The 78 Cards
Nine of Pentacles
Minor Arcana, the suit of Pentacles, the Nine. Element: earth.
Comfort earned. Standing on your own in a garden you grew.
The picture
A woman in a long robe patterned with flowers stands in a vineyard heavy with grapes. A small bird of prey, its head covered by a hood, sits on her gloved hand. Her other hand rests on one of the nine pentacles among the vines. A house stands in the distance, and a snail crawls along the ground near her feet.
Upright
Nine is the number of nearly there, the suit in its fullest form. For Pentacles that looks like this: independence, security you built yourself, the freedom to enjoy good things and the time to enjoy them.
She stands alone and she is completely at ease with it. Nobody gave her this garden. She planted it, pruned it and waited for it. Nine is still one short of the end, though. The Ten, with its family and its legacy, lies ahead. This is the personal win that comes before the shared one.
The bird on her glove is a hunting bird, trained and hooded, wildness brought under control. That discipline is what sits behind her comfort. The snail at her feet says the same thing more slowly. Good things in this suit arrive at the pace of a snail, and they arrive.
Reversed
Reversed, I read this as turned inward, or too much. Turned inward is having everything on this card and being unable to enjoy any of it: always one more job, one more saving, never a slow afternoon in the vineyard. Too much is independence that has hardened into isolation, or comfort that has turned into show.
To tell which, ask when you last let yourself enjoy what you have. If you cannot remember, it is inward. If you are enjoying it mainly for other people to see, it is too much.
When it turns up
What have you built that you have not yet let yourself enjoy?
If you would like the cards read against your own chart, my readings are here.
Related pages
The Number 9
The 78 Cards
Every card in the deck, upright and reversed.
See every page and post in the Contents.
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