The suit of Pentacles

Pentacles are the suit of earth: the body, the home, work, skill, money and the slow business of building something that lasts. Each pentacle in Smith's deck is a golden disc engraved with a five-pointed star, and her backgrounds are full of gardens, vines, fields and houses. This is the suit of what can be touched, grown and kept.

In a reading Pentacles speak about practical life: a job or a craft, a household, resources, the everyday needs of the body, and the question of what you value enough to look after. They are patient cards. Fire acts, water feels and air decides, but earth tends and waits, and many Pentacles cards are about effort that pays off slowly or attitudes to security that help or hinder a person. They are best read as cards about choices and values, not as forecasts of money.

The numbered cards move from opportunity to legacy. The Ace offers a coin from a cloud above a gated garden. The Two juggles two discs in an endless loop while ships ride high waves, and the Three shows a craftsman consulting with patrons inside a church. The Four clutches his coins tightly. The Five trudges through snow past a lit window, and the Six weighs out charity with a pair of scales. The Seven leans on his hoe looking at what he has grown, and the Eight works at his bench one coin at a time. The Nine stands at ease in her own vineyard with a hooded bird on her glove, and the Ten shows three generations and their dogs at the gate of an estate. The courts are four ways of handling the material world: the studious Page, the steady Knight on a heavy horse, the nurturing Queen in a bower of roses and the prosperous King among his grapes.