Nine of Pentacles

Identity

Symbols

• The Wide VineyardThe vines run out on every side — a wide domain whose width is the measure of years of tending, not a way of keeping anyone out.+

  Waite calls it "a wide domain, suggesting plenty in all things," then hedges: "Possibly it is her own possession." The drawing leaves it open too: the manor stands far off at the right, and nothing says whose garden this is.

• The Hooded FalconTamed wildness — pleasure and instinct still present, but no longer ungoverned.+

  Waite writes only "a bird upon her wrist"; the drawing gives it a red, plumed hood and sets it on her gloved left hand, the way a falconer carries a hawk. Hooded, the bird is blind and quiet: it is being carried, not flown.

• Heavy Grape ClustersThe receipt for years of work — ready to pick, or to remain one more week on the vine.+

  Book T makes this card the "Lord of Material Gain," Venus in the second decan of Virgo: the sun's passage through early September, when grapes like these are ripening toward the vintage. Its gloss adds "much increase of goods."

• The Embroidered RobeThe flowers on the fabric are not display — they are the calm of someone who has long been able to afford the detail.+

  The red flowers stand upright across the robe from collar to hem, and the hem pools on the path; the open sleeves show a red lining. In a garden of leaves and fruit, the only blossoms in the picture are the ones she wears.

• The Slow SnailIn this garden, time moves at the snail's pace — quickness is unnecessary, slowness no longer sloth.+

  The snail keeps to the path at the lower left, under the stack of six pentacles; the falcon rides at face height on the far side. The picture's two creatures sit in opposite corners, one carried high, one left to the ground.

• Nine Pentacles Among the VinesSix stacked at her right, three at her left, grown in among the vines — and her right hand rests lightly on the topmost.+

  In the Golden Dawn's own design for the Nine, an angelic hand holds a rose branch whose nine white roses each touch a pentacle. Smith sets hers low among the vines instead, none above her waist, the topmost under her hand.

Story

Everything here is near, and nearly still. She stands at the centre on a pale strip of path, the vines packed close behind her to shoulder height, a slim tree rising on either side of her against an even yellow sky. Far back, low hills at the left and the red roof of the manor house at the right are small enough to show how far out from the house she stands. Her eyes are lowered; the falcon on her raised glove sits at the height of her face. The long robe falls straight and spreads on the path, and the only other creature on that path is a snail.

Correspondences

Elemental Dignity

Shadow

Related Cards

Eight of Pentacles

The Hermit

Nine of Cups