Page of Pentacles: eyes on the coin
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The Page of Pentacles shows a youth staring at a pentacle above his raised hands. Separate Waite’s word list, his “another reading” and the extras, then keep one column for what you stare at and one for what you miss.
The short version6 min read
The Page of Pentacles does one thing: he looks at the coin above his hands. Waite’s list circles study and learning, and the same description adds a warning: he is insensible of all that is about him.
- Waite’s description is two sentences: a youthful figure looks intently at the pentacle hovering over his raised hands, moving slowly, unaware of what surrounds him.
- The list leads with application, study, scholarship and reflection; “another reading” gives news, messages and the bringer, plus rule and management. Reversed: prodigality, dissipation, liberality, luxury and unfavorable news.
- In a question, write the one thing you are staring at beside the several things outside your sight, so the gain and the blind spot of focus sit on one page.
Read first
The coin above the hands: eyes upward, feet slow
Waite describes this card in two sentences. A youthful figure looks intently at the pentacle that hovers over his raised hands. He moves slowly, insensible of that which is about him.
Page of Pentacles: coin above the hands
On the Rider-Waite-Smith card the youth wears a red cap and a green tunic and stands on open grass, his hands raised beneath the coin and his head tilted back. Small flowers grow at his feet, a clump of trees stands at left, pale blue hills lie far off at right, and a strip of reddish-brown furrows runs in front of them. BaZiFlow’s original card changes the composition: both arms are lifted over the head, the coin sits above the hands, and behind him are a plowed field, a tree and a sun.
In both pictures the coin is neither on the ground nor in a pocket. It floats above the hands, something to be held up and looked at. Break the picture into three layers:
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What Waite lists: application and scholarship, and in another reading news and its bringer
Waite’s divinatory meanings are a run of words: application, study, scholarship, reflection. Then he brings in another reading: news, messages and the bringer thereof; and also rule, management.
Application, study, scholarship, reflection; another reading says news, messages and the bringer thereof; also rule, management.
A page was originally a young attendant at court, often sent with messages, so a “bringer of news” in the list is no surprise. Waite does put it under “another reading”, after the words about study.
Enlarge diagram · scroll sideways to read
Coin, gaze, slow step: where Waite stops
Three things in the picture deserve a word of their own: the coin, the gaze and the pace. For all three, Waite gives the appearance and no symbolism.
Three things, each with its source
- Coin
- Waite writes that it hovers over the raised hands and does not say what it stands for. About the suit as a whole he says, under the King of Pentacles, that its sign is shown throughout as engraved with the pentagram.
- Gaze
- “Looking intently” is Waite’s own wording. Reading it as the posture of a learner follows from the words study and scholarship in the list; Waite does not write that himself.
- Pace
- “Moves slowly, insensible of that which is about him” is also stated outright. Waite passes no verdict; teaching reads it as the cost of focus, which is a borrowing.
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Reading the coin as the one matter in hand and the pace as the cost of focus are modern teaching borrowings. Their use is that they turn the picture into the two-column sheet of the next section.
How to read it: one column for what you stare at, one for what you miss
The card’s own structure has two halves: the coin above the hands, and the surroundings that go unseen. Waite puts both in one sentence: look intently, be insensible. The reading splits into two columns accordingly.
Put one coin in the hands
Shrink what you are working on this round to one thing and write it as a sentence. “Learn photography” is too large; “get the light and shade on one clay cup right” is a coin.
Look up and turn around
Write three things outside your sight right now: time, people, place, helpers, any kind will do. Waite says he is insensible of what is about him, and this list puts the surroundings back in view.
Set a point for looking up
A slow pace is fine, but agree on a fixed moment, say after each set of shots, to check the list. Without that point, slow turns into not knowing how far you have come.
An example: someone photographs a still life for the poster of a friend’s craft workshop and has spent a week on the light and shade of a clay cup. The two columns for this round might read:
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What one coin can and cannot give
Can give
- One thing worth learning slowly
- Focus itself, a word of the original
Cannot give
- Whether you are learning it right
- What others are thinking now
Add yourself
- A one-page look-up list
- Someone’s eyes on the result
Reversed and neighboring cards: prodigality beside liberality, and “unfavorable” news
Waite’s reversed reading is a run of words: prodigality, dissipation, liberality, luxury; and unfavorable news. The reversed entry in the additional meanings reads “sometimes degradation and sometimes pillage”, which is other readers’ wording set here for contrast.
Prodigality, dissipation, liberality, luxury; unfavourable news.
Two things stand out. Liberality and luxury sit beside prodigality with no line drawn between good and bad. And “news”, upright, becomes “unfavorable news” reversed: the same topic turned to its other face.
Enlarge diagram · scroll sideways to read
Three cards of the suit, three attitudes to the coin
A coin handed from a cloud
Its list runs perfect contentment, felicity, ecstasy, also speedy intelligence and gold: receiving. The Page is staring: one coin, in the hand for one card and in the eye for the other.
A stone-carver at work
An artist in stone, his works exhibited like trophies. The list: work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, perhaps in the preparatory stage. The Page looks at the coin; the Eight works on coins.
Shows the coin, does not look in
He rides a slow, heavy horse and shows his symbol without looking into it. The list: utility, serviceableness, interest, responsibility, rectitude.
Questions readers ask next
Does the Page of Pentacles only mean a student or studying?
Waite’s list puts application, study and scholarship first, but the same entry carries news, messages and the bringer in another reading, plus rule and management; the additional meanings add a youth, a young officer and a child. In the old readings he covers learning and carrying word, and the picture does not fix his role.
What does the Page of Pentacles mean reversed?
Waite’s reversed list reads prodigality, dissipation, liberality, luxury, and unfavorable news; the additional meanings say sometimes degradation and sometimes pillage. Liberality and luxury stand beside prodigality, so the list is mixed; look first at which kind of matter you are asking about.
Is “insensible of that which is about him” a criticism?
Waite is only describing: he moves slowly and looks intently, with no verdict attached. In teaching it can be read as the cost of focus, since looking hard at one place means seeing less of the rest; how to weigh that is the asker’s call.
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Knight of Pentacles: a slow, heavy horse, a coin shown and not looked into ↗