Five of Coins/Pentacles: Shunning the Indoors

Above: Five of Pentacles from the Waite-Smith Tarot.

Reading the Tarot is often about storytelling. But the story is different each time we look at the cards, each time a different question is asked of it, each time a new deck with a different visual interpretation lands before our eyes. (If we simply memorise keywords and regurgitate them when we look at a card, Tarot will get very boring very quickly … not to mention unhelpful.)

So what could be happening in the Waite-Smith’s Five of Coins/Pentacles if we are exploring Nature connection? As usual, all kinds of things. But something comes to me that is probably influenced by the island that I live upon – Great Britain – where (like many other parts of the world), the once native Nature religions were almost eradicated by Christianity, consciously incorporated into it as a means of winning over the masses.

What might cause these two figures to walk past the warm, glowing church on such a snowy day? There are many possibilities, many of which are covered in mainstream Tarot books, and which often resonate with me. But what if those two people are consciously avoiding the Church out of principle? What if this card were a representation of two people who have another source of support, a deep spirituality linked to Nature, some form of Pagan religion such as Druidry where the land itself will support them through their difficulties? Where even the snowflakes are sacred?

I have to say that the Church looks so appealing to me in this card. That warm glow of the indoors whilst outside, bare foot in the snow, looks irresistible. I adore cosy indoor time, especially in the colder months, when I become aware of the sheer privilege of home comforts, of heating, warm blankets, a cosy bed. I become a hermit, cosying down with a good book on a windy evening, watching out of the window as gales whip through the trees, feeling protected from it all.

I’m not one of those nature-lovers who is outside at every opportunity. I love my indoor time and the time that I spend exploring my inner world through art, reading and writing. But I am aware that we tend to retreat indoors for almost anything and everything these days, even when we don’t need to. A tiny bit of rain, and inside we go. In a way, our entire culture has become like that warm, glowing Church in this image. Our homes and screens have become places that numb us to the beauty of the Earth. It’s easy for us to think that any time spent outdoors is like this Five of Pentacles card, when in reality, it is rarely the case. Unless the weather is truly extreme, most of the time some good clothing will help us feel at home in most conditions. (Which, of course, is the most distressing part of this card: the woefully inadequate clothing.) If that walk is mindful, with our attention focused on what we experience around us, we so often return invigorated and able to appreciate our cosy indoor spaces with new appreciation, without stagnating inside of them, numbed by technology. Could the Waite-Smith Five of Pentacles represent our over-dramatisation of being outdoors? Could it be what this modern world wants us to imagine the outdoor world looks like, this culture that wants us indoors at all times, consuming on our phones, giving away our personal data to billionaire criminals? (Come to think of it, that window in this image could be a giant mobile phone with the Five of Pentacles as a home screen….)

Above: Five of Pentacles from the Marseille-Waite Tarot by Iger/Laverty.

It’s rare that I read with the Waite-Smith Tarot or similar decks these days, although I love working with it for this blog – its storytelling abilities are immense. I will, however, occasionally read with the Tarot of Marseille-Waite, a deck that combines the Major Arcana of the Marseille with the Minor Arcana of the Waite-Smith. In that version of the card (so similar to Pamela Colman Smith’s original), an old man looks up at the snowy sky, rather than at the warm building. Whilst his travelling companion looks at her own hands in worry, his face seems to be at ease as he watches the sky, drawn perhaps to something so awesome that even the coldness of the snow doesn’t seem to upset him. It’s as if God is in the snow clouds, not in the church.

That something, whatever it is, is always here. It’s in our breath, in our bones. Spiritual practices sometimes need to be indoors otherwise we will freeze or feel judged or all kinds of things (I meditate indoors 95% of the time). But let’s remember to take them outside, too. That might mean that you work with your deck of cards outside from time to time. Give it a go – see what happens when you read for yourself in the woods. Something else is present, and becomes part of the experience. Nature itself becomes your co-reader, and it is a beautiful thing indeed.

That’s all for now, friends. Thank you for being here – and please check out my Therapeutic Tarot Sessions and my courses embracing Tarot and Nature if you’d like us to work together. You can also sign up for the Tarot Blog newsletter (different to my main newsletter) below to receive occasional email updates (roughly monthly) with the latest posts.

Smiles from Scotland,

Stephen