The Tarot Year: January 11-21

the decan

the IV of pentacles is the last of the Capricorn decans and is named Earthly Power. this is the Sun in Capricorn. the little king seems to have everything – perhaps all he wished for. but like the juggling act and bargaining of the II+III of pentacles, life is not simply a question of having or getting.

what does the 4 of pentacles mean in tarot?

Earthly Power asks us to think about holding onto our gains – and the ways they hold onto us. there’s more than just a little flavour of XV The Devil – Capricorn in the Major Arcana – in Earthly Power.

what does the 5 of wands mean in tarot?

the card I drew to interpret this decan, which covers January 11-21, was the V of wands, Strife, and, astrologically, Saturn in Leo. here we have the Sun in Capricorn meeting Saturn in Leo – the signs and their rulers mirroring each other, with Saturn ruling Capricorn, and the sun ruling Leo. these are shadow cards, then, and they say a lot about each other.

together, they speak of the inner war that is required to keep still, to stay put, to hold on to what you’ve got. they ask us to think about the tension between the need for stability and the need for change – not only externally, but also internally. they ask us to examine our purpose, whether we are still connected to it, or if we are moving forward – but aimlessly. a mile is better than an inch in the right direction.

the advice

how will you know where to go if you don’t know where you're coming from?

the world is where you stand, but have you looked at the floor recently?

are you sure the walls around you weren’t put there by yourself?

tradition and revolution are brother and sister, not polar opposites

know the difference between change and progress

sometimes moving forward means sitting still

a mile is better than an inch in the right direction

struggle without purpose is conflict; motivated change is striving, not strife

what is strength? choosing to love and to grow, no matter what

which way is better? always, the path of light and love

be careful what you fish for

the symbols

these are cards of noteworthy tension, which can be simplified as that between action and inaction. the city of the IV is, like the little king, set in stone – whereas the mud of the V provides the fertile soil for growth. the struggle at the heart of each card is, I feel, better captured in the original colouring, which is much less jolly.

the king is seated – planted really – while the combatants of the V stand and struggle. the hand, a symbol of action, is used to hold still in the IV, and push on in the V. feet also indicate the active principle – and look at the narrow stance of the king. his feet do not touch the floor because he is insulated by wealth from real life. the feet of the V are in the shit and the muck of life, and widely set, dynamic.

fire is the active principle of course, and a shadow side of Earth can be passivity, but both energies are needed of course. it is difficult to be receptive without some passivity. where the king runs into trouble, however, is in the additional solidity of the number four.

this is a stable earth – solid security. given his wealth, status, earthly power and solid foundation, why would this king ever need to change? perhaps because the one thing he doesn’t have is himself.

the meeting of these symbols tells us more. the solo figure is just that – solo. and a figure alone always talks to us about loneliness and tells us something about their condition. this king has a whole city behind him, but no-one beside him. the five struggle – but together. they have the opposite problem – too many people to contend with.

so here is another tension – that between individual and group, person and collective. it’s telling that we go from the collaborative efforts of the III of pentacles, to the lonely stability of the IV – and it’s interesting both these cards meet an opposite in the Tarot I drew to read them, here the V of pentacles, and last time, with the III of pentacles meeting the king of pentacles.

crucial to reading these cards is what is symbolised by the composition itself. the five struggles against an empty sky – there is no background, and therefore no context. the king is placed against the city backdrop and sits in the foreground. what this card lacks is a mid-ground.

without the living connection to his world symbolised by the mid-ground the little king has become stuck – and without the background to understand the reasons behind their actions, the struggles of the V may be futile. we have to know where we’re coming from in order to know where we are going to.

another part of the composition worth looking at is the floor – sometimes reading a card from the ground up is a useful exercise.

the king sits on a neatly bordered strip of clean, plain something or other. that border tells us this is a “stage card” and invites us to ask what is being performed – the display of wealth to attract a partner perhaps?

the Vs struggle in the mud – mucky but fertile – and at the top of the hill. the future is at stake here, the world to be built. and that gives us the tension with the world as it is, of course, as shown in the IV of pentacles.

let us not confuse change with progress, as the old adage goes. it’s a classic tension between conservative and progressive values, between right and left. one hangs onto the old ways, tradition, stability, and admits they change. the other seeks new ideas, new ways, and innovations to shake things up.

both energies on their own terms can trap themselves in excess – too much stability or too much fluidity. the key lesson is containing this age-old tension within ourselves – and within the world – recognising that it is not polarity that we need to make sense of things, but to embrace the tension of contradiction.

much of our knowledge is structured on binaries, but recent years have seen a more complex appreciation, with many people acknowledging broader spectrums of experience – a more nuanced approach to life – but one that some people still find it challenging to adjust to.

when we choose polarity, and take a solid, opposing position, we don’t destroy our opponents – we create them. they respond by hardening their own attitude and before we know it everything is division. this dynamic is made even more powerful on social media.

the IV and V call on us to soften our opposition to the other and integrate the lesson of embracing contradiction within ourselves, within life, and as part of existence. we are all connected.

the more violently we reject someone’s truth, the more violently we reject them as a person. acknowledging another's position shouldn't destroy us, but make us stronger. truth is subjective. when we reject another person's truth, we reject our own truth on a deep level.

it may seem like a paradox – but accepting that another has a truth different from our own is the path to unity, balance, and harmony in the world, without the need to sacrifice our own unique position on this earth.

beneath the surface

the numerology of these cards reveals a core situation here. the four is the square, a symbol of solidity and stability. five has many positive aspects, but in Tarot there is usually some element of inner or outer conflict involved.

this is largely because of the journey through a suit in terms of numbers – we cannot stay in the stability of the IV without getting stuck in our lives. there are higher lessons to learn and integrate. there are times when we resist change, even when it’s what we need, and the fives can show us what happens when we embrace change or fight it.

the little king has built a stable world – but must use all his resources to hold onto his wealth, to keep it close, to stay on top of it. the fives look like they are having a rough go of it, but they are alive – connected to others – and engaged in creating something. what meaningful life will spring forth from the fertile ground?

the fours can turn into stone – the fives can burn to ash – but we must each decide for ourselves what it means to move forward. whether that is persistence in a situation, moving on, or even starting from scratch. maybe that's why there's a camel in the Muse Tarot IV.

the five could of course be giving us a clue as to the mental state of the little king – the appearance of external stability, but turmoil within. sometimes the journey is from one physical state to another, but usually we are working on transforming our psychic and emotional states – in fact, we do so every day.

along with the II of pentacles – Harmonious Change – and the III – Material Work, the card of collaboration – we can see in the Capricorn decans the need to balance thought and action, the need for both individual and collaborative effort, and the need to ground our spiritual journeys in the material decisions we make about the directions of our lives. the Sensual Wicca shows some of these burdens, I think.

astrologically, the Sun in Capricorn meets Saturn in Leo here, Leo of course being ruled by the Sun, and Capricorn being ruled by Saturn. these terms, these are mirror cards – or perhaps what we might call a shadow card – given that the light of one reveals the darkness of the other.

in the IV, the light of the sun warms the earth, and brings illumination into the use of earthly power. In the V, the heavy energy of Saturn mires the figures in their muddy battle – turning in on itself the struggle of light to reach every place it can – with confusion as the result.

that perhaps is why the IV expresses the positive, external interplay of the Sun in Capricorn, and the V expresses the internal struggle to manage the flipside of that powerful energy. the situation of the IV creates the tension of the V, ultimately. the light of one so casts the shadow of the other, like the sun behind Rapunzel's Castle.

the V may be some kind of struggle the IV is finding hard to contain. although we associate pentacles typically with the material world, we see in the Manara Tarot, below, the challenge of containing sexual energy.

in terms of Kabbalah, there’s an interesting echo with the last decan – the III of pentacles and the King of pentacles.

where these cards connected the second and third sephira, and thus connected the base of the supernal triangle at the top of the Tree of Life (via III The Empress), these cards connect the fourth and fifth sephira, and so create the top of the middle triangle in the Tree of Life – the so-called ethical triangle, which points downwards, and is a mirror image of the supernal triangle above it. here, the tension between Chesed (4) and Geburah (5) finds its point of balance in Tiphareth (6) – which is assigned to the Sun.

the pathway connecting Chesed (4) and Geburah (5) is 19, assigned to Leo, ruled by the Sun, and the Tarot card Strength. its Hebrew letter is Tet, its symbol is the snake, and the aspect of the godhead it represents is The Secret of All Spiritual Activities, namely the ability to harness the fundamental power of sexual energy into higher purpose.

the erotic Tarot decks sometimes seem gratuitous but perhaps the Manara picks up on this meaning in its image, and we can extend the interpretation to other areas of life where we need to balance, or channel, our energies.

the connection invites us to consider the different forms of strength involved in staying put, and in fighting for change. these strengths are equally balanced of course.

we tend to polarise ourselves as traditional-revolutionary, opposed to, or demanding of change. but the truth is that strength must be fed by the divine light or it is empty display, whether we are seeking to stand still, or to start a revolution.

with thanks to the decks and designers – the RWS of Pamela Colman Smith with Mary Hanson-Roberts, Chris-Anne's Muse and Lightseer Tarot, RuPaul’s Drag Race Tarot, Manara, Kim Krans's Tarot, Siri Rose’s Cascadia Tarot, Elisa Poggese’s Sensual Wicca Tarot, Nicoletta Ceccoli’s Tarot, Antonella Platano’s Tarot of the 78 Doors, Jack Sephiroth’s Heaven and Earth Tarot, Marco Proietto’s Capobianco Nero Tarot, MJ Cullinane’s Crow Tarot, and Star Spinner Tarot by Trungles.