TAROTEight of Pentacles
Upright
Hard work, focus, and commitment to mastering a skill
Striving for perfection in a skill, career, or art.
Job satisfaction and success in career direction.
A focus on career and skills at the expense of everything else
Intuition
The card shows Hephaestus, God of fire, metalworking, and artisans. He works at his forge creating the eight pentacles.
The flames of the forge take the shape of a woman; one of the nine Muses. Without an understanding of beauty, emotion, and form as well as function, there is no art nor craft in anything we make.
Reversed
Uninspired or lacking skill or ideas.
Lacking the skills or perseverance to create what you set out to produce.
Lacking commitment to finish what you started.
Lack of attention to detail in your work or dealings.
Astrologia
Practical with an attention to detail; the perfectionist. Well-ordered, efficient and resourceful. Can become judgmental and an over-perfectionist of both others and themselves.
Eight of Pentacles
We move on from the Seven of Pentacles, where the pentacles are raw materials, to the next stage where we make them ourselves.
The Eight of Pentacles represents commitment to a craft, skill or discipline, hard work, and eye for detail that results in quality. The card often denotes a commitment and pride in your work.
If you want financial security from your work, you need to be the best you can be, and the card points to the need to learn and practice your skills to become the best. This means education, studying, or focusing on learning new things on the job to progress to a higher level. It points to a period of deep job satisfaction, seeing your work benefit others.
Conversely, the card warns of an over-emphasis on career to the detriment of everything else: your relationships, your free time, and even your health.
The card shows the God of craftsmen, using his forge on Mount Olympus to create the eight pentacles of this card.
Hephaestus
Hephaestus was the god of fire, volcanoes, and the forge. Because early crafts required fire in their manufacture (metalwork, pottery, cookery), he governed them all. Even ancient crafts like needlework and cloth production fell under his domain, as they were completed beside the hearth fire at the end of the day.
He was also lame. There are many mythical stories to explain this, but the root cause is that many ancient blacksmiths would become unable to walk in later life. The common use (and creation of) poisonous compounds over years of metalworking caused severe joint damage and neuropathy.
Hephaestus was the ultimate master craftsman. He forged the magical weapons and artifacts carried by the gods. Hephaestus’s forge is where Prometheus stole the spark of fire to give to humanity. It is also where the punishment for that theft was created: Pandora, the first woman, and her jar. (This jar became a 'box' in the 16th century due to a translation error: mistaking the word pithos, a large earthenware jar, for pyxis, a box).
The jar contained all the ills of humankind. Hephaestus gave Pandora the 'curse' of curiosity, ensuring she would inevitably open it.
Description and Symbology
The card depicts the god Hephaestus using his immense craftsmanship and magical forge to create the pentacles: representing the very first coins.
The fire takes the shape of an ethereal woman: one of the Muses. Without the artistic, literary, and musical abilities associated with the Muses, there can be no creative ideas, and consequently no craft. Without craft, a lump of metal remains a lump of metal. The figure reflects the 'curse' of curiosity inherited from Pandora, the vital spark without which we learn nothing.
The master craftsman
We see the God of craftsmen, Hephaestus, creating perfect pentacles in his forge on Mount Olympus.
The fire of higher learning and curiosity
Hephaestus’ forge flames takes the shape of a winged woman. This might be his muse (specifically one of the mythological muses associated with the higher aspects of learning) or it could be the fire of curiosity that makes us all human – the ability to be curious about our world, and create things for ourselves that the Gods (or nature) did not create for us.
The Pentacles
The image shows the pentacles we have created in the past, as they fly away from Hephaestus’s hammer. There is also the pentacle that is being created now. The forge itself represents our curiosity and ability to learn, and therefore our ability to create greater works tomorrow – so long as we maintain our ‘curse’ of curiosity!
Tips for Readings
The following table shows the upright and reverse meanings for general questions. The last row ('Yes/No') is useful when you are picking a single card to decide a yes or no decision.
Upright
Reversed
This card represents a period of building things outside the relationship; career improvement or education that will eventually result in material security, but not specifically romance or emotion. This may however lead to greater respect and pride of the skills and determination on show, especially if the goals are shared.
If you are fine with that, then this is a good card. Perhaps you want a more emotional kind of fire. If that is the case, you may have to wait!
For single people looking for a new relationship, there may be competition for your time, and it comes from career, education or a passion project.
There may be problems from career or self-improvement (such as training or education) that are causing problems.
Long hours or difficulties at work may be an issue, such as frustration with progress, boredom, or lack of appreciation at work.
Whatever the issue, it is important to manage the process so that there is good communication and support throughout this time.
Any work or training undertaken to better your position at work will pay out with better skills or a promotion.
For those looking to start a personal passion project or business idea, this card is a good sign. Things will go well so long as you take the time to learn the ropes and spend the time to learn the subject.
This card suggests a lack of progress in career or personal projects.
This may be caused by impatience to see results, not taking the time to learn the required skills, or simply boredom and taking crafty shortcuts rather than learning a craft.
There is a need to make sure what you are doing is really for you, as there seems to be a reluctance to commit.
Although this card is not directly associated with health and instead is related to bettering yourself with new skills in career and personal creative projects, there is a need to look after your health, particularly because your focus on career or the work may take a toll on your health.
Make sure you take time out, or spend some of that energy on making your body a perfectly crafted item as well as whatever you are making!
A lack of progress or mistakes in career or a personal project or business idea will cause problems with stress or worry.
It is important to maintain a good work-life balance and keep stress confined to business hours, giving you space outside that time to decompress and connect to your personal life and more calming influences.
Remember, being tired and stressed may be an outcome of a busy day's work, but it makes no sense if you start the day in the same state, as that is when mistakes really start to happen!
This is a time when you will be thinking about gaining new skills with a view to bettering your career position or pursue new business or creative ideas. It may also represent a time when you learn new skills to move career.
As long as this is something you will be proud of for reasons other than simply material gain, you will enrich yourself with the experience.
You may be embarking on a career change or gaining new skills, but this card suggests the path will be fraught with indecision, problems and possibly even boredom.
The root cause for this may be spiritual. You are doing this merely for material gain. To be truly committed, you need to embrace the aim because you believe in it for other reasons such as artistic or self-expression, a worthy and intellectual challenge, or the final work will give you a sense of pride.
The card suggests you will struggle unless your material gains are also underpinned by your spiritual expectations, specifically a sense of purpose in what you do.
You will gain an exceptional attention to detail and planning, making it a good time to review your investments and other financial transactions.
You may also have a new business or creative idea that requires training or learning new skills, and it may be important to be able to cover the temporary loss of income this may create. Check the finances before you start your passion project, as you are emotionally committed, and it would be a shame if you failed through lack of funds!
A lack of concentration on detail or difficulties in career may impact your finances.
Make sure you are capable of the job you are doing, and committed to completing it because failure and delays may have financial or career implications.
Yes, through being skilled and committed to excellence.
No, through being distracted and not aware of the details (which is where the devil often lurks!).
Reading the Card
The Upright Card
The Upright Eight of Pentacles signifies either a need to hone your skills through dedication, learning, and hard work, or to follow a desire to do the same simply to better yourself or explore creative avenues.
This need arises because you feel constrained in your current career and desperately want to move up. The card confirms this is the correct path; you will find success. The Eight emphasizes curiosity and continuous learning. If you hold the option to take courses at work, take it. If you are considering entering (or returning to) formal education, the card confirms it is a wise investment.
The desire springs from a project you postponed for years because 'life got in the way', but you now possess the time and inclination to build it into a business or side-hustle. The Upright card suggests spending time on a hobby, turning it into something others will want to use (whether painting, writing, music, or creating your own Tarot deck). The possibilities remain as endless as your curiosity and your desire to improve yourself.
The card occasionally points to an obsessive dedication to your career, warning against pushing yourself toward impossible standards.
The Reversal
The reversed Eight of Pentacles points to a lack of skill, motivation self-belief or a massive dose of impostor-syndrome.
You are bored by a repetitive job lacking any creative outlet, overworked and entirely underappreciated. The maxim 'quantity has a quality all its own' worked for Joseph Stalin, but it fails miserably outside a wartime economy.
The way forward demands bettering yourself by doing what brings you a profound sense of pride, rather than merely what makes you money. This is a difficult task; it demands honing your skills over the long term, but it is the only correct solution.
The card may also point to rushing the learning process and walking before you can run. This seems like failure, but is often simply rushing or expecting too much too early. Learning takes time, and failure is often a constant teacher during the early days. This time will pass through perseverance and learning.
Finally, there is always the problem of impostor-syndrome; comparing yourself to the ideal person who has no fear, who has perfect composure in meetings and always seems to know what to say. That person is the same as all of us; constantly working it out, and forever biting their tongue over their mistakes!
We are all our own worst critic, but impostor-syndrome is just another name for ego, except that we are in on the joke and know we are not perfect. Better to realize that is just being human and not a god. We can create; rarely perfection but good enough.
Card Design Process
The use of Hephaestus as the master craftsman was a given for this card, but the initial image lacked impact. Making the connection that his forge was the living source of his ingenuity, rather than 'just a fire', provided the missing spark.
Final Words
The Eight of Pentacles represents the dedication, eye for detail and hard work needed to master a craft. The card also points to the learning and curiosity that makes us better people through new skills and learning from our mistakes and experience.
