Ten of Pentacles

The Ten of Pentacles is a hard card to read.  Full of complexity.  Waite gives this card the following meanings:  Gain, riches; family matters, archives, extraction.  This card can represent a house or dwelling, the abode of a family, and derives its value from other cards.  Reversed – chance, fatality, loss, robbery, games of hazard; sometimes gift, dowry, pension.

The problem with Waite’s meanings is that in the modern world, a lot of those meanings are lost.  Dowries are an example of that, in that it is an outmoded (and unacceptable) payment.  I do agree with Waite, however, in his summary that other cards can provide its value.

In Pamela Colman Smith’s rendition of The Ten of Pentacles, the Kabbalah (or the tree of life) is front and foremost on the card.  This provides a meaning of connectivity, and also that there is no simple answer to the question put to the cards.  We can also look at the people on the card.  The older man at the forefront of the card is dressed in finery.  The woman, who is presumably talking to her husband, is looking at him, but him not at her.  The dogs seem distracted.  Who owns the dogs, and why are they congregating around the older man?

I can’t help but feel that this card, while being a ten and a card of completion, does not hold the same contentedness of the Ten of Cups.  Distractions, and lots of them, with questions remaining unanswered.