Five of Pentacles
hardship · lack · left out in the cold · help nearby
Card art: Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, for A. E. Waite. Public domain.
The suit of Pentacles
In a few words
- hardship
- lack
- left out in the cold
- help nearby
Two figures in the snow outside a lit window. Hardship, want, feeling shut out; and the help is closer than it looks.
Upright
- Everything
- Two figures in the snow outside a lit window. Hardship, want, feeling shut out; and the help is closer than it looks.
- Love
- Feeling alone even together, or a couple under strain from money. Turn toward each other.
- Work
- A lean spell: job loss, thin work, feeling left outside. Ask; doors open when knocked.
- Money
- Financial hardship, debt, going without. Cut to essentials and ask for help without shame.
- Myself
- Feeling poor in spirit. The lit window is there; go to it.
The card foretells material trouble above all, whether in the form illustrated—that is, destitution—or otherwise. For some cartomancists, it is a card of love and lovers—wife, husband, friend, mistress; also concordance, affinities. These alternatives cannot be harmonized.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 272
Reversed
- Everything
- Recovery from hardship. Finding shelter, a door opening, the cold spell ending.
- Love
- Reconnecting after a bleak time. Or being helped by someone who noticed.
- Work
- New work after a drought. The lean time taught what matters.
- Money
- Money recovering, debt coming down, help accepted.
- Myself
- Coming in from the cold. Let yourself be warm.
Disorder, chaos, ruin, discord, profligacy.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 272
The card, as Waite described it
Two mendicants in a snow-storm pass a lighted casement.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 272
The plain-word meanings on this page were written for ShreeJyoti and are still under review.