I laugh every time I see this card — the 2 of Pentacles from Beyond the Garden Gate. I laugh because I remember all too well the frustrations I had when I first tried drawing a pine cone. Pine cones, you see, look quite simple. They’re clearly-defined shapes. They have an itneresting texture. They’re delightful subjects, too. Put one down on the table and it won’t go anywhere. It will just sit, looking at you, inviting you to draw it.
The first time I ever tried to draw a pinecone, the results were laughable. It turned out quite misshapen, quite out of proportion. Or so I thought. Looking back now through my old sketchbooks, I can honestly say “Hey, those first pine cones weren’t as bad as I thought.” Still, the frustration was there.
My next attempts at drawing pine cones didn’t fare much better. Again, in looking back, I can be more objective. At the time though, I despaired of ever being able to draw a pine cone that looked like a pine cone.
Of course, persistence does pay off and while practice doesn’t necessarily lead to perfection, it does bring progress. The pine cones you see adorning this card aren’t perfect, but they are pine cones! I chose to use them for this illustration because to me they represent a lot of “ups and down” — trying, failing, trying again.
The 2 of Pentacles relates to “difficulties in launching projects”, times when we “can’t get things off the ground”, so to speak. What we learn from the card is that life does have challenges, that there will always be those “ups and downs”, and we can make things easier for ourselves by not trying too hard for perfection.
When this card appears in a reading, ask yourself if you’re trying to juggle too many different things, if maybe you’re making things more difficult by seting your expectations too high. Maybe you’re worrying and fretting about things that you’re not even seeing clearly. So, relax. Take a deep breath. Focus on what’s really important and don’t worry about the rest. Do what needs to be done, and if at first you don’t succeed… you know the rest.
And I want to give a huge shout-out here to Linda Zaworski from “Cuppa and Cards” for the delightful photo she took. Linda has also shared “Beyond the Garden Gate” in several YouTube videos, so check out her channel!
