As LGBTQQIP2SA+ people, it's a really common temptation to fall into. We get messages and coding from the society around us all the time that the way we love or even the way we are isn't right. After enough of these messages become internalized, we don't trust when love (in any form) crosses our path. We hold our hearts tightly in our own hands no matter what our queer community or a potential partner does to earn us opening up a little bit. The nature of this card running through my veins is one of my greatest weaknesses as a human. So I know, and I get it. That fear of being hurt, and not only losing someone we could have loved, but also proving this hurtful world right about us, seeps into how we treat the people who are actually worth our hearts. This card shows up mostly as a warning. “This is what you're doing. Please stop.” Or sometimes more politely, “It's okay to let your guard down now.”
Alternatively, this card often indicates that this is what someone else in your life is doing or going through. It may not be personal, and if anything they may be desperately trying to let you in, yet they grip themselves so tightly that you cannot find your way. This is not your fault. Unfortunately, though, it may not change. You have to decide if those pieces of themselves they are clutching are precious enough to wait for. They may be—but the reality is it may be time to walk away. You're not a friend's or partner's therapist. This is not your job. You are dealing with someone who likely has years or decades of holding too tightly under their belt, and sometimes it's better to walk away and work through your own stuff.
I don't want to overlook the elements of control in the Four of Pentacles and how they can manifest negatively in our lives. Sometimes people hold on to themselves too tightly, but sometimes they hold on to others too tightly. There are times when this is okay. You want someone in your life who is going to fight for you and your love, but this card isn't that. There are times when our cards about control become fun explorations into BDSM and kink, but this card isn't that either. This card is someone who may need to know your every move and who may need to control every facet of how the relationship is going. This card is someone who ultimately wants to control you in an overbearing, abrasive, and abusive way. Abuse is not uncommon in queer relationships, and it's unfortunately all too common for bisexual and transgender people to be abused by their partners. Furthermore, there often aren't resources to help them leave those relationships. As a community, we are even more scared than mainstream society to call out abuse. We don't want people looking at our relationships as bad or our identity as reason for abuse. So we keep quiet, and we don't call out. That is, to put it mildly, a mistake. I digress a bit—other cards will let us know when it's time to take a stand publicly. The Four of Pentacles' job is to urge us to leave that partner, friend, or family member. Immediately.
The Four of Pentacles is a card that I've seen straight, cisgender readers read positively. In a spiritual community, this has always confused me. Materialism is, generally speaking, not good. I'm not someone who doesn't value my work, and I absolutely see spiritual work as real work. Yet if we're hustling for the money to the point that we lose our hearts, what's the point? Why take a spiritual path at all? I love money—but it's not why I do what I do. As an LGBTQQIP2SA+ person, I've tried to put a spin on it regarding resource building and sharing, but it still comes up negative. Specifically, it comes up as someone who has the resources to lift our community up but won't share or contribute. Remember why we're even queering the tarot, though. As marginalized people, our point of view is going to be much different from someone else's. (Plus my whole thesis as a tarot reader is that every card is different to every person.) If you can't turn the wealth yet stinginess, the success yet coldness of the Four of Pentacles into something good, don't. Question the things we place on pedestals as a society, and know that for every strictly negative card in the deck, there are seven more cards ready to promise you healing and adventure.
THE FIVE OF PENTACLES
I promise the Pentacles get cheerful again! Just not right now. Fives in general are our cards of duress and heartbreak, and this one specifically speaks to financial loss and poverty. Pentacles are Earth energy, and Earth is anything that keeps us connected to the world around us and allows us to grow and thrive. That means this Five also speaks to feeling isolated and disconnected, and it can include feeling lost or alone spiritually (or existentially). This is a hard card and one where it's easy to get down on yourself and lost in your emotions. I don't want to overlook a very common piece of the artwork in this card, though; often the card shows a couple of people lost or stuck in the snow while they look in on a lush room filled with happy people. There are two ways to interpret that. One is that, yeah, wow, this really is a hard time you're going through, and you're 100 percent right to feel like it isn't fair or justified. It can also be taken as a warning not to compare yourself and your life to others. In the heyday of the Internet and Instagram and all of our wonderful apps, it's easy to look at what other people seem to have (and are boasting about) and feel low about where we are and how we're doing. Depending on how you see this card, there are two different outlets for those feelings. You can use that stable Earth energy to figure out how to move forward yourself, or you can just . . . stop. Stop comparing yourself to other people, because where you are now is where you are. If you can change it, this card is a necessary message to do so. If you can't, you're only going to hurt yourself more by staring in vain at what other people have.
In my own life, this card has shown up when I get the blues about not being romantically partnered, or when it feels like my life is behind schedule because a lot of my college friends are two or more kids in already. Sometimes the card shows up because it wants me to recognize where maybe I am a little behind schedule, but more often than not it is that stark reminder to stop comparing myself to my (often straight and cisgender) age peers. I don't want a family in the traditional way, and that's a pretty common (though certainly not unilateral) mind-set in the LGBTQQIP2SA+ community. It's ridiculous then that the feelings of inadequacy and “What am I even doing with my life?” creep in when I see that Betsy from Advanced Geometry is on her third kid, but it happens with stark regularity.
As we queer this card, we need to look at the realities of life for a queer seeker, and while not having a partner is not life threatening, it does lead into that feeling of isolation and certainly makes us feel lost at times. The reality is that it's harder to date in the queer community, especially when you're over thirty. That's fine! Everyone who is single needs the occasional reminder to stop comparing yourself to other people and their relationships. In a community that makes up less than 5 percent of the population, the odds are a little stacked against you. Be gentle on yourself.
Of course I'm not going to ignore the effects of poverty on querents from the LGBTQQIP2SA+ community and how this card plays a hand. Another one of those realities I mentioned above is something I've brought up several times already in this book: housing, employment, and stability very often do not come easily or securely to us. In a card of poverty or financial loss, we do need to take that into account. Unfortunately, we are likely still climbing uphill the best we can when this card shows up. Nonprofits and community resources fold, and this Five isn't going to lie to us if a resource we are building is heading that way. Our personal financial lives can be in shambles for the foreseeable future because of how poverty intersects with other marginalized identities. It can all be a tough pill to swallow. That can also be valuable information. It could be that we needed to hear our current path wasn't about to lead to success so we can switch gears. It could be the final straw that encourages us to seek help and resources. It could be that sometimes we need to struggle before we move ahead in our journey, which the Pentacles do promise in the following cards.
Another harsh reality for queer seekers is the spiritual poverty often seen in this card. So many of us grew up Christian, Muslim, or Jewish in churches, mosques, and temples that didn't want us once we came out. The temptation to turn away from our gods or spirituality on the whole is nearly impossible to resist when we are pushed away from religious communities that once felt like home. It's an unpopular opinion, I know, but I actually think that time of feeling separated from your Higher Power is good. Religion should be deeply personal, and until you are metaphorically lost in the dark woods, you are never going to find your personal sunrise. Some LGBTQQIP2SA+ people are very Christian, very Muslim, very Jewish, and many of them find a spiritual home that lets them be both; still I think this is something you have to find for yourself. This card is not a fun one, but a time to question is an opportunity, and it's an opportunity that leads many of us to a deep, primal understanding of ourselves and our spirits if we let ourselves lose our way for a while.
THE SIX OF PENTACLES
The Six of Pentacles traditionally features a successful, prosperous figure handing out money to those less fortunate than themselves. As readers, we learn that this means it's either time to give to back, or time to accept help, depending on your own situation or the surrounding cards. If you are seeing more money than usual, this card is encouraging you to use some of that money to help others, pay back old debts, give to charity, or make investments that improve your community. If you identify more with the beggars on the card than the wealthy person, this card is telling you to suck up your pride and ask for help. There are people and organizations that would be thrilled to help you get back on your feet—all you need to do is ask. This can, of course, be a metaphor. Generosity of spirit, heart, and knowledge are all highly valuable, and often necessary for forging new friendships or keeping our family lives healthy. When this card comes up, it's time to open yourself up, or accept that a loved one is truly being generous and kind with themselves right now.
This card fits in beautifully with conversations about building community resources and making sure that, as a queer community, we are all provided for. Either you have exactly what is needed to provide a resource, amplify voices, or protect people in your community—or you're in need, and need to trust that the underground infrastructure that your queer friends are running and contributing to can and will support you. One thing I know that many LGBTQQIP2SA+ people deal with is the question of what to do when we're out of poverty. We aren't always going to be happy making investments that pay off only for ourselves, but buying up property we can rent affordably or run a food shelf from will make us feel truly successful and capable.
For queer seekers, the emotional aspects of this card are especially relevant. I have certainly seen it mean, “It's time to get help” or, “It's time to give back,” but what I usually see when the Six of Pentacles shows up is LGBTQQIP2SA+ querents who have come out of traumatic situations and backgrounds and who have trouble trusting those around them. If your parents kicked you out because they found out you were a sexual or gender minority, if they were abusive, or if they were great parents until they learned your truth, you're going to have a lot of trouble getting and finding your bearings as you try to form adult relationships. This is also true if you were in an abusive relationship, had a dangerously toxic friendship, or even just spent years feeling stuck in solitude because no one around you understood you. There are many cards that speak to this trauma though; what the Six of Pentacles wants you to know is that the people in your daily life now, the ones offering you a shoulder to cry on, a fun game night, or a warm meal, are people you can trust and it is safe to let your guard down around them.
This card comes up a lot for me now as the person being called on to share of themselves. I spent so long overcoming my own trauma and learning to share my opinions without my voice shaking that I didn't realize I had somehow evolved past just surviving; I became, without realizing it, someone with a story to share and a heart ready to love openly, without the conditions I was so used to putting on my love. Healing is not a perfect arc, and it's not every day I'm sitting in that position. It is certainly more frequent as I continue on my journey, and it is certainly nowhere I ever expected to be. The Six of Pentacles is not only a calling to love more and be generous, but also an assurance that it is safe to do so. It's a card that shows how much you've grown and how much you've moved past in your life, and it's a card that encourages you to let others see all of the sides of you that got you here.
THE SEVEN OF PENTACLES
The Seven of Pentacles is a card I learned a little bit differently from most people and a card that is radically different whether you're studying a Thoth-based deck or a Rider-Waite-Smith-based deck. The things they all have in common is that the Seven starts the metaphor that we see through the end of this suit about planting season. In a Thoth-based deck, this is a card about a ruined harvest. In a Rider-Waite-Smith-based deck, it's a card about how you've already done a substantial part of your work. You've planted your seeds, and now it's time to take a step back and let them grow on their own. I was learning tarot at a harrowing time in my life, though. The whole world was new and a bit terrifying, but I knew it was time for me to plant my own seeds and make my own way. The art in the tarot allows for all three of these interpretations, but your deck should make it pretty clear which way it leans. Regardless, this card kick-starts a time of hard work and innovation for the seeker and also encourages us to take things one step at a time, allowing space for natural growth cycles.
For LGBTQQIP2SA+ people, the Seven of Pentacles can be an exciting but also terrifying time. Whoever we have been and whoever we are now, it is time to contemplate our next steps. Whether we have seen an attempt at a new life get overturned and ruined, have done the planting and are waiting to see what happens, or it is time to start the planting, the Seven of Pentacles will show up to let us know that this is our time and our field to create in. The trade-off, though, is that it's time to start thinking about the big picture and where we want to be in fifteen years. We all have goals for the next week, month, or year, but the Seven of Pentacles wants us to go a step further and actually focus on the things we hope to accomplish by the end of our lives, but likely haven't started yet.
Why specifically do I bring up queer people here? Because often it isn't until later in life, or at least after several journeys of self-discovery, that we can even begin to start on those higher goals. We spend the first part of our lives questioning our intuition, our ability to love, our attractions to other people, and our very identities. Then comes all of the analyzing and unpacking and processing. Next comes, most often, a weird period of time where we could move on, but we understandably like sitting where we are and just enjoying being queer and happy and healthy. And after all of that comes the Seven of Pentacles. It's a much different trajectory from our classmates and siblings who are both straight and cisgender, and it means that the Seven of Pentacles is often a surprise for us. We don't see that day sneaking up where we're ready to take control and plant the seeds we've been carrying with us, but it's here, and the card shows up asking what we're going to do now.
That doesn't mean everything is easy. Taking control of your own life and regaining your autonomy means that you are now responsible for the ups and downs. If that Seven does come as ruin, you and you alone are responsible for righting that. From a queer perspective, though, even that is thrilling. This is your time to shine, and your time to create a harvest from a pile of weeds. If ever there was a queer skill set, the ability to turn that mess into something beautiful and sustenant would be it. This is what the marginalized spend their whole lives doing—looking at the pile of crap they've been handed and scrapping together a worthwhile life. This is all the Seven of Pentacles is asking you to do, and sure, it's exhausting being the one to do it all the time, but this time it's for you and your life. That's it. Sure that's more responsibility and more on you, but there are other cards that promise freedom. This card promises that if you pick up your hoe and get to work, the eventual harvest will be more than worth it, and since we're looking at queer values, this isn't just about payoff for you. The road you are paving for queer kids who come after you is crucial, and you are more than capable of doing that just by finding your own path to what you need.
