The Queen of Pentacles: a mid-week tarot meditation

By Sarah Taylor

A last-minute, but very welcome, visit with family means that I have had to put plans for an article on The Magician and The High Priestess on the back-burner, simmering away until I have the time and space to delve more deeply into their relationship — something I have been exploring in my Hermetics studies.

Queen of Pentacles -- RWS Tarot deck.
The Queen of Pentacles from the Rider-Waite Smith Tarot deck, created by A E Waite and Pamela Colman Smith. Click on the image for a larger version.

This week, I am going to work along the same principles I did when writing the series on the shadow (you can read parts one, two, and three here), and invite you to consider a particular card.

This time, however, instead of using it as a focus for meeting with your shadow, this is about approaching the card with no attachment to a particular outcome — or, in the words of psychoanalyst Wilfrid Bion, “without memory or desire.”

The card in question is the Queen of Pentacles — one of the two senior court cards (her masculine counterpart is the King of Pentacles) in the final suit. Anything that is physical is ruled by Pentacles; it is the final stage in bringing something down from spirit and into matter. It might be worth bearing that in mind. Or maybe not. I’ll leave it up to you.

To do the exercise, simply take a moment to centre yourself, and then rest your attention on the card — either by using the larger image that you can reach by clicking on the Queen of Pentacles, or your own Rider-Waite Smith card, if you have one.

Take in the card as a whole, and then start to move into the card — the use of line, the colours, the details, what is in the foreground, middle-ground and background.

Notice your sensations: feel into your body. What is your body saying to you? How does your body want to connect with the card, if at all? Mirror the Queen’s position. How does that feel bodily? No feeling is wrong; no feeling is the ‘right’ one. You are not aiming to feel ‘Queenly’.

Notice your feelings: how does the card feel to you? How do you feel in relation to the card? Are there any parts that feel different? If so, what different feelings do they stir in you? How would you feel if you were the Queen, sitting where she is, as she does, holding what she holds?

Notice your thoughts: what are you thinking? What do you think the Queen is thinking? How do your thoughts correspond with hers? What is the card thinking? Are there any elements of the card that are thinking particular thoughts? What are you thinking now?

If it starts to feel like hard work, or if you simply feel disinclined to do it, then stop at any time. The aim here is enjoyable contemplation.

Make a note of any responses that you have that feel meaningful to you. You can also share them here.

— Sarah

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.

10 thoughts on “The Queen of Pentacles: a mid-week tarot meditation”

  1. michele (you’re welcome!), vince (keep wondering), wandering_yeti (great that you’ve found something that works for you), Daniel (thank you for the beautifully evocative poem; empyrean – lovely!), DivaCarla (sometimes grace feels like the only thing we have; sometimes people are cherished from afar), (((((((KathyC))))))) <3

    -- all of you, thank you.

  2. Alone in a lush world of abundance,
    She bears responsibility with dignity, grace, duty
    but no joy and no power.
    it’s been given to her to hold, she did not make it,
    and does not cherish it,
    nor does anything in her world cherish her.

    That’s today. Tomorrow might be otherwise.

  3. I love this card Sarah. Thank you for allowing this meditation. My thoughts and feelings would be this poem:

    “With the weight of dropping fear,
    I extract myself from this hemisphere,
    And sit transfixed in an emerald plane,
    Upon which falls a delicate rain.
    And I think as the golden orb rises to view,
    Of my eternity, and to pursue
    The myriad joys laid before my eyes,
    In a fashion which asks no compromise.
    Like a solar wind moving free and pure,
    A current of force through all endure.
    As the rich moist forest breath rises serene,
    I gaze into the deep blue empyrean,
    And find that I am truly calm,
    Upon the green Earth’s loving palm.”

    – me (July 2003)

  4. In one way of laying a wheel of court cards on top of the zodiac wheel this is the card of my Sun/Mercury/Juno/Eros/Lilith the Mean, Pallas and North Lunar Node. I think the asteroids surrounding my Sun say a lot about how it’s always been impossible for me to live up to the demands of the alpha male stereotypes in our authoritarian society. Also are squares from Aries from Eris and Chiron to my Capricorn goat herd. Put Saturn in Cancer and retrograde together with all this and I feel this card as my root and guide through a long struggle to shed the arrogance and resentment I originally used to protect myself from the men with armored hearts standing in as my childhood and teenage father figures. The Earth is the sinking into the stillness of center, the water melts the glaciers of my frozen emotions: a picture of qigong. I’ve experienced many healing modalities, but finally settled on Taiji-Bagua-Qigong because they work for me so well…but only after wandering through everything else like western magick, massage, yoga, acupuncture, counseling, shamanic healing, reiki, and all the rest to prepare me for the deeper work I’ve entered upon taking up an active healing practice. Chiron in Aries aims for self healing methods. Passive healing only left me with temporary states of calm that would collapse as soon as another trigger activated my old emotional habits. I guess that’s the mark of Capricorn too, and my North Node conjunct GC in Sagg: a long winding road that seems like chaos until it begins to coalesce into my life’s work. My Moon and South Node are in Gemini. It takes a bit of wandering to find the queen at the center of the wheel and ignite the fire of my internal sun.

  5. surrounded by gifts of richness – she sits holding the greatest gift of all – her heart – contemplating – rather wearily – of the stories it has reaped – yet she sits alone – and wonders

    vince

  6. Just on time for my mid-day meditation and of particular grounding importance today and for the next two days.

    Very calming. (I had my fearsome-motherbear-claws out for a take-down. Haha.)

    Thank you, Sarah. (And CaraSusanetta and Charles.)

  7. Permit me to suggest a refinement of the meditation. Look at the card, and then visualize yourself sitting on the stone throne, in the place of the Queen. Look down at the pentacle, and then imagine the landscape and mountain vista behind you.

  8. Not a tarot person by any stretch, but my first gut reaction to this is: that it is a garden of eden card. “You have arrived in a place of abundance for rest, reflection, and recharge before taking that abundance and making use of it in the world, both on the spirit and physical levels.”

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