This is the second installment of the “Ace of Pentackles | Weekly Tarot Card” series. Click Here to read the first installment.

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If you are reading this week’s card as I’m producing it, then I think it will be easier for you to really get into the meditation, since the presence of spring will help to nourish the idea of growth as we plant ourselves in the depths of the Ace of Pentacles.

The best way to really connect to the Ace of Pentacles, in my opinion, is to go outside and experience it right now. It is to spend time in your garden, planting your seeds. It is to feel the dirt under your fingernails, to connect hand to soil. It’s feeling the grass under your feet, smelling the first cherry blossoms.

Part 1 (Maybe 2)

Go Outside and Notice

For the first part of the mediation, or after the meditation, I hope that you’ll take the time to find someplace where nature is more abundant than inside your home, your work space, your local café, the bar, wherever it is you like to spend your free time. Go to a park, go into your garden, go to the woods, and just be around nature.

While you’re out there, take your tarot deck, a journal and a writing utensil and find somewhere that you can sit, or simply be. Pull out the Ace of Pentacles and hold it in your left hand. This hand is said to be the one with which you take in energy. Draw in the energy of the Ace of Pentacles as you still yourself, breathing in and out. What can you taste in the air? What can you smell? Beyond the cars and sounds of city and people (if you’re in a park), what can you hear? What do you see? What is growing? Are you near a sidewalk? What plants are pushing past the concrete? What trees are beginning to sprout leaves? What fruits will the flowers on branches turn into?

Really take the time to notice that which has been planted, either by the will of nature or design of humans, and notice that it is growing. Now is a time to plant, and grow. That is what this card represents, the starting of growth, the formation of the physical base upon which to build.

Record

I know I said journal earlier, but really, use whatever you like to record. Record your thoughts, what you’ve noticed. Consider what it is about it that you’ve noticed. Record anything that you feel links you to the Ace of Pentacles in your surroundings. Do the images in your deck correspond to those around you?

Part 2 (Maybe 1)

A Deeper Meditation

You can do this while you’re in your outdoors space if you’d like, but if it’s still a bit chilly, or you’re experiencing the beginning of the April showers in March (I have always experienced March showers and April Flowers, but whatev’s), then do this indoors, hopefully next to a window though where you can look outside.

Sit in a comfortable position, in a chair or on the floor and begin breathing in. Focus on the chakra at the base of your spine. As you breathe in, you bring in all the elements—the air, the water, the fire, draw it all down into the base of your spice and see the red of the wheel grow with each breath.

From your feet, your roots grow, down into the earth, and you are anchored there. Your roots still you, and as they grow, they bring a stability within you, a sturdiness that gives you the strength to navigate the world. You draw nourishment through your roots and in to your base chakra, pull it up through your sacral chakra, your solar plexus, your heart chakra, your throat chakra, your third eye, and to your crown.

Open your eyes and observe the Ace of Pentacles. Let your eyes run from the top left corner to the top right corner, go along from left to right, one level at a time, scanning over the image. Take in the color, the art, the depiction of the coin. When you feel you have fully drunk the card in, close your eyes again.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in and step into the card as best you can. Imagine yourself in the card, the Coin hovering over you, the cool spring air around you. Reach up and take the coin in your hands. Feel the weight of the disk, the temperature. Look at the landscape, and envision yourself in the landscape, coin in hand.

Notice that there is a hole in front of you with a pile of soil next to it. This hole is for the Coin. You kneel next to it, and plant the coin, pushing the soil overtop. How does it feel. Is the soil warm? Is it cold? Is it damp? Pat the soil over the coin and stand back and look at your work. Feel proud, for this is a seed that will grow.

Breath like this for a few moments, for as long as you’re comfortable. When you are ready, step back out of the card, and breathe into yourself. Take note of your physical body. Does it feel cool? Are you by the window and feel the sun? Does it feel grounded, a part of the world?

When you are ready, open your eyes and pull out your recording device.

Take Note

Take this time to write out your observations during your meditation. After you’ve done this, consider some of these questions:

1. When considering how it is that your body feels, consider how it’s connected to the suit of Pentacles, to the element of Earth, to the material world.
2. What is your physical presence in this world?
3. What has been lying dormant and is ready to come out?
4. What is your project?
5. What is the seed you are nourishing?
6. What has been growing in you that is finally ready to be brought into the physical world, to manifest in the world for everyone to see and experience?

Having spent your time with the Ace of Swords, the Ace of Cups, the Ace of Wands, you have the passion, the know-how, the love to bring into fruition a physical product. On each coin is a five-pointed star. While it might seem that Earth is the lesser of the elements since it represents a more base learning, it is the physical representation of the other elements coming together. Through our understanding and lessons of the other elements or suits, we can physically create and manifest ourselves in the real world. It the beginning which must exist in order for a being to experience the other suits, and it is the product of the corporation of the suits combined.

Each point on the star represents an element, and when all the elements come together we get Spirit, the top point. It is only through including Earth that we can have Spirit, and thus, with the arrival of the fou1rth suit of Coins, Spirit emerges, which transforms the Coins into Pentacles.

The Aces, representing beginnings, are the birth of the Pentacles, the birth of Spirt, the birth of the elements coming together into the immediate world.

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What did your meditation yield? What have you found has really enhanced your understanding of the Ace of Cups? What meditations/observational practices do you embark on? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments!

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The Decks Used

Faerie Tarot by Nathalie Hertz, published by U.S. Games Systems, Inc, 2008. Hertz is a French artist, and the creator of several other beautiful tarot decks. The Faerie Tarot was ‘inspired by the flora and fauna of the French countryside,’ and ‘invites you to see the world in a delightful new way…blending fantasy, whimsy, and nature.’

Impressionist Tarot by Arturo Picca (artist) and Corrine Kenner (author), published by Lo Scarabeo in 2015. This deck takes works of classic impressionist paintings and recreates them to fit the meanings of the tarot. It pulls from works of Edonard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gough, and Paul Gauguin. A truly beautiful deck, especially for those who have interest in the art world.

Prisma Visions Tarot by James R. Eads, 3^rd ed., published in 2016. The deck itself is beautiful, though perhaps not for the beginning tarot reader. The suits all fit together to create a master picture displaying the energy and progression of the suits. The figures and images flow from one card to the next, showing movement within the stationary cards.

Rider-Waite by A. E. Waite. The deck used in these photos is currently out of print. I won’t say much about this deck, as it is fairly standard and probably one of the most produced decks. It serves as a standard for many tarot readers and artists, depicting classic images relating in part to the original playing cards that tarot developed from.

The Spiral Tarot by Kay Steventon. With turn-of-the-20^th-century style art, this deck takes from the classic Rider-Waite deck and brings it up to the late 1800-early 1900’s, a time of industry and contemplation for the western world as it moved forward into a more technological era. I am a little biased toward this deck as it’s been my main deck for 15 years. The cards are thick with additional symbolism that can be tricky to pick out of the traditional Rider-Waite, and adds layers of Greek myth throughout the Major Arcana.

Thoth Tarot by Aleister Crowley (designer and author) and Lady Frieda Harris (artist), published by U. S. Games Systems, Inc., in 1978. This deck takes from most esoteric imagery, and requires the reader of the deck to have deep, initiate knowledge of the symbolism used. There is nothing within the cards that is without meaning. However, on a more surface level, the deck draws from Egyptian symbolism and from the style of the Marseille Tarot (mostly seen within the Minor Arcana). For those looking for deeper understandings of the universe, I recommend this deck. I would caution that this deck is highly advanced, and might be avoided for the budding reader.

Vampire Tarot – by Nathalie Hertz, published by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. in 2000. As mentioned above in reference to the Faerie Tarot, Hertze is a French artist who gained her notability through the publication of her tarot decks. The Vampire Tarot was a bestselling deck upon its release, and plays on more gothic symbolism, providing more jarring interpretations to allow for the accepting of negative forces within the world to compliment the positive forces. The deck brings together myths and legends in the form of vampires, which ‘gives tarot readers a macabre passport’ into the world of divination.