Ace of Pentacles
Ace of Coins (Deniers, Tarot de Marseille) · Root of the Powers of Earth (Golden Dawn) · Ace of Disks (Thoth)
The Ace of Pentacles, a golden disk offered from a cloud above a flowering garden, is the seed of the suit of Earth: a tangible opportunity, a foundation, the beginning of material well-being.
Upright opportunity · prosperity · new venture · security · abundance · manifestation · health of body and home
Reversed missed opportunity · poor planning · greed · insecurity · delayed reward · money worries
- Astrology
- The root of Earth; rules the quarter of the heavens around Taurus
- Element
- Earth
- Number
- 1
- Golden Dawn title
- Root of the Powers of Earth
- Yes or no
- Yes
Upright
Upright, the Ace of Pentacles is read as a concrete beginning. Where the other aces bring a spark, a feeling or an idea, this one brings something one can hold: an offer, a sum of money, a piece of land, a job, a project with real resources behind it. The Waite–Smith tradition associates it with contentment and prosperity, and readers stress that it is a seed, needing to be planted and tended.
In relationships it can point to stability, commitment and practical care: setting up a home together, or a relationship built on dependable foundations. It favours the slow and solid over the dramatic.
For work and money it is one of the most welcome cards in the deck: a new position, a successful application, an investment opportunity, or the first income from a venture.
The advice is to take the opportunity seriously and to build patiently. The garden in the picture grows because someone tends it.
Reversed
Reversed, the Ace of Pentacles is often read as an opportunity that slips by, either because it is not noticed or because the person is not ready for it. Some readers see poor planning, money that comes and goes, or an over-attachment to wealth and security that closes off other possibilities. Others take it as a delay rather than a refusal.
Reversed readings are optional; many readers interpret the cards upright and judge the Ace by its neighbours. When reversals are used, this one generally recommends practical groundwork before any new commitment.
The image
In Pamela Colman Smith's design a hand emerges from a cloud, holding up a large golden pentacle as if presenting it. Beneath lies a well-kept garden, its path bordered by white lilies, leading to an arch in a hedge covered with greenery and flowers. Through the arch a range of distant mountains is visible. The sky is pale and the whole image suggests peace and plenty.
History
Before 1909 most tarot decks left the minor arcana unillustrated, and Smith's scenes for the numbered cards were new. The aces, however, had always been special. In the Tarot de Marseille the Ace of Coins (Deniers) is a single large disk, richly ornamented with flowers and foliage, and it is often where the cardmaker placed his name or mark. The hand from the cloud is borrowed from the other Marseille aces of swords and batons. Waite's 1910 Pictorial Key calls the card one of perfect contentment, felicity and ecstasy, "speedy intelligence" and gold; reversed, the evil side of wealth, but also great riches.
"Pentacles" is a word from ritual magic for an engraved talismanic disk; it was used in the Golden Dawn's tarot teaching and popularised by Waite's deck in place of "coins". Crowley used "Disks".
Symbolism
The pentacle is a gold disk engraved with a five-pointed star, and Waite explained the pentagram as a figure of the correspondence between the elements and the human being. The garden represents cultivation and the earthly paradise, and the white lilies purity. The arch in the hedge, opening on the mountains, has been read as a gateway from security toward higher aims: wealth is offered not as a goal but as a starting point.
In the Golden Dawn scheme the four aces belong to Kether, the first sefirah, and stand for the root power of their element. The Ace of Pentacles is the "Root of the Powers of Earth", and is said to rule the quarter of the heavens centred on the fixed earth sign Taurus. Pentacles are attributed to Earth and to the final He of the divine name; see Tarot and Qabalah in Thelema.
In a reading
Readers generally see this ace as a promising sign in questions about work, money, property or health of body and home. With the Ten of Pentacles it points to lasting wealth or family security; with the Eight of Pentacles, to a new trade or training; with the Empress, to fertility in the broadest sense. In an outcome position it suggests that the effort will bear fruit. For the suit as a whole, see the minor arcana.
Sources and further reading
- The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite, 1910
- The Book of Thoth — Aleister Crowley, 1944
- The Golden Dawn — Israel Regardie, 1937
- The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination — Robert M. Place, 2005
- The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City — Michael Dummett, 1980