Day Eight. October 22nd. Eight of Pentacles.
Definition: The traditional interpretation is tradecraft. Waite describes the RWS Eight of Pentacles as an “artist in stone at his work, which he exhibits in the form of trophies”.
Detail: What is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?
So, this city. A futuristic city. I feel there’s a journey being told in the pentacles by the Elsewhere Tarot creator. This city is the sales pitch of capitalism. It’s what we’re told comes from the workings of a free market. Improvements in human health, longevity, civic life, efficiency, habitation, entertainment, etc. And if the pentacles are a metaphysical narrative from card to card, then this city has to be understood relative to the prior one. But in what way? Is it a future version? Or a different one that took a different path? And what about the floating, robed figure? It’s the same kind of robed figure as the ones in the monster’s chest on the Three of Pentacles that felt like internal spiritual guides. But this one is wearing a robe that’s part black and part white, like a yin and yang symbol, which make it feel like the robes of an actualized person, someone metaphysically actualized. And if the city has to be understood relative to the prior one with the people all living in their own worlds, then does this figure need to be understood relative to the one on the Six of Pentacles with its lifeblood pouring out of the sink and all over the ground? And the shadows on the Seven of Pentacles in front of the consignment store? I…think so. And. And. Remember the monster on the Three of Pentacles with no arms? Remember I was thinking about how the monster could do its work without arms? This robed figure floating above the city also, because of the shroud of robes, doesn’t have arms. But one stream of the blood pouring from the sink had formed a hand at the end. There’s something about your lifeblood bursting from your body that enables you to do the work your internal spiritual guides have inspired in you. That’s the metaphysical progression. The figure on the Six, who is also the long haired figure on the Five looking out their window, whose lifeblood could not be contained, has found through their uncontained lifeblood the ability to do work in the world, and this has transformed them into the actualized, robed figure here in the Eight, a figure whose form represents them as actualized by their spirit.
Day: So, how does this card inform where I'm at in my life today? Hmm. I feel like my engagement with journaling games, which are giving entities in my unconscious an influence on me, has been so consuming because it’s my contention with the inimical world that has commodified so much of life.
Discovery: Again, I think, like she has been for all the pentacles, Pamela was saying something about money. The guy on her Eight of Pentacles isn’t making anything expressive, that then he might sell. He’s literally making coins. It’s a card about the absence of art and expressiveness in the work that makes money.
And y’know, I really like what I’m sensing of the Elsewhere Tarot creator’s purpose with the pentacles. Pamela tells a narrative about how money is a problem, for those who don’t have it for whatever reason, for artists, and even for those who do have it, but the Elsewhere Tarot creator is telling an (admittedly unspecific) narrative of a living, spiritually purposeful contention with a world that commodifies life. The Elsewhere pentacles are about how what enlivens us naturally contends with commodification. I’m eager to see how it plays out with the Nine, Ten, and court cards.
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