7 of Pentacles

[haleyw]

What are your thoughts on the 7 of Pentacles in relationships readings, as an outcome? This is one card, I just don't seem to get.

many thanks

[Thirteen]

Originally Posted by haleyw

What are your thoughts on the 7 of Pentacles in relationships readings, as an outcome? This is one card, I just don't seem to get.

7/Pents is sometimes called "Failure." What this means is being able to distinguish between real failure and frustration that urges you to give up before you should.

So, on the one hand, the card urges you to avoid denial which keeps you fruitlessly waiting rather than admitting, "This is a failure. Time to move on." On the other hand, the card can also be urging you to avoid throwing up your hands in frustration and leaving prematurely. Something may be taking a long time, but if you're patient, what you're waiting for can happen. If you give into frustration/impatience, however, then you have a failure on your hands. One you created because you weren't willing to wait a little longer.

In other words, this is a card about figuring out (realizing) when waiting will pay off...and when it won't. Does that help tell you how it relates to relationships?

[haleyw]

Originally Posted by Thirteen

7/Pents is sometimes called "Failure." What this means is being able to distinguish between real failure and frustration that urges you to give up before you should.

So, on the one hand, the card urges you to avoid denial which keeps you fruitlessly waiting rather than admitting, "This is a failure. Time to move on." On the other hand, the card can also be urging you to avoid throwing up your hands in frustration and leaving prematurely. Something may be taking a long time, but if you're patient, what you're waiting for can happen. If you give into frustration/impatience, however, then you have a failure on your hands. One you created because you weren't willing to wait a little longer.

In other words, this is a card about figuring out (realizing) when waiting will pay off...and when it won't. Does that help tell you how it relates to relationships?

ABSOFREAKINGLUTELY!!!

[willowfox]

***To me it suggests that given time and patience the relationship will prosper and grow. I just cannot see why some people call this card "failure" because the card upright does not indicate failure at all. You just wait to reap the rewards of your labours, isn't that what farming is about?

[Thirteen]

Originally Posted by willowfox

***To me it suggests that given time and patience the relationship will prosper and grow. I just cannot see why some people call this card "failure" because the card upright does not indicate failure at all. You just wait to reap the rewards of your labours, isn't that what farming is about?

Yes. Farming is about waiting to reap the rewards of your labor...but if you've ever planted anything, you know that sometimes you end up with the rewards of your labor being a wilted, withered plant, or one destroyed by insects, killed by drought, or just not bearing fruit like it should (I had a tomato plant that refused to bear even one tomato no matter how much I tended it). In my part of the country, farmers can lose all their hard work if the weather gets too cold for a few days during a certain month. That's a whole year of grueling hard work gone thanks to 72 hours of bad weather. So, no, farming isn't just about waiting to reap the rewards of your labor. It is also facing the fact that all your labor may come to nothing. Dealing with failure.

That said, calling this card "failure" implies that something has failed. And we can agree that someone made a wrong decision there as the card means far more than that. Sometimes what leads to failure is giving up on something too soon. Thinking it is a failure when all it needs is more time and patience. The Waite card shows a person who had put a lot of time and effort into something that isn't ripe or ready to harvest. Is it too soon...or has this crop failed? I believe the card asks the querent to think about this. Also to remember that "all things come to he who waits." Even if what you've worked at has failed, something else will come if you're willing to wait for it.

[WalesWoman]

Maybe instead of "Failure" or "Patience", it could mean "Step Back" or even "Hands Off", some things are beyond your control... which is exactly what Thirteen is saying here. You can only do so much to ensure that harvest, a person can only control or influence so much and can only hope for the best (and prepare themselves for the worst).. so step back and allow things to happen in their own way, in their own time and don't rush into things.

In a relationship, that other person is the unknown factor, you can do everything just right and still things may not go at all as you hoped or planned. You can't make the rain fall when you need it to or shut it off, you can't control how a person feels, you can't change who they are or if things will work out in the end. You can put up fences to help protect your garden from the deer from eating up everything, but that isn't a guarantee they won't find a way in and munch everything anyway... unless you never ever let your guard down. You have to trust the other person will be resistant to predators and other blights.

You can't force a thing to be ... you can't make flowers grow faster or become something they are not (unless you are Monsanto) All you can do is your best and put your best efforts into it, without using force or pressure and this is where patience comes in, allowing everything to develop, grow and mature in their own pace and hope it all works out. Relationships, like life and gardens, don't come with a guarantee... stuff happens, and it will survive and thrive or it won't...

[Thirteen]

Originally Posted by WalesWoman

Maybe instead of "Failure" or "Patience", it could mean "Step Back" or even "Hands Off"...You can only do so much to ensure that harvest, a person can only control or influence so much and can only hope for the best (and prepare themselves for the worst).. so step back and allow things to happen in their own way, in their own time and don't rush into things.

...You can't force a thing to be ... you can't make flowers grow faster or become something they are not (unless you are Monsanto) All you can do is your best and put your best efforts into it, without using force or pressure and this is where patience comes in, allowing everything to develop, grow and mature in their own pace and hope it all works out. Relationships, like life and gardens, don't come with a guarantee... stuff happens, and it will survive and thrive or it won't...

That is beautifully said! Kudos! And I think you're spot-on. "Hands Off" is probably a much better term for this card than "Failure" or even "Patience."

I especially like the way "hands off" tells the person that they've done all they can do. As compared to "patience" which implies they haven't done anything and shouldn't (just sit in the waiting room), or "failure" which implies that they did something wrong. This card is not like the Wheel where it's totally out of their hands; it's about something that's been in their hands up to this point and now has to develop the rest of the way on its own. Maybe the end result will be something they want, or maybe not, but it's time to let it grow as it will and as it must. No more micromanaging. "Hands off" indeed!

Excellent post!

[willowfox]

***I am going by what the picture on the 7 pents suggests to me, and that is one of growth and prosperity.

Everything we do in life has the chance of failure connected with it, from crossing the street to going on holiday to getting married, but this card at face value indicates success. For instance if you look at the 7 pents as potential failure then you could look at any card as potential failure, like the 7 swords for instance, "getting busted" instead of "getting away". But if you start attaching both negative as well as positive meanings to every card in a reading, then you are hedging your bets when do readings for people.

For me, the 7 pents indicates that the "harvest" will be a success, but the 7 pents Rx would indicate failure, as all the apples drop off the tree prematurely.

And 7 swords for me indicates "getting away" but the 7 swords Rx indicates the "getting busted".

[Thirteen]

Originally Posted by willowfox

Everything we do in life has the chance of failure connected with it, from crossing the street to going on holiday to getting married

Yes, but that's not the point of the card--or, at least, not the point I was making about what I see the card being about (or what I've read the card is about). Death is the card that reminds you that anything can end or stop or fail--everything does end or stops or fails. 7/Pents doesn't tell you "this could fail"--it tells you it either hasn't and you need to wait, or it has and you need to wait for something else. In other words, we're NOT pussy-footing around here with some half-assed philosophy: "Remember young, Jedi, everything we do has the potential to fail..." There's no wimpy "potential" about it. The harvest failed. The parrot is dead. The relationship isn't working. Face facts and move on.

And I'm afraid that I don't see, at face value, where this card indicates success. At face value, it seem to indicate waiting. Look at the picture. Those pentacles are still on the tree. The farmer is holding back, gazing down at them with a hoe in his hands and a frown on his face. If this is success, why isn't he hauling them off in a wheelbarrow to market? Or at least smiling? Why is he looking like he can't decide if he should keep working on them or not...if this is success?

Come to that, none of the 7's are about success. 7 is a number about stumbling blocks you have to get past. Look at all the other 7's--including 7/Swords which is either dealing with with theft or stealing without getting caught (we don't know our 7/Swords guy is successful. He's in the middle of stealing, he isn't out of the house and free, is he? So why interpret this as success?).

For instance if you look at the 7 pents as potential failure then you could look at any card as potential failure

If this is what you think I said, then I explained things badly (my apologies), as this wasn't what I meant at all. 7/Pents, from my research and experience, is about knowing--KNOWING--what will bring success. Sometimes what will bring success if to wait on what you've got because it's not ready yet. But sometimes what you've worked on won't bring success and you're going to have to wait for something else.

KNOWING which is which is what I believe the 7/Pents is about. Because if you don't know, you'll waste your waiting time on a tomato plant that isn't ever going to bear fruit rather than waiting for a new tomato plant, a fruitful one, to come your way.

[wind]

I agree with wilowfox, at least this is my experience with the card. I used to see it in a more, let's say, 'sober' way, like waiting and all that stuff, but in my experience it indeed shows harvest. Yes, there could be a time element and the patience element, so it goes slowly, like you need to let the situation grow, but it usually brings great results.

I got it in relationship reading and it was literally saying: don't give up, the fruits are coming. And they were indeed. It was literally about all the invested energy paying off.
I got it also for an occasion of a jog question, where the situation for the person looked dark - after a while the person got a good job.

In fact, I've never seen it as 'failure' or not working out. Number 7 in fact for me is a number of moving forward and acheiving, that also goes for swords and cups.

We have other cards to indicate failure.

So, to sum up - it is about the invested energy paying off. If you are not ready to invest,that is another thing.