Sweet Twilight - 7 Pentacles

Aerin

So. Another card with a lot going on that I don't altogether 'get' at first glance.

There's a little orchestra here, as if each player has jumped out of a jack-in-the-box affair. Someone is off in the distance waiting to bang a gong, six are in he main body of the card and there is also perahps a conductor? out of sight to the left. Or someone playing against them like a competition. Or something.

I'm not sure they all look entirely happy, there's a sense of being forced to play on. Like Karen and the Red Shoes.

The fiddler is looking in a different direction.

The LWB says things that fit perfectly with my understanding of 7 of Pentacles, but I'm not entirely convinced by the picture...

Things are starting to come together. Each part has been carefully tended and arranged just so. Now is the time to step back, observe and decide. Is it exactly as you hoped? If not, what can you change?

Well, I'd want the people to be free to decide how they want to come together instead of looking so.... forced into the teeny boxes.

Or maybe it looks a bit like an infant school play: everyone trying a bit too hard to impress their Mum and teacher one minute, and pulling each other's hair the next.
 

RiccardoLS

I don't know... I don't think they are forced, even if I feel the undercurrent of darkness even here.
These all magic-box musicians... are they playing next to each other or are they playing together?
I think more something like melody vs cacophony... the desire of playing togheter vs actually doins so... the hard way toward teamplay and collaboration.
I'm not really sure... but anyway my first thought is: what the music is like?

ric
 

Hemera

I love this card. I think it looks just like what playing in an orchestra is like. You are a part of a team and a part of a bigger whole and -yes- in a way once you have jumped in you really are forced to play on.
The players are a team and also each one of them is an individual. They are listening to their inner music as well as the outer one.
I think the music must be beautiful. The landscape and the colors are so harmonious and lovely and these musicians really look like they know what they are doing.
 

Aerin

So I wonder what the undercurrent of darkness is? Maybe like the music played by the musicians in the Twelve Dancing Princesses - beautiful but with another tale underneath.

It's interesting Hemara that you love the card so much :) - I like it but there's just something there, a jarring note of something I'm finding hard to pin down.
 

Hemera

Aerin said:
S
It's interesting Hemara that you love the card so much :)

I think it has to do with the inward-looking expression in their eyes. They seem to be listening to an inner tune.
 

Sanctum_Priest

Someone else is calling the tune

I like the jack-in-the-box image on this card (it's used on another card as well as string puppets on others). I think it indicates that the musicians are responding to someone else's sponteneity; they're just going through the motions because they're paid to play when someone else calls the tune.

I'm also reminded of the more traditional reading of 7 of pentacles; beware complacency -- it leads to stagnation