Back to School With A Little Tarot Lesson

It's already August 15^th! Can you believe it? Another summer is almost over and the Back to School season has begun.

I am currently working on a novella involving a tarot card reader. Three specific readings are included in the story and since I had my cards on the table, so to speak, I thought I'd discuss the tarot card that epitomizes the season – the Eight of Pentacles, commonly referred to as the Apprentice card.

8 of Pentacles
Robin Wood Tarot Deck
(c) 1991 Robin Wood
Published by Llewellyn Worldwide

In most decks*, this card portrays a character busy carving a pentacle, with six completed pentacles displayed nearby. The character is usually in a workshop setting and appears fully concentrated upon his task.

I interpret this card to represent a determination to improve your skills or knowledge. Perhaps an opportunity is offered to expand your experience and hone your skills.

Being pentacles, the underlying meaning of the suit is always the creation of stability and security. While they look like coins, pentacles are not actually "coin of the realm," but more about whatever represents security in your life, up to and including, but not limited to, financial wealth.

This card also offers a clear image of "practice makes perfect" with the six completed pentacles and the character working on the seventh. Mastery takes dedication and hard work. Apply yourself and you can achieve success.

Finally, if the card appears reversed, or upside down, in a reading, the interpretation is more about how lack of education might be hampering your progress. It might also mean there is a lack of dedication and follow through which could result in a loss of stability or security in your life. Any skill learned and not applied is wasted. Any knowledge attained and then not shared is eventually lost.

I hope you enjoyed my little tarot lesson and be warned there will be more. After all, I don't want to lose my tarot skills either.

Until next month, Denise Golinowski

My sweet fantasy romance, The Festival of the Flowers: The Courtesan and The Scholar is available as an ebook from the Wild Rose Press. You can check it out here.

* Image is from the Robin Wood Tarot Deck (my personal favorite). The images are particularly beautiful and evocative for me. This is not to say that there aren't plenty of other perfectly valid decks designed upon different systems, but it is the deck I use. Contemporary tarot decks generally follow a basic design originally created by artist Pamela Coleman Smith for A.E. Waite and produced by the Rider Company. The deck is commonly known as the Rider-Waite deck (copyright U.S. Games). The images are easy to interpret and yet deeply symbolic.