SIX OF PENTACLES, LORD OF MATERIAL SUCCESS

   Your ally is giving money with one hand; in the other he holds scales as if to determine how deserving each supplicant is. This scene suggests that it is good to maintain an openness about both giving and receiving. It also recalls the Parable of the Talents, which describes a master who, before leaving his home, entrusts his property to his servants. The servants are each given talents according to their abilities. Upon return, the master asks his servants for an accounting. The first two servants explain that they have each doubled the value of the property, so they are each rewarded. The third servant, however, has merely hidden his talent in a hole in the ground, believing that he will be rewarded for simply guarding the talent, and is punished for being slothful. The master states, “For everyone that has, more shall be given, and he will have abundance, but from him who doesn’t have, even that which he has will be taken away.” The master is like the life-force with its inherent sense of balance. If you use your 'talents,' you will often find that those energies become stronger and your work becomes more and more effective. Each of us receives spiritual impulses, inspirations that we can manifest down through the planes through the use of imagination, technical knowledge and skill. Those with a strong desire to develop their talents and use their abilities to realize their dreams are rewarded on some level. Those who do not lose what they already have through lack of initiative. Individual talents, like muscles, atrophy if they are not used.

CORRESPONDING COLOR: Golden amber.

Reversed: not realizing potential; lack of creativity or drive; timidity or fearfulness