Welcome to Tarot for Scholars, a resource that helps you weave the deep wisdom of tarot into your daily life and work. In each post, we offer reflections and prompts for exploring your own inner world and unlocking the unique creative power of your scholarship.
4 of Pentacles
About this card
Conservation of resources within a stable container. Protecting vulnerabilities via the solid boundaries of a material structure. Constraints that focus and simplify a project, offering an antidote to chaos. Exercising self-control to survive in a hostile or barren environment.
Other interpretations
Margy’s cards, clockwise from top left: Radiant Tarot; New Chapter Tarot; Cosmic Slumber Tarot; Shining Tribe Tarot; Elemental Tarot; Navigators Tarot of the Mystic Sea; Spolia Tarot; Tarot of the Spirit.
Helen’s cards, clockwise from top left: Moon & Stars Tarot; Light Seer’s Tarot; Japaridze Tarot; Canes Arcanae; Star Spinner Tarot; Muse Tarot; Tarot of Mystical Moments; Forest of Enchantment Tarot.
Questions and prompts
Imagine each of the four pentacles in the image is a specific resource you have at your disposal right now. What intellectual resource is on top of your head? What practical resources are the foundations beneath your feet? What social or emotional resource is over your heart? Which of these resources feels most abundant?
What boundaries or constraints in your work have helped you survive (or thrive) to this point?
Are these boundaries or constraints all still relevant, or might any of them need to be adjusted?
Thanks for joining us for Tarot for Scholars! Your hearts, restacks, and comments brighten our day. 💫
Yours in scholarship,
HELEN SWORD is a scholar, poet, award-winning teacher, and founder of the WriteSPACE, an international writing community with members in 30+ countries. Her research-based books, articles, and online tools empower scholarly writers to write more clearly, confidently, prolifically, and with greater pleasure.
Visit Helen’s website here.
MARGY THOMAS is the creator of ScholarShape, a body of work dedicated to elucidating the patterns of Story-Argument across genres, disciplines, and life itself. Through services and DIY resources, Margy helps scholars use Story-Argument patterns to design their work — and to find its deeper meaning and higher purpose.
Visit Margy’s website here.
If this free collaborative resource adds value to your life and work, please consider contributing to our “Helen & Margy IRL fund” so that the two of us (who live on opposite sides of the globe) can meet up In Real Life one day. An annual subscription costs just $1 per tarot card and earns you our eternal gratitude!
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