Two of Pentacles (Rider Waite Tarot)
First Impressions
When looking at this card, the eye is first drawn to those two big pentacles the guy is holding. One in one hand, up a little, one in the other, down a little. A green lemniscate runs to surround both of them. There's a lemniscate in the cool-looking Thoth Two of Disks, and a scroll that resembles one in the Tarot de Marseille's Deux de Deniers. So it must be important, to be such a prevalent theme. I don't think Crowley and Harris, for example, were too famous for putting things in their deck just because it had been there before.
The pentacles in the Rider Waite version are big, the size of dinner plates. The man can't cup them like the hand in the Ace; rather he grips them from behind at the bottom. He wears red and reddish orange, including a short belted tunic like a workman but with fancy scallops up and down the front where the buttons fasten, full blousy sleeves and tights, short boots (green in some decks) and a hat. The hat is curious, tall yet rounded on the top like some kind of a topical applicator! He looks down slightly to one side, the better to view one of the two pentacles he holds, and from the position of his feet it’s not hard to imagine that he’s dancing. He stands on a flat gray surface, clearly delineated between it and the background imagery. Another stage card; this time he literally does look like he’s performing some kind of trick on a stage. In the background are rolling blue and green ocean waves, literally rolling in big cartoon-like rounded humps like the track of a roller coaster. Two ships ride these waves. They do look topsy-turvy, but not storm-tossed or in any sort of danger.
Some versions of this card seem to be playful, showing the joy or even glee in this figure. I don’t see that here. A simple pleasure in his skill, perhaps he’d been practicing and has finally got it down pat. For pure playfulness I’d look more toward the World Spirit Tarot. But this guy is playing, for all that. At least a little. I always tended to view this card as “fiddling while Rome burns”; as Pentacles are such a material suit, I look at it as juggling finances or resources. Living blithely in denial of the true situation. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, and still acting as though you haven’t a care in the world.
Creator’s Notes
Waite said in
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot:
Waite said:
A young man, in the act of dancing, has a pentacle in either hand, and they are joined by that endless cord which is like the number 8 reversed.
It’s funny how Waite addresses the Minor Arcana. Like he just can’t be bothered to go into any sort of symbolism at all, but it’s also as if he seeks to dumb it down. No mention of a lemniscate, rather the number 8.
Others’ Interpretations
According to Waite:
Waite said:
Divinatory Meanings: On the one hand it is represented as a card of gaiety, recreation and its connexions, which is the subject of the design; but it is read also as news and messages in writing, as obstacles, agitation, trouble, embroilment. Reversed: Enforced gaiety, simulated enjoyment, literal sense, handwriting, composition, letters of exchange.
Symbols and Attributes
I always blank on the astrological attributes for the Minor Arcana. But Paul Hughes-Barlow puts this card in the first decan of Capricorn, falling between December 22 and 30. Beginning just after Yule, depending how/when you celebrate it. Maybe this accounts somewhat for the seeming frivolity of the dancer. Or, from a very prosaic standpoint, the panic of juggling time and finances over the Christmas season! Also ties nicely to the materialistic aspects of the Devil, who is also linked to Capricorn.
Elementally the Two of Pentacles is a card of Earth: practical, down to earth, concerned with material things. Numerologically Two is a number of balance, of duality. Up and down. Feast or famine. I see this as reflected in the way the man balances the two pentacles unevenly. They are oversized to be holding one-handed like that, a little unwieldy I think. No wonder he is struggling to hold them on an even keel. Clearly this is a man whose earthly concerns are just a little more than he can comfortably handle at this moment. The green lemniscate that connects the two is such that there is now no way the man can put down one half of his burden. They’re connected, cyclical, never-ending. The only way to lighten his load is to drop the whole thing. But he can’t do that; the only alternative is to keep trying to hold them up, keep them as balanced as he can. Sandra A. Thomson, in
Pictures from the Heart: A Tarot Dictionary, says that the lemniscate in this card represents “the paradox of maintaining the fluid flow of stability.” And I get that. The juggling of priorities, re-allocating and balancing of demands, to maintain equilibrium.
The man himself is dressed, curiously enough, in shades of red and orange. These colours are linked to energy. It suggests great energy that is being expended in keeping things on an even keel. Note especially that big red hat. To me that suggests a lot of mental energy, perhaps too much. It’s possible his brain is in overdrive, trying to figure out how to keep one step ahead. His shoes are green, the only non-energy colour on his person. The colour of the lemniscate around the pentacles, but more importantly the colour of the element of Earth. Even though he’s dancing, this man is still rooted in the earth, and so are his cares and concerns.
I think this is one of the most obvious stage cards Pamela Colman Smith had designed. There is such a clear delineation between the juggling dancer and the maritime scene behind him. It really illustrates that these waves, these ships, are figurative; metaphorical illustrations of his emotional state. Because they’re tied to the element of Water, the waves show the emotional turmoil the man is going through. It‘s also echoed by his scalloped tunic front. As in any storm at sea, a loss of control may always be imminent. The ships themselves, tossed about on the waves, show how the man’s whole material world can be upheaved. As ships traditionally came from far away bringing trade goods and commerce from around the world, it is an excellent representation of the man‘s worries of what will happen.
My Interpretation
The more I look at this card, the less playful it seems. There’s an air of desperation about the man, labouring to keep the two awkward pentacles up and balanced, all the while dancing to the tune of the world and worrying constantly. It does seem to me the ultimate card of material worries for the modern world. The scrambling to pay bills and keep food on the table and gas in the car, living paycheck to paycheck. Borrowing and repaying, living on credit, getting a loan to repay an existing loan … it’s a vicious cycle and seems endless. It happens to the best of us, and sometimes you just feel like laying down the load.
) and it makes me realise that there is a challenge, concentration and a skill in keeping material things in your life in balance - without dropping one of your 'balls', so to speak.