I Dream of the Nine of Pentacles #1

Prompted by my friend Jen from Cat-n-Owl’s suggestion, I recently decided to work with one particular card over the course of the next few months.  While several cards have been repeating for me lately, I decided to work with a card that captures something I strive for; the Nine of Pentacles.

For as long as I’ve owned a tarot deck, I’ve been dazzled by the casual, confident and–above all–comfortable woman depicted in the Nine of Pentacles.  In a recent free-form reading I did regarding my tarot business, the Nine of Pentacles appeared and sparked my imagination.  For me, at this moment, the card is about changing my relationship to money and myself.

In a comment to my Wheel of Fortune post, Jen shared her own experience working with the Wheel of Fortune.  Over the course of a year, she entered the card using creative visualization.  Each time, she came away with something different and Jen found that her relationship with the card deepened.  This is my goal in working with the Nine of Pentacles. 

There's Betty, looking content in the Nine of Pentacles from the World Spirit Tarot

 For this visualization, I used an exercise from Mary Greer’s Tarot for Yourself.

I relaxed and imagined entering the Nine of Pentacles from the World Spirit Tarot.  At first, the woman in the card seemed surprised to see me.  I felt as though I’d interrupted her, but she quickly regained her composure and put me at ease.  She invited me into her house, but I said I’d rather sit outside.  She had a lovely table overlooking her view of the ocean that we moved over to.

She told me her name was Betty and asked me if I liked her house.  I told her I liked it very much and I wished it was mine.  I loved the ocean view, the garden, and the airiness of the place.  Then, a funny thing happened.  Betty told me I could have her house and everything in it if I killed her.  It wasn’t a sarcastic remark and I knew that right away.  She meant it.  I told her I couldn’t do that and she insisted.  She said, “Don’t you want my house?”

“But it wouldn’t be mine,” I surprised myself with this response.  Not because it wasn’t true, but because it was utterly true.  I don’t think I could have come up with that answer if I were in my waking, day to day state of mind.  Normally, I like taking shortcuts to get to a beautiful finish line like the Nine of Pentacles.  And while killing someone is not a shortcut I would ever take, in the world of creative visualization, it isn’t necessarily a crime.  Still, I was not willing to kill Betty, even in my imagination, for gorgeous new digs.

She asked me what I mean and I explained (as much to myself as to my kind hostess) that owning something doesn’t mean as much if you haven’t taken a journey to get there.  Sure, I would live in a beautiful house, with beautiful things and a beautiful view, but without memories of achieving those things they wouldn’t have as much value.  The beauty would be hollow and my enjoyment would be superficial.  I would not look out the window and see my view, but a view that was taken from someone else.  Earning through destruction would disconnect me from my goals–even once achieved.

In that moment, I realized the shortcuts I’d been looking for to earning financial independence were distractions.  Not only that, but they were destructive.  In a sense, I had been killing someone in the hopes of getting ahead in the world of finances; myself.    So often, throughout my life, I’ve made money (and spent it) without any regard for my authentic self.  I’ve steamrolled my dreams and my self-worth to get ahead and I never got there.   I realized that I can’t just make a lot of money at a job I hate or, more importantly, makes me hate myself (which I’ve done for the majority of my life) and think that will magically make me happy.   Earning through such destructive means always ended with me throwing away the money I made because I did not feel connected to it.  Eventually, it also led to feelings of guilt, worry, and self-loathing (which is never good) because I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me.  Thanks to Betty and my journey into her world, I realized there’s nothing wrong.  It’s just that  I have to be connected, in a deep way, to my success in order to enjoy it and that means earning money in a way that honors who I am as a person, instead of disregarding it.  Once again, I discovered that the journey is as important (if not more important) than the destination–especially for someone as sensitive as I am.

I thanked Betty for her time and asked her if she had anything to give me.  She replied that the Lovers had already given me a key, so I didn’t need another one (this was true, the Lovers had given me a key on a chain in the past).  Without saying it, Betty indicated that I had something to give myself.  I realized that it was time I learn about money and my relationship to it.  If I wanted to have the kind of life that I admired in the Nine of Pentacles, it would not come through luck or by easy means.  It would come through learning, work, and maybe a little magic.

This was my first entry into this favorite card.  As you can see it was a very fruitful one (can we expect anything less from a card that manifests as much as the Nine of Pentacles?).  I plan on taking more journeys there as the year progresses.  I will share with you each revelation.  Please, also, feel free to share with us your experience with entering a card and how it may (or may not) have changed your perspective.  Happy reading!

Related posts:

1. I Dream of the Nine of Pentacles #2
2. My Own Two of Wands
3. Denial: Not a River
4. Self-Reading Technique: Revisiting the Past
5. Breaking in a New Deck