TAROTQueen of Pentacles
Upright
Growth, fertility, prosperity, and long-lasting emotions
Nurturing, resourceful, but grounded in practicality and reality.
Balancing your material and emotional needs.
Maintaining emotional, financial and security needs required for growth.
Intuition
The image shows the Goddess of the Spring (and for the reverse, the Goddess of the dead), Persephone.
Spring is the time when life and plenty comes back to the earth, but the reverse also points to the truth that we start from the earth but also return to it.
Reversed
Neglecting the balance between material and emotional needs.
Materialistic or emotionally cold.
Emotionally rich but financially poor, or wealthy but lonely or unemotional.
Inability to provide for loved ones — either emotionally or financially.
Astrologia
Emotional depth and empathy; kind-hearted. Strong ability to communicate with others on both an intellectual and emotional level. Very resourceful. Can be inflexible to the unexpected, with a preference to predicable cycles of life.
Queen of Pentacles
The Page and Knight of Pentacles concern the attainment of prosperity, but the Queen embodies the possession of it. She knows how to use wealth to help herself and others.
Like the Empress, the Queen of Pentacles is often seen as a ‘mother’ card, the difference being one of level.
The Empress is a Major Arcana card, so represents you and your inner journey. It predicts long-lasting effects. The Queen of Pentacles is a Minor Arcana, so can be about people other than yourself, or signifies a shorter term change.
The card brings a time of fertility, abundance, and plenty. It brings success in career and finances, marking a period of deep spiritual attainment.
In relationships, the card points to a supportive emotional atmosphere, a secure financial bedrock, and a down to earth and caring person. It can also represent a growing family. The richest person is not the one with the most money, but the one who knows how to convert money into a stable home and a good life. This is true wealth.
The richest person is not the one with the most money, but the one who knows how to convert money into a stable home and a good life. This is true wealth.
The Upright card represents spring: abundant births, green shoots, and a warming climate. The Reversed card points to a cold, barren winter, where all energy pulls back into the ground.
The card shows this, with the top showing the goddess of spring, but the lower part of the card showing winter. Both are the same goddess.
Persephone
As noted above, there is a strong relationship between the Empress card and the Queen of Pentacles, and this follows through in this deck. The Empress is the Goddess Demeter, and the Queen of Pentacles is her daughter Persephone.
Persephone is abducted by Hades as a young woman. Demeter to mourned this loss. Because Demeter is a primary earth Goddess, all plants die or shed their greenery. This creates the first winter.
Eventually a deal is struck. Persephone returns from the ground once every year, causing life to come back out of the earth, and creating spring and summer. She must also return to Hades for some of the time each year, causing the colder seasons as the world energy goes back into the ground with her. This sets the seasons into motion.
Thus, Persephone has two aspects associated with her, and they map to the upright and reversed Queen of Pentacles. One related to the green shoots and fertility of spring, and the other relates to the lack of warmth and resources that creates winter.
A third aspect is her constant transformations that occur throughout the seasons, and her yearly journey to Hades and back represents our own lifespan. The seed, plant and husk represent the cycle of birth, life, and death.
Description and Symbology
The card shows the beginning of spring, and its goddess, Persephone. Her hands are outstretched, implying the same stance seen in the High Priestess (and Persephone's good friend), Hecate. Rather than holding torches, Persephone’s hands point to the lush greenery she has brought up from the ground, and the balance between hard work and enjoying the world it creates.
A pile of pentacles rests on the tree below her, representing riches drawn from the earth. A large pentacle hovers in front of Persephone’s stomach, representing the fruits of fertility or the arrival of a new family member.
A bat flies to the right of the card. Sacred to Persephone, bats represent intuition and transformation. They appear only during the transition between day and night (the ancients lacked the ability to see bats flying in the pitch black).
Below ground, the image depicts the abduction of young Persephone (known then as Kore, the 'maiden'). Hades pulls her into the earth. The scene includes the same ceramic pomegranates found in the High Priestess card, linking their shared underworld symbology.
The woman
The Queen of Pentacles is Persephone, an earth Goddess associated with spring (and also through her absence, winter). Her throne comes from the earth; a tree stump. Her arms form a balance between working hard and enjoying the fruits of this effort. Everything starts from the earth and returns to it, and our main aim is enjoy the time in between whilst making a difference during it.
The bat
The bat is an ancient symbol of transformation and reinvention, which is a hallmark of Persephone. Change happens via the Queen of Pentacles through practical hard work, self-improvement and being able to positively affect the things we care about.
The pentacles
There are two sets of pentacles. One is a pile of coins near the bottom of the tree stump, signifying the wealth that the earth gives us. The other is a large pentacle superimposed over Persephone, representing fertility and nurturing or transformation of the self.
Signs of spring
Persephone is associated with the spring, which occurs when she emerges from the deep earth (Hades) every year. We see signs of spring all around the Queen and her throne. Our own lives are the same – we can only move from the dark, cold winters in our lives by creating our own spring through self-growth to create the green shoots of personal change.
Kore
The abduction of the young Persephone (Kore or maiden) and her return every year was a fundamental part of ancient Greek beliefs. It points to life as a cycle where death is not to be feared but is instead transformational. We see the abduction/death on the lower part of the image, but the roots of the throne also pull the energy from the dark parts of the card, transforming them into future light and life above ground. We are all creatures of both light and dark, and our paths are incomplete without both.
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
For existing relationships, this card points to success in all aspects: finance, career, home building and children. It points to a stable environment, prosperity and contentment, as well as emotional closeness. There is certainly also time to indulge each other, as you both deserve it!
For new relationships, expect a person who is practically minded but also caring. This card points to a successful relationship, so long as both of you are committed to each other.
This is not the best card for relationships. It points to coldness or materialism, and lack of progress.
For existing relationships, there may be a lack of focus on each other. You are both focused on career or other interests. One or both of you could also be more concerned on status or outward appearance of success over true happiness.
It can also point to laziness, a lack of direction or boredom through routine.
For new relationships, take care to ensure that the relationship is at the top of the priority list for both of you, as otherwise either the relationship will be playing second fiddle to other concerns, or will fizzle out.
There will be a fulfilling period in your career. Common aims and understanding within the workplace, as well as stability and meeting goals.
Your practical and problem-solving nature should come to the fore, and showing understanding and compassion will work better than arguing or playing top-dog.
Use any financial gains on family, future, or closer bonds with your other half, as this is where this card’s energies lie.
This card points to problems in career. It could be overworking to the detriment of yourself and/or your personal life. It could be a lack of recognition, progress, or terms. It could also be that you have unrealistic expectations or need to gain experience or training to move forward.
Whatever it is, you are unfulfilled in career and are asked to take a realistic view of the situation as your starting point. This may be difficult and mean change, but it is inevitable if you want to move forward.
The Queen of Pentacles is all about balancing progress with nurturing, and in this case, the balance is between being successful and looking after yourself.
You will go through a period of success when it comes to wealth and the home and family, but make sure it is not to the detriment of your own personal health.
Work for success, but also make sure you channel some of that energy to maintaining your health.
You have become either too competitive, ambitious or working too hard. You may also have become too complacent and living the life of luxury and over indulging.
Either way, your life-balance is way off, and your lifestyle is in danger of making you ill. Remember that your health is one of your greatest assets. This card suggests changing your lifestyle to address this.
There will be success coming in your life, caused by success in material wealth, but it is important to balance that with a positive and non-materialistic outlook. This card suggests using your gains towards the things that are important to you will make you happiest. This includes family, important causes and your health and happiness. Showing compassion and understanding to others rather than competition and being combative will also go a long way – you have everything you need, so can afford to be gracious.
Be wary of recent successes making you materialistic or aiming for wealth and status as a goal in itself.
These things are transient, but using your gains in practical terms to follow real goals, and promote security and stability for the people and causes you care about, are all much more important. This will stay with you for much longer than the latest fashion and appreciation from strangers!
Treating your wealth as seeds for the future, and growing it with practical aims in mind will work wonders right now, as it fits into the energy of this card.
Spend your new-found wealth to build a secure present and bright future will work out best, as will education and training.
This may mean mundane things such as paying off your debts before incurring new ones, and buying only things that will appreciate in the future over flashy status symbols that do not keep their value.
Setting such things in motion now will pay you back with the sense of security it will create, and allow you to soon start treating yourself without dreading the bills that come afterward!
Your finances are either in disarray or being hoarded and not working for you.
This card advises that money has no value until it is converted into things that really create wealth – a stable home, a secure future and a happy present.
The card asks that you curtail extravagant spending or unnecessary frugality and consider what true wealth really means.
Yes, through a caring and practical outlook that promotes future growth and success for tomorrow, as well as happiness and gratitude today.
No, through wasted time or resources, or seeing success as fake status and bean-counting.
Reading the Card
Like all court cards, the Queen of Pentacles can represent people or things other than yourself:
- A good balance in life, where working hard to create wealth and a future is balanced with time set aside for the things you really love and work for the benefit of. This balance ensures you support yourself and your loved ones, creating a reciprocal energy throughout a network of family and friends. This constitutes the true web of human life, implied by the card's imagery: a lush forest sustained by unseen roots in the deep earth.
- A life lived with an eye to the practical, but also space to dream. It balances responsibility with hope and love. Hard work requires practicality, but the resulting wealth remains worthless until consumed to achieve our life goals. The Queen knows our time on earth is limited because she constantly makes the journey between life and death. Her advice is practical yet comes from the heart: use your time wisely.
- A down to earth, kind person in your life. This person has already walked the path you seek and possesses a wealth of knowledge. They provide necessary resources for your journey, but their most important resource is genuine care. If older than you, this person acts as a maternal figure.
- Periods of reinvention and transformation. We must undertake periods of training and education, hard work and forgoing instant pleasure today for a brighter future tomorrow, or simply learning from lessons life gives us. All of these things are transformational.
- When reversed, the Queen of Pentacles can represent poor or self-defeating priorities, especially falling for immediate material needs, greed, and laziness, or frittering away your resources and time. The flip-side to the growth and fertility of spring is the coldness and darkness of winter, and the reversed card can point to a cold and sometimes greedy person who will steal your energy rather than nurturing it.
When reading the ‘upright card’ and ‘reversal’ sections below, note that although the text refers to you, it could actually be any of the above. The question being asked (or your first thoughts when you see the card) will suggest who or what the card refers to.
The Upright Card
The Upright Queen of Pentacles represents everything you need for a happy home: a stable emotional atmosphere, financial success running through the family, and the ability to attain goals because your basic needs are already guaranteed.
This sounds like a family secured by extreme wealth, but that misrepresents the Queen of Pentacles.
She is an earthy, kind, and practical woman, rather than a wealthy aristocrat. Her energy, knowledge and kindness comes from hard work. Her confidence does not derive from wealth, but because she has been where we will go, and has returned with experience.
She represents the wealth of the ground; natural and given to all, so long as you earn it.
The Reversal
The Reversed Queen of Pentacles represents the inversion of spring. It denotes a lack of emotional warmth and the misuse of resources. It is Winter.
The coldness can make you feel insecure or emotionally fragile. You are unsure of yourself, as any misstep can lead to failure or stress at even the thought of it.
This lack of resources is caused by wasting what you have: a sudden drop in income, or a failure to act practically during the good times. It points to profound materialism. You love money, fame, or status, rather than consuming your wealth to create true security, or a loving atmosphere in your home.
Finally, the reversed card can point to inflexibility. This can be caused by greed and hoarding what you have rather than using it, or attempting to keep things as they are rather than moving forward. These actions make you numerically richer, but leave you spiritually impoverished.
Card Design Process
The Empress in this deck shows Demeter. It was only natural that the Queen of Pentacles would be her daughter, Persephone.
Persephone also represents the transition from the colder months to the warmer ones, and is the goddess of spring, which ties in with both the upright and reverse Queen of Pentacles and their relationship between having and lacking the resources to build growth.
Finally, she is the wife of Hades, who makes a perfect King of Pentacles.
However, the hardest part of the card was illustrating both sides of Persephone; the Queen of the dead and the Goddess of spring. Splitting the card into ‘above-ground’ and ‘below ground’ achieves this.
This layout raises the idea that all Tarot cards should feature an upright/reverse visual split. That design feat will have to wait for a much later deck, as the planning required would be tremendous.
Final Words
The Queen of Pentacles represents stability and success through managing your resources in the pursuit of personal fulfillment, enabling you to care for the things you love. The card can also point to a maternal figure in your life.
