By Sarah Taylor
What are you still holding on to?
The Four of Pentacles’ second week at the centre of the reading gives us two points to consider: first, that the work of letting go of what is holding us prisoner is still in process. Second, a reminder to look for what we might still be unaware of — whether through unconsciousness or willful ignorance — that is asking to be released.
The king in the Four of Pentacles didn’t get where he is now without tenacity. It takes effort and sacrifice to hold all the pentacles as close to him as he can. But just what is he sacrificing? And why? Does the reason even have meaning anymore, save for the one he gives it simply by hanging on for dear life?
Assistance is at hand in the form of the Page of Swords, who feels like a temporary archetypal energy available that is able to sever the strands that remain and which hold the king in bondage to his ‘stuff’.
The Page of Swords stands on no ceremony. This is a youth who has not yet learned the courtly art of diplomacy. He and his sword come in with an uncensored quality. Out of the mouths — and from the blades — of babes. He sweeps clean. What he might work well with is a certain gravitas that still exists in the king, if he were to drop his weary possessiveness and remember why he ascended to the throne in the first place. Otherwise, the aftermath of the Page’s visit could resemble the result of a trip to an over-enthusiastic hairdresser. I think we’ve all been through one of those.
The Page expresses the ability to cut away in a clean, decisive motion. He also feels like a gate-keeper of sorts — a guardian standing between the threshold of where you have just come from, and where you are right now. There is an assistance to divest you of anything that is no longer a valid part of your onward journey — baggage, illusions, outdated beliefs about who you are.
Last week, the final card was Justice, denoting a sense of that same blade of truth coming down dispassionately and objectively on one side or the other. This week, the blade seems to be more personal, and one that is working in your favour, if only to further your own evolution rather than to fight your battles for you.
After Justice (XI) comes The Hanged Man (XII). The verdict has been given, and there is a moment of suspension where you could feel you are at the mercy of forces that seem to act on you from outside. However, what The Hanged Man offers you is something far more than this: a change of perspective. You are essentially ‘strung up’ by circumstances, and turned upside-down, and the result is that everything is turned on its head. You are in a moment of descent, pointing downwards, into a terrain that feels both familiar and unfamiliar, so that you can emerge with a new understanding.
From there, you are offered the opportunity to see what it was that you were in thrall to; and from there, you might also see the poetic justice of an archetype that pays no heed to bargaining or wealth, but simply to the righting of an imbalance.
Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Page of Swords (the earthy aspect of air), Four of Pentacles (Sun in Capricorn), The Hanged Man (Uranus)
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.
…actually, the ways this lines up with April’s astrology fascinates me. I can absolutely feel the grounded strength of this Saturn-Jupiter trine right now compared to then, when Jupiter was transiting my Saturn and I felt like I was walking on marbles. Robert Hand says of the Jupiter-Saturn trine: “there is little of the tension and ambiguity that one experiences with the conjunction,” which feels so true to me. The emotional balancing of this trine makes the threat of losing everything I’ve built my life on a little less terrifying. (Mars was also fully energized in Aries then, rather than a bit subdued in Venus-ruled Libra as it is now.)
Maybe I can do it this time.
Because, to bring the mythology of Eris back in, it’s chilling to consider how she was certain she was right, and ended up starting the Trojan war. Okay. I will commit to this. Deep breath.
Sarah, thank you so much for the note about the Hanged Man. The minute I saw the 4 of Pentacles this week, I knew it was my “treasured beliefs” that I was still hanging onto — which was confusing me, since Pentacles refer to the physical. But then your note that, “the ego must be its own Judas” drove the message home. I was trying to get here last week, knowing I had to be my own Tower, but could only do it incrementally. I guess last week was Justice’s clear-sightedness setting me up for the further evolution of this coming Full Moon. The Sun trining Eris & my Mercury this week has offered me a different perspective on how my attachment to being “right” is keeping me from being open. In so many ways, I’d still rather be right. Sigh. I sound like a petulant teenager — which, looking back through my journals, is exactly how I felt in April when the Sun was conjoined Eris, trine my Mercury. Cycles upon cycles.
I wonder if I can learn it this time? Thank you, Sarah. I needed this.
Thank you so much for this powerful reading and the additional extract, Sarah. What’s so hard is when you strip way another layer and have a moment of total clarity and serenity and then get whacked by other stuff (actually, the same old old stuff) coming up and hitting you once again, though I know that this is a fundamental part of the process.
I’m including this excerpt from the article on The Hanged Man that I’ve linked to in this reading. It is from “The Tarot Code” by psychotherapist Michael Owen, and speaks directly to the experience described by the three cards above:
“The Hanged Man is the betrayal of what we have labored hard to build in the world, all that we have depended on, during the first half of life. The ego must be its own Judas. Inwardly, the betrayal is about forsaking beliefs that have become so familiar that our relationship to them is comfortable, unquestioned and taken for granted. These attitudes often have a significant unconscious component. This is why The Hanged Man is the Teacher of the mental aspect of Erasing Personal History — abandoning the treasured beliefs, notions, ideas, ideals, principles, standards, morals, ethics, philosophies, or viewpoints that have outlived their time.
Over the years we repeatedly bump our heads or fall into the same painful places and evidence builds that something about our attitude is wrong. To remedy this we can redouble our efforts to arrange people and circumstances to conform to what the ego wants. But forces will eventually conspire against us. Jung said, “Nobody who finds himself on the road to wholeness can escape that characteristic suspension which is the meaning of the crucifixion. For he will infallibly run into things that thwart and “cross” him: first, the thing he has no wish to be (the shadow); second, the thing he is not (the “other,” the individual reality of the “You”); and third, his psychic non-ego (the collective unconscious).”
If we do manage to evade the conflict then the world will have to experience it for us… .”
The four of pentacles does not frighten me this week. I do not feel the Tower. Maybe I accept the Tower. There has been movement. I have received help that I need, and can continue the work of letting go, seeing clearly, with an injection of needed strength. The work is not done, no, but it is continuing productively. Thanks for this reading Sarah. Thanks for these cards ring so true, and are in alignment with today’s oracle too!