TAROTTen of Pentacles
Upright
Long term wealth and family success. Tradition, community and higher spiritual aspirations.
The materially successful completion of a major part of your life, attained through hard work and determination.
Thinking about leaving a mark on the world after your passing. Focus on family and future generations.
Intuition
The card shows Damocles, a character from the story The Sword of Damocles.
Damocles is now rich and watches a lavish meal take place in his well decorated home. He is wealthy and happy, yet even now the sword hangs above him.
What seems like an enviable life of wealth and luxury may be fraught with dangers unless you address them!
Reversed
Unsure of the future, lack of goals or rootless. A lack of peace in your life.
A failure to be able to visualize a happy ending to your life or current path.
Family problems. An atmosphere within your home or private life.
Long term arguments or strife.
Astrologia
Practical problem solver, with adaptability and strong communication skills. Precise and clear in language. Can sometimes be lacking in artistic creativity plus difficulty expressing strong emotions. A positive mercury in this configuration represents great progress, whilst a retrograde mercury can represent a lingering problem.
Ten of Pentacles
After the short term gains of the Nine of Pentacles we come to the finale. All those gains and failures will add up at the end of each cycle of your life, giving you the long term result.
At the end of our lives we have the final result. If it goes well, you may end up like the old man on the card.
He lives in a lavish house, with hand-painted walls (as seen in the richer houses at Pompeii and other well preserved ruins). His cloak is finely embroidered and he looks on at one corner of a lavish feast, perhaps held in his honor.
But despite all the status and wealth implied by the image, a sword hangs over him…
The sword of Damocles
The Sword of Damocles is a tale told by the Roman politician, philosopher, lawyer and writer Marcus Tullius Cicero.
Damocles was a courtier in the court of King Dionysus of Syracuse, Sicily (and no relation to the God of the same name). It is about 400BC. Damocles praises the king’s life and how fortunate the king clearly is. In return for the praise, Dionysus invites Damocles to live a king’s life for one day. Damocles gratefully accepts. Who would not want to live a life so fortunate for an entire day?
Thus Damocles finds himself sitting on a great throne within a lavish throne room and the finest food and entertainment. All is well until Damocles looks up and sees a sword suspended above his head by a single horse hair. Should it fall, it would kill the - by now very apprehensive - courtier. Damocles asks that he be allowed to leave because he no longer wants to be so fortunate.
People with great power or luxury have lives fraught with constant anxiety. They may have amassed enemies on their rise to power, or may simply live in peril through the masses of wealth they have to use… or lose.
At a deeper level, the story tells us that happiness is fragile for all of us. Irrespective of how much we attain or achieve or how late we are in life, we always have work to do in maintaining it. Otherwise it is lost.
The story also implies we should not judge nor desire someone else’s life until we know their real circumstances. A message from the ancients that is strangely relevant to us in our connected, social media world.
Description and Symbology
We see a well-dressed old man – Damocles – watching a feast in his lavish house. The people may be friends or family that he has amassed throughout a long and successful life.
Although we do not see his face, we expect Damocles to be content from his body language. He seems to be at ease.
Above him, the thought of the sword still hangs over him. Perhaps he has learned to ignore it, or like King Dionysus, come to terms with the fact that with great success, power and wealth, come great problems.
The sword also represents the problems and fears we initially face when starting out in life. Those fears can stop us in our tracks and prevent future success. Like the older Damocles on the card, we would all hope we will move on from fear of our personal hanging swords: thoughts of insecurity, impostor-syndrome, and feelings of not being good enough.
Instead, we will look at the sword without fear, and know we have outgrown its fears through a successful life.
The old man
We see a well dressed old man looking on at a feast or celebration, perhaps in his honor. Although we cannot see his face, his posture suggests he is at ease with himself and his life.
The lavish house
The old man’s owns a grand house. It has painted walls celebrating the Gods, and a view over the sea. The man has clearly had a successful life!
The feast
The people at the feast are the man’s friends and family. All of them appear to be as wealthy as the old man. He has successful connections and a rich family.
The sword of Damocles
The old man is Damocles and the sword above him is a memory of the lesson King Dionysus taught him years ago. Damocles is now a wealthy man in his own right and has learned to ignore the sword just as the king did. Perhaps this experience is part of the wealth that Damocles has amassed. After all, our experiences are one of our greatest treasures.
Tips for Readings
The following table shows the upright and reverse meanings for general questions. The last row ('Yes/No') is useful when you are picking a single card to decide a yes or no decision.
Upright
Reversed
This card represents long term stability in both the home and financially. It points to a good foundation for a long lasting relationship. How that actually turns out is up to you, but the things needed for success will quickly fall into place
If all things go well, expect a fulfilling period and happiness with your partner and family members.
For new relationships, expect a long and happy relationship – this one might be ‘the one’. Expect a growing and deep connection and working together to build solid foundations.
In all relationships, the card represents a happy ending and fulfillment of goals, so this is a good card for all relationships you want to last.
This card represents a lack of goals or going down the wrong path. There are many questions to ask yourself in any relationship. Are you in this for the wrong reasons? Are you aiming for material gains or following a standard path you don’t really want but is the easiest option? Have you truly decided what you want out of this, or are you just pleasing others?
These are difficult questions but asking them now rather than as a ‘I told you so!’ a few years down the line is preferable.
You may need to think deeply on the questions being asked by this card, but remember that the future is never set in stone with a Tarot reading. Your actions can change the future and it may be something as simple as a case of clarifying expectations between you and others.
This is a good sign for a long lasting and stable career. It signifies happiness and material rewards – or rather, they are there for the taking so long as you carry on doing the work and setting your eyes to the future. The universe is on your side.
This success will come from a long period of working towards it, and a history of making good decisions, so all you really have to do is keep on doing what you have been doing all along. The rewards you will see are all justified rather than down to luck, so make time to have pride from a job well done, and consider how far you have come!
Things should be going well but the card suggests you are not feeling it. You have worked on career for a long time but are not seeing the promotion or financial gains.
This is ultimately down to a lack of long term planning, or simply just taking the easy or obvious options for a significant period of time.
This will be a slow ship to turn around, but it is still possible. Think carefully on what you want even if it takes you out of your comfort zone, and make plans to achieve them.
Also, this is a long term card, so although you may see the glimmer of dissatisfaction, the real pain may come later. The time to take action is still now, and it is more important than you might think.
You are approaching a successful phase of your life, where financial goals are met and the living will be easy, and all because you put in the work earlier and are now reaping the benefits.
All good news, but this is also a time when waistlines can increase and bad habits can start to occur because they feed on your new found freedom…
The card suggests it may be a good idea to spend some of that free time on yourself, perhaps using some of the determination and hard work that got you where you are in other areas of life!
Either a lack of expected success after a period of hard work, or a long term feeling of being directionless has started taking shape into something deeper; unhappiness or a feeling of being lost.
The card suggests you need to combat this by setting real goals and moving forward rather than giving in to inertia or the status quo. Without this, the negative feelings will get worse and start to affects health and well-being.
You will soon reach the end of a phase of your life with favorable results. The hard work and determination you have put in over a long period of time will start coming back, giving you increased security and wealth.
This will also give you a better appreciation of yourself, your worth, and an ability to share it with those close to you such as family.
Now is also a time to realize how far you have come and what you have achieved.
Life may not give you what you expect in terms of security and financial reward, or you have not got where you would like to be in life.
This may be for several reasons and it is time to find the reasons and start correcting this. Otherwise you may start to doubt yourself.
The first question should be ‘is this what I want, and if not, what do I need to do to correct it’?
Answering this question now is more important than you might think, as missed opportunities have sadly already occurred.
Expect to start seeing the fruits of hard work and good decisions that you have made over a long period before now.
Rather than make more of the same, the card advises you to step back and realize what you need it for: family, security, the finer things in life, or simply the things that cause you enjoyment.
The financial rewards after a long period of work will be disappointing, or you will get what you expected, but it will cause strife and waste between yourself and those close to you.
You should be prepared for either eventuality, and more importantly, consider who you are actually trying to please. If it is other people or an image you wish to maintain, you are probably dooming yourself to failure.
Yes because you will achieve soon.
No because your lack of a plan, determination or goals means you are simply relying on luck.
Reading the Card
The upright card
The upright Ten of Pentacles is about meeting long term goals. It is often associated with the most common long term goals, such as family, wealth and stability and a longer term sense of belonging within a larger group or leaving a legacy through which to be remembered.
More personally, it points to fulfilling long term goals and dreams, such as being able to finance and then experience items on a life bucket-list.
This card points to a major turning point in your life that affects your financial security or wealth ending successfully.
This may not be totally obvious when it happens, but it may become more and more obvious as time goes on. It includes things such as:
- Meeting people who will have a positive effect on your overall life security and happiness.
- Major career points. Although promotions and job changes may occur often, there will be a few key ones that are remembered as significant, and this card points to those (other less long terms ones are typically denoted by the Nine of Pentacles)
- Major purchases or financial investments that shape a period of your life such as a new home or setting up a business.
The reversal
The reversed Ten of Pentacles suggests difficulty in major decisions that will affect your life. Again, you may not know these are major decisions at the time, but time will reveal them to be significant. The card coming up is a warning to consider things carefully against your life priorities because the upcoming events may be more important than you think!
This typically includes things such as:
- Long running arguments especially those with people close to you. The card suggests they need to be resolved rather than left to fester, as they may cause significant problems such as a break-up.
- Putting off major financial/career decisions or procrastinating over them. If you know you are doing this with something because you are convincing yourself the matter is trivial then the card is suggesting otherwise! An example of this might be staying in a low paying but safe and easy job despite knowing there is better out there to be found.
- Any feelings of drifting in life or not being sure of what you want in life. This card suggests there is something out there for you to find. It is coming up soon and will quickly pass you by.
In all cases the reversed card notes that these issues will easily pass unnoticed or be ignored, but it is important you are aware of them.
Card Design Process
This was the last card designed in the deck. It was decided to end with a typically ancient message containing a happy ending, but as with most mythology, always with a twist…
Final Words
The Ten of Pentacles represents the end of a phase of your life, and the rewards it creates in terms of material success, security and a brighter future for yourself and loved ones. These things are important because they will build the foundation of the future.
The card asks you to consider your new position and how far you have come. The trials you may have faced or the fears you have overcome to get here are visualized in the card as the hanging Sword of Damocles, and like the Damocles on the card, our aim is to overcome its fear yet understand its message.
