Bohemian Gothic Tarot

NINE OF PENTACLES

Lighter or more conventional meanings

Achieving financial and material security * Feeling well-off * With maturity, you find yourself becoming more content * Independence and self-reliance, especially in a woman * A refined lifestyle.

Darker, shadow or more hidden meanings

Wealth that came by dubious means * Being proud and arrogant about the material comfort you've achieved * Using your money and position selfishly, without regard to others.

A well-dressed, in fact over-dressed, woman stands in on a rock ledge holding her hooded hawk. Some way behind her is a castle. It's night-time, so the hunt must have finished, but this woman is still standing contemplating her day's sport. She looks quite mad-eyed and her manner of dress is both impractical and too showy for the activity she seems to have been enjoying. Altogether, the scene feels disordered and disturbing.

The Nine of Pentacles is usually a straightforward card about the security and financial and material comfort that comes with maturity. It can refer to someone who is mature in years or in wisdom, and the degree of wealth it refers to depends on context. It might show someone (often, though not always, it's a woman) who feels themselves to be well-off in their home life, even if to others this might look like relative poverty or it can show someone who is actually monetarily rich. But in general, it's a reassuring card about that moment when, after working hard - as symbolised by the progression shown by most of the cards from One to Nine in this suit - you finally arrive at a point where you can relax a bit and enjoy what you've built.

In our version, the meaning is subverted. The woman in this image is obviously wealthy and looks haughty and autocratic. She wears ostentatious jewellery and has an elaborate hair-style. But she doesn't seem contented. Her expression is slightly hysterical and her gaze feels overwhelmingly intense. She holds an enormous hooded hawk, obviously a hunting bird, and at her feet bird skulls lie scattered. There is a nightmarish quality to the whole picture and it shows none of the calm contentment usually associated with this card. It could be read as indicating prosperity that has "gone to the head". It also points to someone who, now that they are wealthy, feels they can do whatever they like. This is, all in all, a cautionary image, that tells us that whatever our financial and social status, selfish and cruel behaviour will not make us happy in the end. A little self-restraint and consideration for others is no bad thing, whatever your status.

Some further ways to consider this card

Who do you think this woman is; does she own that castle? What is her history - would you associate her with any of the scenes shown on earlier cards of the Pentacles suit?