Card of the Day: Eight of Pentacles

 

I woke up in my niece’s bed (both my niephlings are with their dad this weekend) and I felt overwhelmed. Lost and alone and sad – I had dreams all night, and it’s so rare for me to remember them. I dreamed about my springtime love, the dreams I have often, the only ones I seem to remember, where we are together. I mean, I get it, my subconscious is not subtle in her desires. But it makes the mornings hard. 

So I woke up sad. Checked email, Facebook, Twitter, and then stopped. This isn’t what grounds me. This isn’t what brings me back to myself. I grabbed the deck at the foot of the bed, shuffled, and drew. 

And there she is. That dedicated spider working hard at her web. Spiders scare me, but I don’t kill them. I recognize how valuable they are in the environment and I also don’t think that my fear justifies me causing harm, so for the most part I leave them alone or if my partner is home, they’ll take them outside.  
Visually, I find this card overwhelming. She’s at the centre of that intricate web and although she’s in control of her work, there’s not a lot of visual space on the card. There’s not a lot of openness, not a lot of room to breathe. The eight Pentacles on the sides of the card feel, to me, like bars on a cage. I’m reading a lot of my own feelings into this card today, the sense of overwhelm, of being trapped, of being unable to make progress. 

But that’s not what this card is about. It’s about skill, craftsmanship, creativity and work. It hints to me that maybe the way through (could it be that those bars are not a cage, but a hallway?) is to keep working and to do the work that I’m best at. 

And there’s hope in this card, even if there’s not a lot of open space. The edge of the card has a thin rainbow line, a barely-visible promise of open sky and space to breathe and hope. 

And, too, it’s Pentacles. A lot of pentacles. A lot of reminders to stay grounded, to be present. I needed that today. 

I’m going to do some creative stuff today, finish staining my wood project, and maybe do some sewing. Get my spider on.