Failure

Seven of Pentacles, Decan Three Taurus

I think I’ve been avoiding this third decan of Taurus (thus the late post), because the Thoth deck’s card feels so different to me than how I’ve always seen the Seven of Pentacles in the Rider Waite Smith deck. I’ve been trying to reconcile the two which may in fact not be possible, and maybe more importantly may not be the point of the exercise.

Harris’s depiction, though beautiful, feels stark and cold, with faces of Taurus and Saturn on the seven disks. Saturn represents structure and responsibility, boundaries and restriction. Paired with our earthy and grounded Taurus, but then with the word Failure to guide us, perhaps reminds us that if we focus too much on money and material worth, we are bound in unhealthy ways to that which can make us feel like failures. We will never measure up or “succeed” as long as we use material wealth as our measuring stick. In my own life I’ve been quite focused of late on what I perceive my wealth to be, the structures and boundaries I put around it, and also a fear of what it would mean to lose it. Metaphorically, it can also translate to the ways we judge ourselves as imperfect, the critic who always tells us we aren’t enough.

When I look at Smith’s rendering of the Seven of Pentacles I’ve often thought of a job well done, looking at the work accomplished and taking a well deserved rest. In 36 Secrets however, Chang interprets the expression on our figure’s face as “affectless.” I’ve always seen it as contemplative, as a “now what do I do?” kind of face. Perhaps he is also wondering if what he did was enough. We can’t ignore the Taurean earth here, the agricultural element, which may help connect us to the Thoth interpretation in a circuitous way. Working the land, toiling in the earth, results in potential failure. We work hard but can’t be sure of the results. Will we succeed or will our plants die in spite of our hard work? The plants here, the pentacles, can represent any work we put our hearts into—there is always risk of failure, or what we perceive to be as failure. Much of the work we do is not guaranteed. And how we allow failure, if it does occur, to affect us, how we interpret failure as necessarily negative, is perhaps not the best approach.

The term radical acceptance keeps showing up in different places for me the past few weeks. Lately my world

has required quite a lot of radical acceptance. Accepting the ways things are, not the way I want them to be. I’ve had to relinquish any notion that I can control anyone else’s behavior and focus instead on my own behaviors and reactions to others. There is much I could spin as failure, but choose not to. In fact I refuse to. It would seem to be a death knell for my emotional regulation if I did. I feel in some sense like our figure in Smith’s rendition: contemplative, and accepting, and wondering what is next.

Short and sort of sweet this week. I’ll move on to the decans of Gemini next, sure to be complex, as we look at the Eight, Nine and Ten of Swords, the ways in which we let our minds take us on unpleasant journeys.

As always, let me know your thoughts.

xo Hanna