10 of Pentacles
Wealth, abundance, acquisition, greed
Range of meanings
Light: Celebrating your physical and financial blessings. Realizing how lucky or how blessed you are. Being satisfied with your physical and financial achievements. Taking best advantage of “times of plenty.” Enjoying a feast. Showering friends or family with gifts.
Shadow: Spending all of your money on extravagant gifts and possessions. Trying too hard to impress others with your wealth or physique. Giving an inappropriately expensive gift as a means of currying favor. Obsessing on matters of weight, health, or finance. Always asking, “What’s in it for me?”
Questions to ask
- How much stuff do I really need?
- How do I feel about wealth and abundance? How do I define these terms?
- How might shedding some possessions open room for growth?
Advice
Personal Growth: You are not defined by your paycheck, by the size of your home, or by memberships in exclusive clubs. Behind all the possessions, behind the physical shell, there is only you; instead of focusing on the externals, make sure you’re at peace with the person you really are.
Work: Your skills are for sale—not your soul. In the long run, will any amount of money compensate for the loss of your health or self-respect? Look carefully at the carrots being dangled before you. Know when to say no. Celebrate what you have; debate whether more is needed.
Relationships: Being swept off your feet is one thing; being overwhelmed by sex or gifts is quite another. Keep a level head with regard to the importance of both presents and pleasure. Gifts and physical intimacy have an intensity all their own, but cannot compensate for genuine affection.
Spirituality: Lots of “stuff” can blind us to or distract us from our deepest, most important needs. Lighten the load. Consider giving away some of the possessions that weight you down. When blessings overflow, share them with others.
Fortune-Telling: Big money is in the near future. Expect a powerful blessing to come your way.
Associations
Astrological: Virgo
Planet: Mercury
Fool's Journey: The main character turns down an extravagant reward for his or her good work. Alternatively, the main character is offered an attractive bribe.
The Number 10: The End: finality, completion, the end of a cycle.
Coins: One of the four suits of the tarot. Also sometimes called pentacles or diskc. Coins suggest health, wealth, practicality and physicality. Their domain extends beyond money and finance to all physical things, including the human body. Coins explore your attitude toward resources of all kinds: what you’ve been given, and what you do with it. In RWS-influenced decks, Coins are often called Pentacles. A pentacle’s design (with the upright star in the middle that represents the human body) reminds us that physical blessings, from possessions to our bodies, are to be used for higher purposes. In your own life, how often do you focus on “the star in the coin”?
Tree of Life: Students of Qabalah will recognize the ten Coins so often seen on the original RWS version of the 10 of Coins have been arranged to suggest the shape of the Tree of Life. In other decks, including the Marseilles, an overflow of Coins dominates the image. Either approach stresses the overflow of material blessings and should remind us to consider the higher purpose behind the “ten thousand things” in our lives.
Pensive Elder: On the 10 of Coins, RWS-inspired decks often depict an older man, deep in thought. What’s on his mind? His wealth? His family? The future of his empire? How might these sobering topics play a role in your situation?