Day Ten. October 24th. Ten of Pentacles.
So far behind. Trying to catch up.
Definition: The traditional interpretation is wealth, and family matters.
Detail: So…what the hell is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?
A tower in the distance with someone looking out from a lit window. A prisoner? A sundered wall with smoke pouring out? Clearly a conflict in progress? But what is the central foreground structure? A fountain? With canals at the cardinal points? Or are they roads? It’s surrounded by grassy fields. There’s a pit. Some sort of enclosure with a picket fence? And flagpoles or signposts within it? Or siege equipment? What is that fountain-like structure? You know what it looks like to me? A Pokémon Go gym. This so feels like a battle to me. Is the figure in the far tower another player? Are we battling at the gym? In Pokémon Go the gyms hatch rare Pokémon from eggs that appear and that players want to claim. I can see how the Ten of Pentacles could be metaphysically a battle to control life. That’s basically the upper level activity of capitalism. Those with money control the options and lives of those with less. Though I don’t see anything analogous to an egg/Pokémon/life in the drawn card. Hmm…
Day: Hmm. A battle within capitalism to control life? I suppose I feel victimized by those battling during the current U.S. Presidential election. I see constant lies, manipulations, and toxic narratives by the powers trying to sway the outcome. I can barely even look at Twitter anymore. The “dwarfed by a monumental battle” vibe of the Elsewhere Ten of Pentacles feels true.
Discovery: When I look at Pamela’s illustration I see an old family patriarch with the lush estate he’s built and his heirs who will inherit him, and I feel…a little doubt from him. Like the grower Pamela drew on the Seven of Pentacles, but now older and more successful, he wonders if the estate was worth all the sacrifices and actions it took to make it. You don’t create something like his estate without exploiting others in some ways.
And I see this as a connection to something like a Pokémon gym, if that’s what the Elsewhere Tarot creator is depicting. To make his estate the patriarch had to battle and claim rewards and control others’ lives. Across the numbered pentacles Pamela is showing that money is as much a problem in ways for those who have it as those who don’t.
But why no egg/Pokémon/life in the Elsewhere Tarot drawing? I don’t know.