I get a lot of requests for âsuccessâ tarot readings. People looking to see if their idea, business or life will flourish. My first question is, what is success to you?
The card that most embodies that energy is the King of Pentacles, or, in my tarot deck, The King of Feet. It traditionally represents material wealth, abundance and prosperity. As you can see on the card on the right, that king is literally dripping in grapes. Grapes symbolize many things throughout history from health, prosperity, and hospitality to sacrifice. That card was illustrated in the early 1900s by a woman named Pamela Coleman Smith, or Pixie. Her tarot illustrations are deeply influential for how we interpret cards today. Despite my call for an evolution of this card, I honor and respect her imagery and am so grateful for her contribution to tarot. Historically, if someone pulls this card and they might expect to see a big payday in their near future. All of their abundance dreams will come true.
When I ask folks the question above, what is success to you?, their initial knee-jerk response is something along those lines: a large amount of money, notoriety, or abundance in⊠something. Usually the marker of success has a number tied to it. Some specific amount of money, followers, or something else all together.
I like to push back on this a bit.
Many years ago, when I was deep in my eating disorder, I had a specific number I wanted the scale to show me. I would weigh myself multiple times a day to see how close I was to that number. One day, after years of mental and physical illness (I was an undiagnosed type 1 diabetic- but thatâs a story for a different time), I âachievedâ that number. I was thrilled for about five minutes then started scheming how I would lower my weight even more. I had âsuccessâ by my standards at the time, but it didnât feel good, not really. When we link success to an external goal like a number, or even worse- our comparison of how someone else is doing, it typically doesnât land the way we hope.
To dig into our own success, and really our values, Iâll offer clients looking for this type of reading a little exercise:
Think back over the last six months to times when you felt contentment and joy.
What were you doing?
Who were you with?
How did this feel in your physical body?
Does your view of success feed into these experiences or deplete from them?
For most folks, these questions make their values really clear. Success isnât a destination, it is an experience. Even if you make it to the top of some mountain and you are miserable- what is the point?
When writing the guidebook for Be With Your Body Tarot, I wanted the idea of the King of Feet to be more of an internal contentment or peace instead of external success. The illustrator, Sara Strese, drew the king laying on some foliage. They are supported by their growth, but they take this time to rest. The rabbit, our animal choice for the Feet Suit, is still and calm. The King doesnât have to control the animal, they cohabitate, enjoying their time together. This detail of the card is meant to evoke a feeling of trust. When someone truly feels at peace with their choices and who they are, they donât feel the need to control their bodies or other people.
Both Pentacles and Feet suits represent earth energy. They are grounded and supportive- connected to your physical body, family, finance and foundation. Each suit has its own time period. The Pentacles and Feet suit takes the longest to move to and through- years. Each suit goes from Ace (1) to King (14). So, by the time someone embodies this King of Feet or Pentacles, it has taken them years to master. If you are still sorting out what success feels like to you- you are not alone. Collectively shifting our gaze from external wealth as success to internal peace as success is a difficult transition. I love that tarot gives us the opportunity to explore that on our own so we can change that narrative together.
What does success mean to you? How do either of these cards incapsulate that feeling with their imagery?
If you would like to explore more about tarot as a tool for self-reflection- or maybe just how to read tarot for yourself and others- I have an upcoming live 8 week course: Be With Your Body Tarot 101 Group Mentorship starting August 21.
I will cover:
History of tarot
Card meanings and affirmations
How to read tarot for yourself and others
It includes:
1 Be With Your Body Tarot deck
78 Guided meditations
1 year free access to my paid level subscription here
Click here or reach out for more details.