Tiny Tarot Story
Read a short story inspired by the Six of Pentacles.
Lexi hides the vial beneath the basement sink. Otherwise, guests might get curious. She understands their impulse to grab what the house is giving, to chip off a piece of luxury and bring it home. She does. But they can't have this.
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When the blue vial first came into her life, it was full and she was too young to grasp the concept of finiteness. Now the supply is dwindling. Maybe enough left for one more wish. When it’s empty, will everything it helped create disappear, too? The house? The wife? The job? The lustrous hair, still red? The sense of comfort, of being charmed? That will be the first to go. Of that, Lexi is sure.
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The only term to describe it is “liquid gold,” though the liquid is clear. The strange woman who gave it to Lexi said it was taken from the wells outside the house where the Virgin Mary died, but Lexi knows that’s not true, because she traveled to Turkey five years ago and all she found was water—not magic. This liquid is more powerful than money. It’s the stuff that makes dreams a reality. With a sprinkle, she can create anything.
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What she created was her whole life. Now, at 60, Lexi thinks of the old woman who gave her the bottle, all those years ago. At the time, Lexi was crying on a train on Thanksgiving Day because her family said gay people weren't welcome at the table. “Take this,” the woman said. "Sprinkle it on your problems."
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With a sigh, Lexi knew what she needed to do. She had to give the bottle away. Her children believed they were lucky, having inherited Lexi’s sense of security. She needed someone like she had been. Lexi walked to the nearby community college and sat on a bench for a few days. The girl she chose had long braids and a sense of direction. As Lexi walked toward her, the bottle began to fill up. And Lexi knew she wasn't losing anything by giving it all away. What you gave would gets back to her.
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Six of Pentacles Reflections
Musings
When I was a moody middle schooler, I was taken with the Beatles song “The End.” It goes like this: “And in the end / the love you take / is equal to the love / you make.” This, I thought, is the kind of math I can get behind. The scales balancing out. The love we give away coming back to find us, like a long-distance, time-traveling hug. All that appealed—and, of course, I snickered at the phrase “love you make.” As I said, was a middle-schooler!
Now that I’m older, I sometimes wonder about the validity of those lyrics. Are they hopelessly naive? Is our love just a furnace to warm our little mammalian hearts, not a force that leaves our hearts to go out and shape the universe? Or are they pointing toward the truth? Is it possible that giving yourself away actually leads to a fuller life?
To embrace the Six of Pentacles, we must believe in the latter. That it’s possible, through our actions, to give people gifts worth more than money. Attention, too, is a currency. Arguably a priceless one.
The message of the Six of Pentacles is two-fold. On the one hand, the card urges us to give ourselves away. Not through erosion—no, I don’t mean the gradual chipping away of our cores that happens when we work, eat, sleep, wake up, and forget ourselves in the process. I mean give ourselves away through acts of generosity.
The card asks us to place someone else’s needs before our own (not always, but never, either). Pick up the phone and call someone we know could use a listening ear. Cook dinner for a friend who subsists on take-out. Drive all the way to JFK. Be there, even when we might want to be somewhere else.
And we should do these things without needing to be asked first, or expecting anything in return. We should them because doing so is good for us, and good for them. As my mom says, if you’re ever having a bad day, do something nice for someone else. It’s a magic trick.
That’s one aspect to the Six of Pentacles—but there’s another action involved. The card also asks for our awareness, too. Believe, for a moment, that what you put out comes back to you. If that is, indeed, the case, then are your arms open to catch these gifts as they arrive, in whatever unexpected form they arrive in? Are you open to the experience of life?
Earlier today, I listened to the poet Jane Hirshfield speak to Krista Tippett on the podcast “On Being.” Hirshfield’s description of abundance is tied up with alertness and vulnerability: “The great gate to abundance is simply to feel yourself able to be porous, to be open to whatever is put in the bowl that is yours to hold with your 10 fingers and 54 bones. And that is abundance.”
Abundance, according to Hirshfield’s definition, has nothing to do the number in our bank accounts. Abundance is accepting what comes to us, what lands in our bowl.
So when the Six of Pentacles “lands in our bowl,” it signals that it’s time to put goodness out into the world, or that goodness is boomeranging back to you. When it runs down your spine, that shiver of sweetness, say thank you.
Journaling Prompts
Who is the most generous person you know? How do they do it?
What is the kindest thing one person can do for another person? What’s the kindest thing someone has done for you?
Remember a time that you showed up for someone, and that someone showed up for you. How did both feel?
Do you believe that what you put out comes back to find you, one day? Why or why not?
Start a Story of Your Own
Write a story of your own inspired by the dynamics present in the the Six of Pentacles card, starting with this sentence. If you email me your story, I’ll share it in the next newsletter.
Kristen kept her grandmother’s hand-made pottery in a glass cupboard. There it sat for years. Until the kid asked, quite shyly, if he could take a look.
Extra Credit
Do something nice for someone without being asked. Come on, you knew I was going to say this!
Give away a belonging to someone you know, or someone you don’t.
Every time something good happens to you, no matter how small, say “Thank you.”