Five of Pentacles

This morning's breakfast was nothing to get all excited about, so it's getting pushed out of the frame by this morning's card, which is so incredibly auspicious that it deserves the bulk of our attention.

Every day before I pull a card I have a question or issue in mind that I am looking for a fresh perspective on. I don't believe in divination or fortune telling. I think that what we perceive as "magic" or "supernatural" is really just the result of a shift in how we view something. This morning I wanted to meditate on those who are less fortunate that I am and how I can better serve my community.

With that said, let's talk about the Five of Pentacles, shall we?

Five of Pentacles / Worry (Trapped Between Two Worlds)

Pulling the Five of Pentacles on the heels of the one year anniversary of the Occupy Movement felt a little eerie. To quote directly from Crowley's interpretation of this card:

"The complete upset of the statically stabilized system. Now appear storm and stress.... A disturbance is a disturbance...The economic system has broken down, there is no more balance between the social orders."

Basically, what this card represents is the dark before the dawn and the realization that the answer to our troubles does not lie within existing boundaries. This card symbolizes fear, anxiety, poor health, poverty, shame at our financial insecurities, loneliness, and feeling excluded, but it also suggests that we have not been beaten and that there is a way out.

The Five of Pentacles directs us to re-imagine the world. (Another world is possible!!) It says that the old ways have grown stale and the foundations are rotting under our feet. We must build a bridge between the old world and the new. All of the fears and anxieties and feelings of isolation that we are experiencing during this time are the direct result of Spectacular life.

"The actual realization of real desires - that is to say, the abolition of all the pseudo needs and pseudo desires that the system manufactures daily in order to perpetuate its own power - cannot take place without the suppression and positive supersession of the commodity spectacle." - Strausbourg Situationists

"People rely on Causes because they haven't been able to make their own life a Cause sufficient unto itself" - Raoul Vaneigem

Make the betterment your everyday life your Cause. That means helping the people around you who cannot help themselves. Stop and talk to someone who is asking for money on the street - after all, they are a human being too, who feels isolated and scared. Let those around you know that they are not alone and that we can endeavor together to make a better future. I don't know what that future looks like and I don't have a simple answer as to how it will come into being, but I have faith that if we fight the commodification of our desires and continue to grow and learn from one another, we will find our way out of the darkness.