Today’s card draw from The Wild Unknown Tarot is the 5 of Pentacles in Discovering the Wild Unknown.
I want to start off by providing an important notice, which will be included in all of this series. However, other things that will be included that you can skip to are:
- Card Description
- Considering the Card, where I look at how I would interpret certain imagery used
- Traditional Rider-Waite definition
I only include the latter as a comparison, to show how wandering down your own understanding of images and symbols can bring you to a similar meaning, though along a different path with different experiences. This is to help expand knowledge of the card.
I will not, however, be including the definitions from the guidebook, as that is not the point of this. Also, I don’t have rights to that material.
Important Note
I started this series because I had read that people struggled with the deck purely because the definitions in the Little White Book were very Rider-Waite-based, and that there wasn’t much wisdom regarding the animals and symbolism chosen.
This series is to help you to decipher the meanings yourselves. I am by no means saying what I have to say about the cards are correct for anyone outside myself. However, I am providing my daily journal entries regarding the deck to act as a guide so that you can begin your own journey.
When I started tarot, I had no idea what to write in my journal, and thus didn’t. Instead I obsessively read and re-read the Little White Book belonging to the Spiral Tarot (which is why today I can completely quote the book). I didn’t trust myself to know the cards, even when I could recite the definitions. I was afraid to put the book down.
To this fear of lack of knowledge, the creator of The Wild Unknown writes:
You do know enough. You’ve been a person on earth every day since you were born. You’ve experienced all the emotions and situations these cards depict. Quiet the naysayer…don’t let it prevent you from sitting down with a friend (or yourself) and using these cards to help talk about what’s going on in your life. It will be positive. It will be radical. You’ll find things start to reveal themselves through the cards that have been hidden away, covered with dust.
pp. 10-11, The Wild Unknown Guidebook
Description of the Card
A red rose wilts, loos a petal. Even its leaf wilts against the darkness.
Above the rose is a string with small white beads that lead to and alternate between five Pentacles. The Pentacles are white—white circle, white background.
Above the string is white.
Traditional Card Meaning
The 5 of Pentacles traditionally shows two figures who are sick and injured as they trudge through the snow. Above them is a stained-glass window of a church.
The card indicates that while things might look rough, if there is faith then things have the ability to get better. If these two down-trodden individuals could raise their head enough to look up, they would see that they are next to shelter where they will be received. However, instead their heads are hung, and they walk right by it.
What I derive from the Card itself
The rose wilts in the darkness. There is no light, and without light a flower can’t feed. Thus, it grows sick and moves closer to death.
However, flowers can be revived if they’re given what they’re lacking. In this case, if the rose could see that the light was just there, then it would be able to drink it in, and regain its healthy stature.
The small beads make me think of pearls of wisdom that could be obtained to help it grow, if only it would or could look up. These pearls might indicate the wisdom found in light, or hope, or optimism.
About the Deck
The Wild Unknown Tarot is a 2016 Harper One publication, created by Kim Krans. The deck is widely available at most bookstores who carry Tarot cards, but also on Amazon. Kim Krans always wrote The Wild Unknown Guidebook.
