Five of Pentacles
Thoth: Worry
Marseille: Cinq de Deniers
“Out in the cold, short of what you need, and worried about the ground underfoot.”
At a glance
Keywords
hardship · shortage · insecurity · worry · exclusion · feeling left out
Yes or no
Lean no
Not while the basics are shaky; steady them first.
Keywords, reversed
recovery · accepting help · asking for support · hidden struggle · steadier footing
Yes or no
Lean yes
Slowly, once you ask for what you need.
Advice for
Ask for help and name what you need. List what you still have before you count what’s gone.
Advice against
Don’t carry it alone out of pride or shame, or assume no one will help.
Meaning
The Five of Pentacles is being out in the cold. Something basic feels unsteady, and it is hard to think about anything else. It often brings a hard stretch with money, work, health or belonging: lost income, a feeling of being shut out, a worry that has taken over the view.
Hardship is lighter once it is named. Shame and tiredness can keep you from reaching out, or from looking past the next worry. The card asks you to say what’s wrong, ask for what you need, and remember that hardship is a stretch of road, not the whole map.
In the Thoth deck
This card is Worry: strain in the foundations, as if the earth were shaking, and a long inaction that only deepens it. Read it as anxiety about the base of things, and a reason to act on one part of it.
Reversed
Reversed, the cold begins to lift. Help arrives, a door opens, or you finally ask. Money or health starts to recover, slowly.
It can also point to hardship kept out of sight: pride, embarrassment, or a brave face that stops anyone from helping. If that sounds familiar, asking is often easier than it feels: tell one person the truth this week.
Shadow
Keywords
martyrdom · pride in suffering · scarcity as identity · resenting those with more
Endurance can harden into a story about yourself. Pride in carrying on alone makes help feel like defeat, and hardship becomes who you are rather than what you’re passing through. It can turn into resentment of anyone who seems to have it easier.
In your life
Love
Feeling left out in the cold, or going without affection.
Reversed: warmth returning, support accepted.
Work
Job loss, short hours, feeling shut out.
Reversed: a new job, or help finding one.
Money
Debt, shortage, worry over bills.
Reversed: recovery, a debt eased.
Health and energy
Run down and short of rest.
Reversed: energy and support coming back.
Inner life
Feeling unworthy or left out.
Reversed: letting yourself be helped.
Spiritual keywords
humility · solidarity · endurance · faith · receiving
Timing
Slow: a hard stretch that eases once help is asked for. Its season is the first ten days of Taurus, about 20 April to 29 April.
The image
Pamela Colman Smith draws two figures in a snowstorm: one on crutches with a bandaged head, the other barefoot, bent and wrapped in a ragged shawl. Above them a stained-glass window glows with five pentacles. Waite writes of “two mendicants in a snow-storm” who “pass a lighted casement”. One glances up at the window; neither stops. In this deck the window is the other half of the card: help is nearer than it looks.
Frieda Harris paints five disks in an inverted pentagram on an angry red ground marked with yellow. Crowley says the effect is like an earthquake: the foundations of matter are unsteady, though the five principles still hold it together at a low level. The strain is intense, yet the picture suggests long inaction.
Cinq de Deniers. Five coins: one at each corner and one at the centre, joined by red and grey-blue leaf scrolls. No figure and no scene. Five is friction and coins are body, work and resources: a strain on the material side of life, with the centre coin still holding.
Place in the story
The Four held on; the Five shows what happens when holding fails. It is the suit’s first loss, and its first need for other people. The Six follows with giving and receiving: the help the Five couldn’t yet ask for.
Correspondences
Mercury in Taurus rules the first ten days of the sign. The five sits on Geburah, the sephira of severity, which cuts back what has gone stale. The Golden Dawn calls it Lord of Material Trouble.
| Card | Five of Pentacles |
|---|---|
| Element | Earth |
| Astrology | Mercury in Taurus, 1st decan, 20 Apr to 29 Apr |
| Sephira | Geburah |
| Golden Dawn title | Lord of Material Trouble |
| Card | Five of Disks: Worry |
|---|---|
| Element | Earth |
| Astrology | Mercury in Taurus, 1st decan, 20 Apr to 29 Apr |
| Sephira | Geburah |
| Golden Dawn title | Lord of Material Trouble |
Crowley notes the clash: it takes a strong Mercury to disturb Taurus, so the card is intelligence pressed against heavy material.
| Card | Cinq de Deniers |
|---|
The Marseille method uses no astrology or Kabbalah.
Card of the day
Today may feel lean. Name what you’re short of, whether money, rest or company, and tell one person. Small help counts, so accept it without keeping score. If someone offers a meal, a hand or an hour of their time, let that be enough for today.
Journal prompts
- Where do I feel left out in the cold, and who might I ask for warmth?
- What is the one worry under all the others, and what would ease it?
- What does shame tell me about asking for help?
- Is someone near me in need, and could I be the help they’re looking for?
Common misreads
“It means ruin.” It marks a hard stretch that passes, not a verdict of permanent loss.
“It’s only about money.” The shortage can be of rest, company or confidence. The cold shows up in many ways.
Associations
- Playing card
- Five of Diamonds.
- Myth and archetype
- The wanderer at the inn door; Lazarus at the rich man’s gate; the Outcast.
Sources
RWS image and quotation: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Five of Pentacles; public domain.
Thoth image and attribution: Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth (1944), Five of Disks, Worry.
Marseille: Nicolas Conver, Tarot de Marseille (1760), BnF btv1b10520316w, Cinq de Deniers.
Practice meanings for the Five of Pentacles, paraphrased from Pollack, Greer, Bunning and Wen.
Five of Pentacles, decan, title and sephira: Book T (Golden Dawn), via Regardie.
Practice and archetype: Mark McElroy, A Guide to Tarot Card Meanings (2014, uncopyrighted), Five of Coins; Arcanis Tarot, 5 of Pentacles, arcanistarot.com.