Monthly Reflection: King of Pentacles & The Moon

This month, I’m using a brand new deck, The Blue Tarot, that I purchased at The Tarot Fayre in Brighton this month. The Blue Tarot is created by Ukrainian creator Kateryna Presintova, and the blue-tinted watercolour artwork certainly carries the energy of the environment it has been created in. The deck is hauntingly beautiful, the cardstock has a soft, luxurious matte feel that is easy to shuffle. If these cards pique your interest, I would certainly recommend checking it out. The Tarot Fayre, hosted for the first time in Brighton this month, was also a magical coming together of tarot readers, deck creators and people with an interest in tarot. As someone who loves collecting tarot decks, being able to hear from deck creators about their stories, process and inspiration was fascinating, and being able to shop for decks in person!

Now, onto the reading!

July Reflection - King of Pentacles

We began the month of July with the Ten of Cups - the concept of a full circle moment in some way. The Tens are also a culmination point, and in this context, the culmination is an emotional one. The ‘closure’ of something inside of you.

This is interesting because we have a King in reflection this month. Kings also represent some sort of peak of energy, so a Ten and a King appearing for the same month is certainly affirming this idea of culmination. That sense of closure that we may have felt during the month of July can lead to a greater embodied sense of capability, groundedness and satisfaction in where you are today. Because that’s the energy that this King embodies.

In the previous reading, we highlighted the concepts of healing, repairing, breaking a cycle. Perhaps, there have been unhealed wounds that have held us back from really fulfilling our highest potential, or from seeing our achievements for what they really are. Therefore, as we close out the month of July, we do so with a greater sense of what we are capable of, feeling secure in ourselves, confident in who we are and satisfied with where we are in our lives. That’s all powerful stuff.

Beyond this, something I notice with the image on this card is that the King appears to be holding up a pentacle, offering it to us. The problem is, it doesn’t look like this is being offered freely. I get the sense he’s asking us, “What’s this pentacle worth to you?” It’s a gift that comes with a price.

Of course, that’s not always a bad thing. There can be a fair exchange. Someone has something we need. We’re willing to pay for it. It’s a win-win. But there is also the potential here for an exchange that feels a little ‘icky’. And when we bring this into context, it’s possible that we are becoming more mindful of these types of exchanges. Note that the Ten of Cups was the card at the start of the month, which is much more emotionally weighted, and the Pentacles is more materially weighted. Therefore, we could be re-evaluating what matters most to us. If the material gain has an emotional cost, is it worth it? Ultimately, these types of evaluations are all in service of finding the emotional fulfilment and contentment that we see in the Ten of Cups.

Finally, we can see the King of Pentacles as a sign that you are in a position to give out in some way. When we reach the King of Pentacles energy, we are established, and we are overflowing with resource (whether that be material resource or energetic resource) to give out to others. Perhaps, as you close out this month, there is a realisation that you are indeed in the position to help others in some way - help others on their journey to get to where you are. And isn’t that a wonderful thought?

August Outlook - The Moon

There have been a lot of active cards over the past few months, a lot of messages about keeping momentum, growing and building. This month does also appear significant for growth, but perhaps the key to growth through this month isn’t in your movement. Through August, we are being called to integrate, embrace and accept the parts of us that we have been hiding from.

These can be the parts of us that we are ashamed of, the parts of us that we’ve been told to hide away, the things we are insecure about. And yes, this is uncomfortable stuff! But it is also incredibly worthwhile.

This also makes a lot of sense in the context of the previous cards. When we’re feeling more confident and grounded in who we are, and we have a stronger sense of what would really make us happy and who we want to be, it is natural that anything that we haven’t fully reconciled internally would start to bubble to the surface. It’s the stuff that doesn’t quite sit comfortably with who you’re becoming.

But the reason it doesn’t sit comfortably, isn’t because those parts of you need to be eliminated, or rejected. Rather, if we can fully embrace who we are, it can serve to strengthen all of the confidence, values and internal work that we have done over the last few months. In this way, this month’s journey with The Moon is a very significant one.

The other thing we need to be wary of this month is our mind getting the best of us. The Moon often appears when there are certain unknowns or uncertainties in our lives. There is information that we don’t have. And the thing about this is, we try to ‘fill in the gaps’ - and our imagination can often come to much worse conclusions than is really the case.

This month, if we find ourselves jumping to conclusions, the question we need to ask ourselves is, “Do I have enough information to come to that conclusion?” If the answer to that question is ‘no’, then we have to consider and explore what has led us to that conclusion. Because more often than not, even if things are not as they seem, they’re not as bad as we imagine them to be.

Overall, with The Moon as our card this month, there is potential to emerge the other side with a better understanding of who you are and with a little more compassion for the parts of you that might have been hidden away.

Sending love,

N x

If you’d like to dive deeper into The Moon, check out tomorrow’s episode of Major Arcana Energy! And if you’ve been enjoying these Monthly Reflections, click here to read more about the personal version, delivered straight to your inbox every month.