For You to See Life - 4u2c.life

The card of the Queen of Pentacles portrays a beautiful woman with rich dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing a sensuously draped russet robe and a golden crown. She is seated on a golden throne whose arms are engraved with the heads of bulls. In her right hand she holds a golden pentacle; in her left, a bunch of purple grapes. Around her lie ripe green and gold pastures, in which a herd of cattle can be seen grazing.

Minor Arcana ~ The Queen of Pentacles

Here, in the card of the Queen of Pentacles, we meet the receptive, stable, sensuous dimension of the element of earth. This is embodied in the mythic figure of Queen Omphale, whose name means ‘navel’. Omphale appears in the cycle of stories concerning the hero Heracles, who at a low point in his career was taken to Asia and offered for sale as a nameless slave - a far cry from the hero as we first met him in the Major Arcana card of Strength. He was bought by Omphale, queen of Lydia, a woman with a good eye for a bargain; and he served her faithfully for three years, ridding Asia Minor of the bandits who infested the countryside.

Omphale had been bequeathed her kingdom by her late husband, and ruled it ably because of her pragmatic and powerful character. She bought Heracles as a lover rather than a fighter, and he fathered three sons on her. She made the best of her time with the hero by indulging herself thoroughly. Reports reached Greece that Heracles had discarded his lion pelt and instead wore jewelled necklaces, golden bracelets, a woman’s turban, purple shawl and a Maeonian girdle. There he sat - the story went - teasing wool from a wool-basket or spinning the thread, trembling when his mistress scolded him. He let himself be combed and manicured by Omphale’s maids, while she dressed up in his lion pelt and wielded his club and bow.

One day the pair visited some vineyards, and the god Pan, whom we have met already in the Major Arcana card of the Devil, caught sight of them from a high hill. Falling in love with Omphale, the goat-footed god bade farewell to his nymphs and declared undying love for the Lydian queen. Omphale, well aware that Pan pursued her, suggested to Heracles as they retired for the night in a grotto that they exchange clothes. At midnight Pan crept into the grotto, found someone whom he thought was Omphale lying asleep, and with trembling hands tried to assault what turned out to be a furious Heracles. The hero kicked Pan across the grotto, and he and Omphale laughed until they cried to see the goat-god sprawled in a comer nursing his bruises. Since that day Pan has abhorred clothes, and summons his officials naked to his rites.

Omphale, the Queen of Pentacles, is an image of feminine strength and sensuality, which can enslave even an untamed brute like Heracles. In one sense she represents the sensuality of the body itself- hence her name, for the Greeks believed that passion was centred in the navel - and which is present in both men and women. This is not simply craving for physical satisfaction, but a primordial force which possesses both dignity and power. In serving Queen Omphale, Heracles passes through a kind of initiation - and we too, when we encounter the Queen of Pentacles within ourselves, must bow to the power of the instincts and acknowledge that even the highest mind and most rarefied spirituality exist in a body which is made of earth.

Omphale is not, however, merely a sensualist. She is a mler in her own right, prepared to be generous but always pragmatic and protective of her own wealth and territory. Her purchase of the hero as a lover is made not because no other lovers are available, but because she wants the best. Thus she may also be taken as an image of self-value, because Omphale treats herself and her body as well as her country with care and lavish generosity. She possesses the endurance and stability of the earth itself, and although sensuality alone cannot fill a life, Omphale is an image of great importance and value.

When the Queen of Pentacles appears in a spread, it is time for the individual to leam about the full expression of his or her sensuality, the value of the body, and the importance of those pleasures which preserve and enrich life. The individual may also be called upon to learn to sustain and preserve material resources, holding conditions stable and secure and husbanding money and energy. The Queen of Pentacles may enter one’s life as a strong, sensual woman, self-sufficient and hard-working yet generous and willing to indulge herself and others if it suits her purposes. But if such a woman enters one’s life, it suggests that these qualities are trying to emerge from within oneself.

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)]