For You to See Life - 4u2c.life

The card of the Four of Pentacles portrays Daedalus clutching four golden pentacles tightly in his arms. He stares angrily at a boy who is busy at the work-table - his nephew Talos, clothed ma pale green tunic, brown-haired and dark-complexioned concentrating on a beautilul golden ornament which he is in process of completing. Around both the artisan and his nephew, richly-laden vines twine up a trellis while green hills can be seen in the distance against a clear sky.

Minor Arcana ~ The Four of Pentacles

The Four of Pentacles is sometimes called the card of the miser, because it implies a condition of being too anxiously attached to one’s money or worldly position. Because of this tight grasp, the flow of energy which is always necessary in the Suit of Pentacles to develop material success is dammed up and begins to stagnate. Here we see Daedalus responding in anger and jealousy to his gifted nephew, who has already surpassed him in skills although the boy is only twelve years old. Rather than meeting this competitive challenge in a more creative way, Daedalus has chosen to react by trying to cling too tightly to the situation of the past. This leads eventually to the destruction not only of Talos, but of Daedalus himself.

The Four of Pentacles is not only concerned with holding on to one’s money with too tight a grasp. Money is a symbol as well as an objective reality, for it is through money that we assert our evaluation of things. Thus it embodies our own worth, the price we set upon our self-expression. The rewards which a person expects for his skills also represent an estimation of how much his skills are worth in terms of value, and because we so often fail to understand the deeper meaning of money in our lives, we assume that money itself is responsible for most of the world’s ills. Spiritual and esoteric teachings suggest that money is intrinsically evil and corrupts; but these teachings do not draw the distinction between the actual object and the emotional value we place on it. Thus Daedalus’ jealousy is not really about the business he might lose because his nephew can create prettier objects, for one might assume that the Athenian market is big enough for them both; besides which, he might have used the challenge of Talos as a spur to farther develop his own talents. But the jealousy points to a problem in self-value, for Daedalus’ estimation of himself is embedded in what he makes, and the loss of one is also the loss of the other.

Thus the Four of Pentacles is a subtle card, for it is not only about an attitude of miserliness which causes the individual to cling too tightly to his resources, thereby causing the stagnation of energy and the inability to make future gains. This card also describes an inner problem of not enough confidence, and a fear of letting go which can result not only in material but also in emotional stagnation. Letting emotional energy flow freely goes hand in hand with letting material resources flow, and the person who clings too tightly, who cannot delegate authority, who hoards his praise and generosity, creates internal as well as external blockage.

On a divinatory level, the Four of Pentacles warns about an attitude of holding too tightly to things which are bound up with one’s sense of self-value. The fear of loss may mean no loss, but it also means no gain, for there is a stagnation of creative energy which can eventually not only block funds but also block self-expression.

I will explain in my readings what each card means, this is a general interpritation taken from the Mythic Tarot Deck

Information Source: Mythic Tarot Deck
[published in 1986 by Juliet Sharman-Burke and Liz Greene and Illustrated by Tricia Newell (not the New Mythic Tarot)]