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Bohemian Gothic Tarot

TWO OF PENTACLES

Lighter or more conventional meanings

Keeping lots of things on the go at once - and you're quite enjoying this * Juggling some very different tasks * Taking some slight risks recently for the thrill of it * Getting a kick from knowing that you can handle a whole heap of demanding, but exhilarating, organisational jobs * Feeling some anxiety about whether you can keep going at your current pace.

Darker, shadow or more hidden meanings

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes" - an odd stranger appears in your life * Collecting for the love of collecting * Chaos, and clutter * Enjoying the sheer fun that can be found in strange natural and mechanical objects * Trying to grab too much for yourself, being unwilling to let any possessions go * Fetishism about objects.

A lively card, the Two of Pentacles indicates a period in your life where you are enjoying all the things you have to juggle - even though you know that you've probably taken on too much and will only be able to sustain this pace for a while. If you see the Ace of Pentacles as the "new business opportunity" card, then the Two would be "start-up mode" - the stage at which you are madly setting everything in motion, running around doing a million tasks but thoroughly enjoying the excitement.

Even in our darker version, the sense of energy and playfulness is apparent. A young woman, dressed in costume and so probably an actress, circus or carnival performer, stands in a small street of old houses. She is looking thoroughly confident and strikes a jaunty pose. In front of her is a splendid "penny farthing" bicycle and a small pug dog licks his lips on the pavement beside her. Behind this little tableau is a shop sign reading, "Dr. Caligari's Cabinet of Curiosities".

The sign is a sly reference to the German Expressionist film (Robert Weine, 1920), which, incidentally, involves events taking place in a carnival, and also to the "Cabinets of Curiosities" popular in the Renaissance. These cabinets were collections of curious and rare objects ranging from the actual - unusual minerals, preserved fish skins, exotic shells - to the mythic - unicorn's horns and feathers from the wings of angels. Arguably they were a precursor to some of the slightly crazy accumulations later put together by a number of wealthy Victorians.

This card can be read, in the Bohemian Gothic version, as being less about juggling tasks and more about accumulating possessions (or, more rarely, skills). It differs from the Four of Pentacles because here there is real delight and love in the hunt for and collection of the unusual and curious.

Collecting and adoring of the beautiful and rare can be great fun but it can also deteriorate into a corrupting acquisitiveness if it's allowed to become an obsession. The card asks us to go about our collecting in a "light" way, for fun as much as anything, and not to progress to the mean-minded and destructive state shown in the Four of the Suit.

There is also a darker, underlying meaning that might come to the fore in some readings and this is about carnival - times when the ordinary rules don't apply -and a brush that this brings with the weird or peculiar. Sometimes this card may indicate a game player or performer coming into your life - someone who is not straightforward about their motives and plans. This person might prove seductive as well as risky, but remember that the carnival always moves on. Whether this encounter is for good or bad, the person concerned is unlikely to be around for long.

Some further ways to consider this card

Who exactly is this girl and what is she doing here? Is she about to visit Dr. Caligari's collection? If so, what is her interest?
She was no less surprised and amused, on entering this town, to find it crowded with persons in the dresses of all nations; a scene, which reminded her of a Venetian masquerade, such as she had witnessed at the time of the Carnival; but here, was bustle, without gaiety, and noise instead of music, while elegance was to be looked for only in the waving outlines of the surrounding hills.
- Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho.