Fall in Love with the Knight of Pentacles
March 22
Fall in Love with the Knight of Pentacles
Your Tarot Toolkit: Simple Activities for Your Daily Practice by Ru-Lee Story
https://www.llewellyn.com/product.php?ean=9780738774114
Pulling a card each day is a favorite tarot activity, for both novices and experienced readers alike. Newcomers are sometimes overwhelmed with all the options available within this simple practice and would like guidance. Long-time practitioner’s often welcome new ideas to keep their practice fresh. Ru-Lee satisfies both these desires.
For each card in the deck Ru-Lee provides simple yet powerful affirmations, areas of reflection, and activities. The book is inclusive in language, but also inclusive in recognizing that people have different levels of ability physically, mentally, and emotionally. This quality is reflected particularly well in the activities. There are two for each card, each created for various abilities. If you love journaling, the reflections will give you plenty of inspiration
The Knight of Pentacles is one of my favorite court cards and Ru-Lee’s explanation makes me very happy. I’ve also included the medium/high activity in case you want to try it. It is more of a shift in thinking and practice, but one that I know I am benefitting from. I hope you do, too.
The knights of the tarot are movers and doers, but what motivates them and how they move differs from suit to suit. The Knight of Pentacles might seem slower than their fellow knights but take a closer look: this Knight is the tortoise racing the hare, proceeding with methodical but tireless steps until they reach the finish line. If J.R.R. Tolkien had created a tarot deck based on his classic fantasy epic, I can’t imagine anyone but Samwise Gamgee as the Knight of Pentacles. Even though Sam is partial to the comforts of home and hearth, he steadfastly journeys alongside his beloved Frodo through three books of peril and heartbreak. Never once does he seem interested in the glory or the heroics of the quest, and never once does he even consider turning back: “I made a promise, Mr. Frodo. A promise. Don’t you leave him, Samwise Gamgee. And I don’t mean to.”
Where the Page of Pentacles can get too stuck in planning to act, the Knight of Pentacles acts and acts and acts. They’re the ones doing the regular little maintenance and upkeep tasks that no one else would think of (until something fell apart on them). Think of Sam reminding Frodo to drink and eat, even when he’s so overwhelmed by the influence of the ring that he can’t taste his food anymore. We often take these dedicated knights for granted, but without them the world would cease to function. Sometimes, though, we must be willing to cut our losses and leave a project behind, and that’s where this Knight can struggle. They hate leaving things unfinished or giving up on anything, even when it’s the best option.
Set Your Own Pace
Effort level: Medium to high
We all do it. We look at our friends, our college acquaintances, our rivals, just about anybody, and we say to ourselves, “Look at how much they’ve done with themselves, and look at me.” It’s easy to do, after all—when it comes to others, we only see the celebratory posts on Facebook and the work promotions, not any of the struggles or setbacks that lie beneath the surface. Meanwhile, we’re intimately aware of every wart and blemish of our own journeys. How could we not feel inadequate when we read that Claire from junior high has started their own business while we’re still struggling to make ends meet in a thankless, passionless day job?
But the Knight of Pentacles reminds us that we set the pace for ourselves, not by looking at our fellow wanderers. As tempting as it is to look around and wonder why everyone seems so far ahead of us, we’ll get a lot farther by staying focused on our path. Revisit the story of the tortoise and the hare—the tortoise wasn’t concerned with the hare’s speed relative to his own. He wasn’t concerned about winning the race. He just kept up his slow and steady pace, knowing that if he stuck with it, he’d reach the finish line in his own time.
Perhaps this isn’t an activity in the same way as many of the activities in this book. There’s no particular task to complete or exercise to do. It’s more of a mindset that you can work to actively incorporate into your daily life. If you recognize any patterns or habits that prime you to compare yourself to someone (those monthly phone calls with a friend who boasts about their accomplishments and never asks about yours, for example), see if you can let them go or at least reduce their frequency. Otherwise, simply work to catch yourself when you start beating yourself up for not achieving as much as someone else. And perhaps consider a mantra or an affirmation when you do catch yourself in the act. “I WILL progress at my own pace” from above is a good all-purpose one, but if it doesn’t resonate, come up with your own!
