What on Earth?!
In tarot, each suit is ruled by an element. Don’t know what that means? Let’s make like a groundhog and dig in.
The elemental suits give us insight into the parts of self that may be at play in a reading.
Wands = Fire = Creative Self
Cups = Water = Emotional Self
Swords = Air = Cerebral Self
Pentacles = Earth = Embodied Self
Reading with the elements in mind loosens our grip on a card’s prescribed meaning and connects us with a spread’s overall energy.
An air-infused reading could feel heady or fraught with over thinking. A water-heavy reading might signal a well of unexplored emotions. A fire-forward reading may conjure inspiration or “act before you think” energy.
And then there’s earth.
The earth element is an invitation to explore:
Stability
Livelihood
Growth
The Home
The Body
Grounding
In this year of mutable earth, the earth-ruled Pentacles teach us how to make the ephemeral, physical.
Pentacles ask: what practical magic can we cultivate in our daily lives? How can we use that magic to ground our hopes, wishes, and dreams in reality?
I Feel the Earth, Move, Under My Feet
Earth is our card of the year’s element.
While the earth-ruled Hermit may seem like they have their head in the clouds pondering universal unknowns, true Hermit energy can find the spiritual anywhere, even in the mundanity of the material world. The Hermit understands the physical and spiritual realms are inextricably linked, their duality a portal to the magic of the other.
Learning to infuse our daily lives with hints of the divine is a mapless process, but when we look at the Pentacles as a series of tangible becomings, they guide us like landmarks on our personal map of self discovery.
Ace of Pentacles: Planting the new seed of a new self
Two of Pentacles: Learning to ride the ebb and flow our energy
Three of Pentacles: Building support through community
Four of Pentacles: Maintaining healthy boundaries
Five of Pentacles: Learning to ask for help
Six of Pentacles: Balancing the acts of giving and receiving
Seven of Pentacles: Assessing and clearing what no longer serves
Eight of Pentacles: Leaning into our sacred work
Nine of Pentacles: Celebrating the self through tangible rewards
Ten of Pentacles: Sharing our prosperity with others
Moving through the 1-10 of this suit is like building a house. The Court cards are how we live in it.
Page of Pentacles: Cultivating curiosity about the physical world
Knight of Pentacles: Creating steady and consistent practices
Queen of Pentacles: Nurturing the self and the collective
King of Pentacles: Leading from a place of security, abundance, and generosity
We may visit these pitstops multiple times in our lives, each trek revealing different learnings. Where are you in your own journey of becoming?
Earth Time
Where fire, air, and water rapidly transform, earth pulls up a chair and stays for a while.
Earth Time shows us—to build things that last, we must go slow and take our time to grow.
Earth Time refuses to move at the speed of chronos or measured time. Instead, it lives by that which guides the Hermit’s pocket watch—kairos. With kairos, the perception of measured moments fade away leaving the expansiveness of pure presence. Kairos is embodied by things so timely we slip into a sense of timelessness.
If chronos represents our best laid plans, then kairos reminds us to expect the unexpected.
Examples of kairos—Witnessing someone’s first breath. Witnessing someone’s last. Getting lost in a moment. Finding yourself in movement. The unexpected invite. The perspective changing insight. A good conversation. An even greater kiss. Considering a redwood. Contemplating the stars. Every. Damn. Sunrise.
If kairos feels so expansive, why do so many of us get caught in the speeding wheel of chronos? Well for starters, capitalism (which in some ways incited the invention measured time). But for finishers, when we slow down we feel more deeply. And deep feeling is a reminder of our human bodies and their capacity for both pleasure…and pain.
Speeding up into chronos creates a blurring effect, the illusion that we won’t get caught in any one state (especially the more challenging ones), for too long. So while the linear clock ticks, the pain keeps us running and the pleasure keeps us chasing.
Instead of spending our “time” zonked out on chronos, how can we bring ourselves back to our bodies, back to Earth Time?
The remixed wisdom of the great Shirley Cesar would suggest connecting with the bees, trees, potatoes, tornadoes.
(J.K.)
We get grounded.
Down to Earth
In a world focused on the growth aspects of earth energy—growth mindsets, and productivity hacks, and hustle culture—getting grounded is radical.
Where is your life calling for more grounding? Consistent nourishment? More sleep? Dance breaks? Contemplative walks? Embodied rest? Grass gazing? Writing rituals?
While this question is ripe for a tarot pull, grounding our bodies before grabbing our decks, is like preparing the soil for the wisdom that’s about to sprout.
Getting Grounded Exercise
Go outside. Smell the air. Touch the ground. Look at the sky. Listen to the birds.
Can’t get outside? Lay down on your floor.
Can’t lay on the floor? Put your feet (or some part of your body) on the ground.
Can’t put your body on the ground? Feel the weight of your sacrum in your seat.
If you’re lacking energy, call it into your body through your grounded parts.
If you’re feeling frenetic, send that energy back to the ground through your roots.
Do this for 5, 10, or 15 minutes. Even better? Let your body tell you how long. No phone. No music. No meditation. Just you and the ground, hanging around on Earth Time.
Getting Grounded Tarot Spread
What aspect of my life needs grounding?
How can I call it in?
What might come up as I move out of urgency/stagnancy and into the grounded present?
How can I support myself in the transition?
What will grow as a result of this shift?
Earthlings and Their Earthships
Altering our physical space can completely transform the equilibrium of our bodies.
It was on a trip to Taos, New Mexico, in search of an environment that could transmute my body’s hyperactivity, that I saw my first Earthship.
Though the New Mexican landscape can sometimes seem extraterrestrial, Earthships are very much of this world. Built from natural and recycled materials—think tires, plastic and glass bottles, reclaimed wood, etc.—Earthships create off-grid self-sustaining dwellings that transform trash into treasured homes.
In many ways these structures are the physical representation of a thought I carry with me often: everything in life gets to be compost if we let it.
Build it and You Will Become
Though I can’t build an Earthship in NYC, I can alchemize my apartment.
Olga Naiman, author of Spacial Alchemy, writes about transforming the places we inhabit to transform ourselves. She believes how we arrange our space in the present is a spell that calls in the self we’re becoming.
How to Alchemize Your Space
For our purposes a “space” could be your home, your work, a bag, or a mental place you inhabit.
Notice how your space makes you feel in your body.
Clear away what doesn’t resonate with your future self—items connected to outdated beliefs or old patterns.
Sit in the post-clear void and see what whispers back.
Select items that represent the new ideas or philosophies you want to connect with.
Integrate these pieces into your rituals and routines.
Assess, on a regular basis, how your body feels in your space and repeat the process as needed.
The void part of this process is how earth-led transformation works—things can lie fallow for months at a time, with no discernible movement. But then one day, it’s spring, and the part of your life you thought would be dormant forever, blooms.
This month, what’s one earthly possession or body-bound habit you can clear away? What do you imagine will bloom in its place?
Breaking Ground
A conversation with Jenny Odell, author of Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock. Jump to 17:30 to hear her talk about chronos and kairos.
Pam Grossman of The Witch Wave interviewing Olga Naiman author of Spacial Alchemist. While some of the conversation is a bit too consumerist for my taste, the concepts have good bones.
Permission to move at the speed of Earth Time, earthlings 🛸 🫡
XO
ALTARU TAROT
Thank you. I am a student of tarot and always looking for ways to connect and engage with the cards. The elements of the suits is especially fascinating to me. I especially loved your spread offering for grounding. Gonna lay that out now and see what the cards say!
I love the transforming the space you inhabit to transform yourself. Clearing my backpack out now!