Ace of Pentacles

Traditional interpretations of this card suggest such things as material gain, prosper- ity, profit, attainment, perfection, security, contentment, comfort, and invocation of aid. But it’s far too soon in the progression from Ace to Ten to be seeing any real fulfill- ment or watching any rapid progress. This situation still needs more cultivation and care. There is potential to be nurtured, or raw talent to be developed. This is about basics, putting first things first. The Ace of Pentacles speaks to the conditions needed for an idea to become a reality, a proposal to become a business, an invention to become a prototype, a seed to become a plant, or an egg to become an animal. It is not wealth, as many would have it, but it may be an opportunity for wealth. It might be the core of a good idea, or a need for a new beginning. It behaves like the seed particle that a raindrop or snowflake forms around. A set of necessary and sufficient conditions acts as a cause for an increase in existence, attracting material and promoting development, growth in layers of accretion, without much internal force or substance to drive the process at first. Slowly, energy freezes into physical form, verbs slow down into nouns, light cools off into thingness. Materialization should not imply a lack of light or spirit, merely an investment, and that just for a time. When we look closer, the mystery of it all still shines through the ordinary. Three conditions must be met for things to come into being, or for entities to come to life and thrive. Prohibitive conditions must be out of the way. Supportive conditions must be in place. And the necessary information must be present to inform the new formation. Getting to the beginning, a crack appears in the sidewalk and the seed of a weed washes in. A promising niche opens up and little is there to stop it from being exploited. There may be a need for a thing to occur, a problem that wants a solution. The new thing is somehow enabled or allowed into being. Some real-world potential has its prerequisites and preconditions met. Zoning allowances and site conditions permit a house to be built. The feasible or viable thing is offered a niche in which to take root. The new thing may be welcomed by society because there is trust and good faith. Sometimes the obstacle is the young thing itself: perhaps it’s overly complex, or lacking in humility, or lacking in parsimony. Perhaps security is too big an issue and the thing won’t let its shell come undone. Here, all but the essential and the germane might need to be surrendered. We might need to want even less than what we now have. The word capacity can mean both emptiness and power. When the prohibitive conditions are out of the way, it can mean both at once. Next, a thing will need support to get started. The seed wants to land in good soil. The business plan wants some demand and investors. The patent wants some venture capital. The research project wants a grant. The new crop wants a field. The new field wants a down payment. The new life wants its wherewithal. The poker winnings want an ante. Resources must not only be available: they need to be available at a sustainable rate of use, and one hopes for lots longer than the life of the thing. The thing wants purchase, as in a place to begin, a place on which to stand, a basis, an environment to sustain it. The mountain peak wants a base much wider than itself, and it may have to give up some of its height to get this. This is the image of the Yijing counterpart, Gua 23, Decomposing or Splitting Apart, whose core meaning is stripping away the inessentials to get to essence of things. Things not germane are expendable now. In lightening up, we carry on with less, but with a greater stability or greater potential. A breakdown in prohibitive or superfluous conditions that still leaves the essentials intact is what we want in order to move forward. Finally the thing wants the needed instructions. This is the DNA, the prospectus, the patent, the blueprint, the business plan, the discovery, the mission statement, the brief statement of goals and objectives, some common sense and basic business savvy. This is compact information, like the constitution sets the form of a government, or the zygote implies the adult. While evolution and life produce the myriad beings without holding this essence or plan in advance, it has still become part of the process.