5 Pentacles - Bad Reviews

As noted previously, this is a chapter in a book about the Tarot aimed at
Intermediate students of Tarot, not beginners or advanced students. It is
particularly aimed at writers looking to learn World Building and Alien
Character building.

Updated and expanded compilation of all these Tarot Just For Writers entries is now available on Kindle:

The Wands and Cups Volumes and  the Swords and Pentacles Volumes, are now all available separately on Kindle.  The 5 Volumes combined are also available on Kindle as one book, cheaper than buying them individually.

The Not So Minor Arcana: Never Cross A Palm With Silver Aug 30, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0108MC26O

The Not So Minor Arcana: Wands Sept. 1, 2015  99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106RVPKU

The Not So Minor Arcana: Cups Sept. 11, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106SATX8

The Not So Minor Arcana: Swords  Sept. 17, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0100RSPM2

The Not So Minor Arcana: Pentacles  Sept. 21, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106RVKF0

The Not So Minor Arcana: Books 1-5 combined Sept. 24, 2015 $3.25
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010E4WAOU

This series is designed not for the beginner or the advanced student, but for the intermediate student and specifically for writers doing worldbuilding..

---------------

And Remember: The meaning of a Tarot Minor Arcana resides in the placement on the Tree of Life (i.e. the number on the card) integrated with the "World" or Suit of the card.

For the Tree of Life and the Jacob's Ladder diagrams see:

http://web.onetel.net.uk/~maggyw/treeladder.html

I don't really go with the way this page explains the Tree, but it is worth
thinking about. There are many other ways. For now, ponder the diagrams on
this page or Google up some others.

I have been posting here since August 14th, every Tuesday, the 10 minor
Arcana of the suit of Swords. The Ace of Pentacles was posted Oct 23, 2007.
The 3 of Pentacles was accidentally posted dated Monday November 5th.

---------------

5 Pentacles

We are now discussing the 2nd circle up from the bottom of the left hand
column (your left, as you face the diagram) of Jacob's Ladder.

In 4 Pentacles we spent a long time building something.

The writer we've been following is building her career in 4 Pentacles,
submitting outlines, getting contracts, delivering novels, doing galleys,
juggling all this against family, health crises, and obligations. She is
trying to resist all distractions. It rarely works.

In the 4 Pentacles processes, she's writing characters layer by layer,
building one layer on top of another to create deep characters she can write
long series of books about. She's creating intricate worlds, one layer at a
time, one revelation at a time. All that is 4 Pentacles, the long
apparently non-productive pause in the materialization of a project.

Now, in 5 Pentacles we come to a situation similar to what we found in 5 Swords.

Check Jacob's ladder again and note how both 4 and 5 Pentacles dangle out in space, without another layer of circles behind them. This section of the Ladder is fundamentally different from the top section of Wands, which also dangles out in space, and at the same time it is much more accessible to living people than the top. This is familiar territory.

So in 5 Swords, our writer presented her (overly long) novel to her critique
group and felt their criticism as an attack. She fought back, defending her
baby, and eventually felt their love and learned something (6 Swords). But
the 5 Swords process was brutal.

So what happens to our writer now she's got it made, has a career,
contracts, and can say proudly, "My editor told me . . .."

Her books start being published (Pentacles -- materialized) and her career
hits the 5 process in Pentacles. What could be worse than a hostile critique
group?

Now that she's self-confident and happy -- she gets a bad review, a
scathing, scornful review that reveals loudly that the reviewer didn't even
read the book!

Devastated, she can't write. She's lost self-confidence. She misses a
deadline. Her editor is on her tail. Her family erupts in rebellion (You
have to go to my recital! You can't miss my graduation! Some mother you
are, nose in the computer while your kid has a fever!) She emails pdf files
to reviewers herself, but nobody has time to read her book. She asks for
help on the book she can't finish, and nobody has time. Her editor won't
return her calls.

On a fan listserv she has always relied on for support, she gets blasted by
a newbie because, "That's easy for you to say. You're a professional
writer!" And for the first time, nobody defends her. Her friends are gone.

She's in the 5 of Pentacles process.

This is actually a process we write so many novels about. This is the
Initiation where you get sent into the desert alone, or dropped into a
forest, or marooned on a desert island, all alone with nobody to depend on
but yourself. It's a Teen Rite of Passage we repeat throughout life.

The lesson to be learned through this process is the one we harp on in so
many Romance novels -- no man is an island. (yep, another Cliche)
It's not about islands. Or men. It's about self-reliance. Not independence,
but real self-reliance. 5 Pentacles is where you learn not to need help but
to give help -- not to be dependent but to support others.

The 5's are associated with Mars, ruler of Aries, the natural first house.

It's all about ego, and ego strength. There's a difference between being
strong and being a bully. There's a difference between being self-reliant
or independent, and being isolated like a sociopath who can't make emotional
contact with others.

Aries is the loner, the first-in scout, the explorer -- Daniel Boon or
Captain Kirk. But a leader needs people to lead. And in 5 Pentacles,
there's nobody following -- except others who are (cliche warning) "on the
outside looking in."

Mars is the root of the meaning Martial Arts -- the arts of war. It is both
defense and offense. It is the way of using force, power, position, tactics
and strategy.

But Mars is also about sex. There is nothing more sexy to a woman than a
powerful man in full possession and control of his manhood.

But what good is all that without the recipient?

And so love comes into the picture, and we see the lesson of 5 Pentacles is
about the meeting and blending of two strong egos battered by isolation.

Think of all the fanfic about Star Trek's Spock! His time on the Enterprise
was a 5 Pentacles period of isolation from his peers and estrangement from
family. That loneliness made him seem intensely sexy to many women writers.

The first real "Alien Romance" novels may have been Star Trek fanfic about
Spock.

In 4 Pentacles, our writer wrote and wrote, creating substance from her
heart of hearts, sure her second novel would be accepted.

In 5 Pentacles she offers it to the world (Mars is the aggressive tendency
that gets you out of procrastination and on the move. Taking the initiative
and contacting an agent or editor is a Mars function). But her new novel
is ignored. Or maybe outright rejected. Or perhaps rewrite demands would
distort it all out of shape. Or the ARC may get bad reviews. All of these
events would be 5 Pentacles experiences.

She doesn't get the feedback she expected that indicates her heart is
beating in tune with that of others.

So the loneliness of 5 of Pentacles is a lesson in Love -- the importance of
it in our lives, the function of it even in the business world, the place of
physical possessions or other material resources (such as time and heart) in
Love. It is also about what lengths we would go to for social sanction.

Often we learn such lessons only by contrast, and 5 Pentacles is where the
contrast is most stark.

As we learned in 9 of Swords, the whole physical world is a projection of
our Ideas (9 Wands), Emotions (9 Cups) and Actions (9 Swords). All our
material possessions, including our very life, are shaped on the Astral
plane (the 9's) and are still rooted in that level of reality.

In a mystical sense, we are our possessions and our possessions are us. This
is true not just of physical things (your grandmother's antique vanity
mirror; your mother's sterling; your grandfather's Tefillin) but of all the
things you've created. Your marriage, your children; your characters; your
novels; your house decor; the critique group you founded.

Yes, there are things that pass through our hands without touching our
hearts. But there are things we cherish in a very special way. Those
things are imbued with our essence.

You know that romance has ripened to love when the things your lover
cherishes become things you cherish -- even if you don't particularly like
them. Because they have meaning for your relative, your S.O., your role
model, your friend, they have a new, unique meaning for you.

Love cherishes the significant and defining creations and possessions of the
Other, not for their intrinsic value, but because they are loved by the
beloved.

Thus, when you offer something of yourself that is so significant to you,
and it is spurned by those you expect it will delight, you experience a
crushing blow akin to ramming into a brick wall (Pentacles; physical
reality).

The spiritual lesson of 5 Pentacles comes after that crushing blow, when you
are all alone, wounded and unable to get anyone to listen.

You throw a party and nobody comes.

You distribute a hundred review copies and get no reviews.

You win a contest and call everyone you know to tell them -- but nobody's home.

Here, in the total void, with all relationships absent, in the wake of your
friends betraying you, your spouse leaving you, your children screaming out
their hatred of you, you learn what a relationship really is.

What you have created with all your heart collides full force with what
others have created with their heart. And there's no room in their hearts
for yours.

Relationships belong to Pentacles. They are investments of a non-renewable
resource. (Applicable cliche: "You only live once.")

In the 5 of Pentacles process you have to sort out what's important to you
from what you can throw away (the baby from the bathwater) in order to make
room inside you for what is important to others.

If you don't clear resources for what's important to others, nobody will
have patience with what's important to you. But even if you do clear
resources here, there is no guarantee others will treasure what is important
to you.

Having space inside yourself for what others cherish is a necessary
condition for building a Relationship, but it's not a sufficient condition.
Life is complicated in its sheer simplicity.

Martian energies often come on way too strong, so oddly enough the 5 of
Pentacles Reversed (where there is less energy pouring into the 5 process)
actually tends to work better.

In the 5 Pentacles Reversed, you get a few new chances or second chances to
jump-start a new relationship. Maybe your editor didn't read and accept
your manuscript because she was leaving the company rather than ignoring
you. Now a new editor writes how she loved your book, but wants changes.
She says they're minor, but to you they're major.

Maybe instead of a new editor you only find a new hairdresser -- but that
leads to meeting someone who knows someone, and you start to be included in
a new network of relationships. Somebody will have time to read your newest
book.

These little 5 Pentacles Reversed openings are caused by your discarding
some irrelevant bits accumulated in 4 Pentacles to make room for something
created by another person.

Once the vacant spot inside you is open and clear, very likely something
will be attracted and fall into that hole. (not always a positive
something, though, so be wary)

If you like being included, you may clear away more space inside yourself,
and find you are able to attract more attention by paying attention to
others. And this is a process that may take years -- 7 years or so is normal, as that is the interval Saturn spends in the "obscure" part of your chart where nobody notices you.

Again, as with the 9's, this is NOT a conscious process. Most of the work
is done while you are asleep, out of body, visiting the astral plane,
reshaping your life by re-imagining it.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Theodore Sturgeon "Ask The Next Question."

Before you read this, you really should read the wonderful post right before this one by Cindy Holby and maybe read my comment on that post. It's amazing how the posts on this blog interweave so well when we don't hold a "Green Room" discussion before hand to agree on the Month's topics!

Theodore Sturgeon was known for his powerful sex scenes but not at all for Romance or even Relationship.

He was the original author who invented Pon Farr for Star Trek and drafted the episode AMOK TIME where we learn Vulcan males go into heat (a reversal of the usual pattern on Earth). So in a way he's the father of SF-Romance as a genre!



Sturgeon's SF held many reversals and twists on Earth's version of sex and reproduction just like Amok Time's male heat. In other instances he explored the darkest side of pure nightmare. You may remember some of his exquisite titles (he was exceptional at titling and it's well worth studying how he did it!)

Works by Theodore Sturgeon Available on Amazon

Theodore Sturgeon's wife was an accomplished Tarot reader and he admired her for that. I'll never forget when she read for me at his request and then asked me to read for her!

He was master of the dimensions of reality beyond the material, and his in-person personality was very different from the impression I got from reading his work. Yet, I had studied his work carefully. I didn't want to write like him, but I wanted to write about what he was writing about, using the ingenious thinking methods that would eventually produce the concept of Pon Farr (and you all know how many billions of fanzine words have been written on that subject).

At the time he first impressed me with a book called THE DREAMING JEWELS, nobody in that world believed a serious SF show would make it to TV. SF on TV was only kiddie shows and clones of The Lone Ranger In Space (which I loved, but it's not SFR!)



I wanted to probe into areas he left totally blank (Relationship as a plot-driving mechanism), but apply some of his techniques in turning the story. I stole techniques and issues from more than a dozen writers, often using many of them in one story.

I have this ongoing project of writing about those people whose work influenced mine, and in 1997 I wrote the following about Theodore Sturgeon.

This little essay is posted on the List of those who have influenced me
http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/welcommittee/influenc.html

If I were better at keeping notes, this list would double in size.

------------------------

The first short story of Ted Sturgeon's that engraved his byline on my mind was titled "Bianca's Hands."

That short story contained a penetrating image that, for me, defined both the genre of horror and the reasons why people are so fascinated by this genre. The image was of detached hands chasing the protagonist around her house. It gave me nightmares.

It also defined for me why I don't like horror, but that's another story. Having taken notice of Theodore Sturgeon's writing, I studied it, because even then I wanted to be a professional science fiction writer. And so I came to understand how Ted handled various themes, most particularly alien reproduction.

In the course of this, I ran across some interview or article, I forget now, where Ted's concept of the Q with the arrow through it, which represents his own personal, primary philosophical stance on how to live the best possible life, was explained in some detail. In brief, it is simply, "Ask The Next Question". That's harder than it sounds, for it requires that you be able to penetrate the walls that your cultural conditioning builds inside your mind, compartmentalizing it.

Formulating the next question is very hard. It means you must never stop thinking, never take things at face value, never accept the illusion that you really understand everthing about a subject, never accept any theory as final.

The Q with the Arrow means "Life is Process" -- a dynamic, ongoing, neverending search over the rainbow, beyond morning, into the Unknown. It is an attitude which is almost exactly like Gene Roddenberry's "Infinite Diversity In Infinite Combinations" -- and Gene's idea that "When We Are Wise" we won't be xenophobic. Ted and Gene had a lot in common, not least of which was a deep, inner, gentleness of being.

Many many years after reading "Bianca's Hands," when I had become a devoted fan of the first Star Trek Series, I read in The Making of Star Trek that the upcoming season of the show would include a story about Spock's mating drive and that it had been written by Theodore Sturgeon. I spent the ensuing weeks imagining what that script would include. I had it in my mind, long before seeing it (or hearing rumors on the ST grapevine on what it would include) a sequence of scenes that had to be there, the basic premise of the Vulcan mating drive, and long sequences of dialogue. I knew that script word-for-word before I ever saw the show.

The most stunning thing about this was that, when I saw the show in first broadcast -- I was proved correct in every surmise. Knowing Ted's writing, I knew exactly what he'd do with the Trek premise.

For me, this validated my ambition to become a professional in this genre. I can do this kind of work. It was a very gratifying experience. "Amok Time" became my all-time favorite Trek episode.

But that's not all.

Years and years after that, at a Star Trek Convention in Great Gorge, New Jersey, I met Theodore Sturgeon for the first time.

I went into the room for my first panel, and he was the speaker on stage right before my panel. I sat in the audience, enthralled. And I asked a question which, today, I don't even recall. It started an audience discussion and I suppose brought me to his attention.

Later, I saw him sitting alone in the bar, and I went over to introduce myself. At that point, I was already well known as the primary author of the Bantam paperback, Star Trek Lives! I can't now recall if this was before or after I became the Chairman of the Science Fiction Writers of America Speaker's Bureau.

He taught me to drink Compari properly (no water, one ice cube) as he was famous for doing with all his acquaintances, and we talked for 3 hours or more, until one of us had another panel to do. During the course of this discussion, he personally explained the silver Q with an arrow through it that he always wore around his neck. I had forgotten all about it. I learned it the second time, in depth and detail during that weekend, and recognized in it one of the core elements in my own personal philosophy. (possibly I had absorbed this in my earliest reading years partly from his work)

Later that weekend, we were assigned to the same autographing table, and between customers, we sat and talked and talked -- and I finally got up nerve to tell him he was the author of the one story in all SF/F that I really HATED ("Bianca's Hands") and the one story in all televised SF that I thought was the best thing ever written in SF/F -- "Amok Time" -- and I told him how I had anticipated every element in it, scene for scene and word for word, based only on knowing he was the author and that it was television. As Trek aficionados know, the script Ted turned in is quite different from what was broadcast, and what I constructed in my mind at the time was the broadcast version.

At any rate, this started another marathon talkathon between us.

Years and years after that, at a World Science Fiction Convention in San Francisco, I ran across Ted with his wife Jane, and they invited me out to dinner. We got to talking about the Occult, and one thing led to another, and I admitted I was running the Tarot Workshop at the Worldcon. so we talked Tarot. Turned out Ted's wife Jane reads cards too, and during this discussion, she read for me. Afterwards, she was rather surprised at herself for it was the first time she'd ever eaten an entire meal in trance. She could barely remember what she'd eaten. And the reading was exceptionally good.

When Ted, May He Rest In Peace, left this world, I grieved seriously.

Lately, I haven't seen anyone carrying on the Q/Arrow philosophy, and I think it's time to create this little memorial to a great man.


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
http://twitter.com/jlichtenberg

Tree In The Forest

Another source of crazy ideas for Paranormal and SF Romance is the word problem or philosophical puzzle known as a Koan. Take care: these things are addictive.

Rowena and Linnea discussed the flaws in our lead characters -- and how we love to test those characters to destruction.

Obsession is another such flaw, a flaw as dramatically powerful as a drug addiction. Many people get caught up in obsession with a person and mistake that for love.

That psychological mechanism can fasten onto these intellectual/philosophical issues and produce drama and romance just as powerful as drug addiction.

People do go through periods (astrologically) when they are vulnerable to being sucked into cults, or the study of the occult, or the pursuit of magical power to
a) attract their ideal lover,
b) take revenge on the unresponsive object of their obsession,
c) gain power and wealth, political and otherwise, but particularly political because with political power you can direct all your inner angst at the external problems of the world, thus self-righteously protecting your personal neuroses and addictions from change.

A writer looking for source material for popular stories rooted in classics can do well exploring all kinds of religions and philosophies world wide. Of course, you may become obsessed and keep looking and never writing.

http://www.thezensite.com/MainPages/koan_studies.html is a handy starting place.

Or
http://www.whyfaith.com/2006/08/30/if-a-tree-falls-in-a-forest-riddle-answered/

I wrote about how bad I am at philosophical word problems recently:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/05/exogamous-human-female-ive-been.html

My favorite Koans are like the one about if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound? And what is the sound of one hand clapping?

These are actually language problems and world-view problems that you can become obsessed with -- or just shrug off as silly.

See my post on Linguistics For Writers:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/linguistics-for-writers.html

which discusses the unthinkable.

The Koan leads you into a loop where your thoughts will just slide around the inside of the walls around your mind. Trapped, endlessly trapped -- because you think in language. The answer to this puzzle is literally unthinkable without accessing the realm where your spirit dwells without words.

To start getting out of that endless loop, see my even earlier post on Giving and Receiving.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/gift-giver-recipient.html

If you can wrap your subconscious around the model of the universe with the Give/Receive paradigm built into the substance of Creation (i.e. the model of the universe behind the Tarot) you can solve the Koan of this type without any trouble.

Alien Romance writers note how two vastly different cultures and world views blend through the science of linguistics and the vision of Art -- the Western Magical Tradition with the Eastern Wisdom tradition of Zen Buddhism. At that interface, you will find hot stuff for romance. Talk about Romantic Suspense!

You can find 20 of my blog posts on the Tarot minor arcana posted on Tuesdays from August 2007 -- here's the first of the series
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/08/folks-first-i-have-to-say-that-at.html

I hope to have a collection of them, with the unpublished volumes on Wands and Cups available for PDF download. Subscribe to this blog or to me at http://friendfeed.com/jlichtenberg to be notified.

These posts on the Tarot for Writers give an overview of a world concept rich with story ideas, especially ideas about Relationship driven plots.

The Tree of Life diagram behind the structure of Tarot is composed of 3 pillars, or vertical columns. Positive, Negative, and the Central Pillar which is neutral.

Male, Female, Neuter. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

The universe structure is inherently one of Giving and Receiving -- and between them is a point at which Giving and Receiving are in BALANCE or synthesis.

What these Koan puzzles are challenging is the structure of the universe you hold in your subconscious as a non-verbal assumption.

Carlos Casteneda wrote a series of non-fiction books
http://www.wisdom-books.com/Author.asp?AUTH=Castaneda
about the training of a shaman in which the candidate is taught to "stop the world" and slide through the "crack between worlds" -- to alter consciousness of reality and thus gain power. One of the exercises was "running the night" -- literally running through the desert without being able to see with the eyes where your bare feet will land, and still arrive at your destination.

The study of the Koan leads to a similar ability. The study of Tarot, likewise. The hint of the possibility that mastering these disciplines could bestow power - power to conquer one's inner fears, one's unspeakable and unthinkable fears - is what sucks some of the vulnerable into obsession with these occult studies.

Now, bravely, back to examining the puzzle of the Koan, the shape and structure of existence.

Can there be giving without receiving? And without both, can there be peace?

Can a hand clap by itself?

Does a falling tree make a "sound" if nobody hears it? That question depends on the definition of "sound" you see, which is linguistic or maybe scientific.

What is the definition of "clap" -- is it a word that means a sound, or a word that means connect with another of your kind? Does it mean deliver kinetic energy to? Does it mean receive kinetic energy from?

What's all this got to do with Romance, especially with non-humans?

The concept of Soul Mate is rooted in the concept of a world powered by positive and negative energies -- where one is not superior to the other, but they are in balance, and compelled by the structure of reality to combine and balance.

Because it is so primal -- more fundamental than staying alive (paranormal romance with ghosts), finding a soul mate is another thing that can become an obsession, a main character's major flaw that must be overcome at the end of the narrative so that he/she can find that soul mate.

A Soul-Mate will have a World View, a vision of the macro cosmic all, lodged deeply in unconscious assumptions, that is either identical to or in complement to the mate's. Thus they instantly fall into silent and total communication; they recognize each other at first sight.

When identical, such souls have a much harder time mating!

Think of the musical chord. There's a mathematical formula for making chords -- but there are a number of musical systems just among humans that all have different formulas for what constitutes harmony -- an ear trained for one system hears dissonance when a chord of another system is sounded.

Souls are like that - NOTES. They combine in CHORDS (families). But the sense of what combines with which to make harmony is DIVERSE.

If it's so diverse among human cultures -- just imagine how diverse it could get adding non-humans.

Now, a Soul-Note from humanity COULD combine harmoniously with a Soul-Note from non-humans.

However impossible, it could happen. Some theories have it that we're not always reborn on the same planet.

So one way it could happen would be if they both had the same answer to the question about the falling tree in the forest making a sound, or the sound of one hand clapping.

Does the giver have any effect on the world if there is no receiver?

And there we are back to unrequited love.

Is unrequited love a bad thing? Is "love" actually a transitive verb - that you must love someone or some thing? You can't just LOVE?

That ability, to just LOVE may be rooted in a view of the universe, an unconscious assumption about the nature of reality. Those who just LOVE tend to be HAPPY.

There's a new study that shows that happiness is contagious.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081205/hl_nm/us_happiness_4

But they couldn't figure out how the mechanism that vectors happiness works, so maybe it works the same way as this "tapping" or Emotional Freedom Technique works (you can tap acupuncture points on your own body and improve the health of a close friend, relative, acquaintance! as well as your own.)

http://www.emofree.com/ -- ( a marvelous way to engage the placebo effect on yourself -- but oddly, it has been shown you can do it on yourself and help others.)

The Emotional Freedom Technique is also considered a scam by scam busters:
http://skepdic.com/eft.html

So you can see the potential here for conflict between lovers! (How dare you heal me with that scam technique!) (Well, at least now you don't need little blue pills.)

So this study on happiness being contagious might mean that some people, who view the universe in a certain way, may be able to spread LOVE around -- if Love and Happiness are related notes in a chord.

How might the Arcturians look at this argument?

I'm making myself crazy today -- too many interesting ideas all over!

But here are some "unthinkable" ideas to ponder as story material.

1) (USE AND ABUSE OF POWER) Maybe part of the auto-bailout deal ought to be a mandatory Breathalyzer interlocked with the car ignition, so if you're drunk you can't start a car. This is off the shelf technology that has never caught on with auto-makers, so it's not an SF concept. But considering automakers worldwide are now begging for your tax dollars, one of your characters might want to bring up the problem of drunk driving with congressmen/women. That's easy via this website.

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

Now suppose contacting a congressman/woman led into a searing hot romance via a blending of philosophies? Or into a relationship with someone obsessed with political power?

2) (OBSESSED FICTION READER) Publishing is continuing to melt down. You're going to have to find your daily fix of story via e-books, webisodes, movies, DVD's, (gasp!) TV! Words on paper are getting rare.

Here's a NYTimes article about Houghton Mifflin (huge publishing conglomerate) suspending acquisions of new books. (don't panic; they always do this in recessions)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/books/25publish.html?_r=1&ref=business&goback=%2Ehom


The Chicago Tribune (which owns the LA Times, lots of papers and local TV stations, and the Cubs team) is in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. The Cubs aren't included.

And :

Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Thomas Nelson are restructuring or laying off people. Random, which is described as being composed of "fiefdoms," says it is breaking down the walls between the imprints. Sounds like they will be getting rid of some. S&S is cutting back. Nelson is firing 10% of its staff. One of the last two is also freezing pensions for newer workers. There is an article at the Huffington Post about it, as well as the Wall Street Journal.

If a Publisher falls in the forest of high-leveraged businesses, does it make a sound louder than the sound of an Auto Manufacturer falling?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://www.slantedconcept.com

10 Pentacles - The cake comes out of the oven.

As noted previously, this is a chapter in a book about the Tarot aimed at Intermediate students of Tarot, not beginners or advanced students. It is particularly aimed at writers looking to learn World Building and Alien Character building.

Updated and expanded compilation of all these Tarot Just For Writers entries is now available on Kindle:

The Wands and Cups Volumes and  the Swords and Pentacles Volumes, are now all available separately on Kindle.  The 5 Volumes combined are also available on Kindle as one book, cheaper than buying them individually.

The Not So Minor Arcana: Never Cross A Palm With Silver Aug 30, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0108MC26O

The Not So Minor Arcana: Wands Sept. 1, 2015  99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106RVPKU

The Not So Minor Arcana: Cups Sept. 11, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106SATX8

The Not So Minor Arcana: Swords  Sept. 17, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0100RSPM2

The Not So Minor Arcana: Pentacles  Sept. 21, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106RVKF0

The Not So Minor Arcana: Books 1-5 combined Sept. 24, 2015 $3.25
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010E4WAOU

This series is designed not for the beginner or the advanced student, but for the intermediate student and specifically for writers doing worldbuilding..
---------------

And Remember: The meaning of a Tarot Minor Arcanum resides in the placement on the Tree of Life (i.e. the number on the card) integrated with the "World" or Suit of the card.

For the Tree of Life and the Jacob's Ladder diagrams see:

http://web.onetel.net.uk/~maggyw/treeladder.html

I don't really go with the way this page explains the Tree, but it is worth thinking about. There are many other ways. For now, ponder the diagrams on this page or Google up some others.

I have been posting here since August 14th, 2007, every Tuesday, the 10 minor Arcana of the suit of Swords. The Ace of Pentacles was posted Oct 23, 2007. The 3 of Pentacles was accidentally posted dated Monday November 5th.

------------------

10 Pentacles

So here we are at the bottom circle on the middle column (the 3 columns are actually called "Pillars") of the Jacob's Ladder diagram. And this is the last one we have to discuss here.

Note that this 10 dangles down below all the others. The previous 10's all connected to the 6 of the next level down and were colored by that Love. So we can expect the character of this Ten to be a little different.

This one receives all the energy spilling down through all the others. That energy arrives here from 7, 8 and 9 by direct routes as well as the one we've followed. It all collects, crystallizes and fills up this "vessel." Naturally, this creates a complex content for this particular 10.

Or put another way, 10 Pentacles is the end result of that excruciating moment of commitment made in 3 Swords, the moment when THIS project was chosen to be done and therefore all the other ideas and projects and possibilities were sacrificed, discarded, lost. You put all your eggs in one basket, and now they've hatched (or not.)

One way to think of that bottom circle is as all of manifest reality. It is our concrete, everyday world, defined by 3 spacial dimensions and Time. It is where the laws of Physics apply rigorously. It is our normal waking consciousness plus the physical reality around us.

Every project we complete contributes some little something to shaping our personal reality.

But everyone is doing projects. "Reality" is the resultant of all our efforts.

All the other 39 Sepheroth are abstract principles, states of mind, levels of consciousness, subjective or hypothetical -- all parts of a "reality" nobody can prove is "real." Access to these mystical realms is only for mystics.

Except that whether you know it or not, you are embedded in the most mystical realm of all - Reality, the result of all 39 above us. All the projects you've completed have gone through most all these processes even if not in so orderly a fashion and with concrete manifestations.

10 Pentacles manifests the end, sum total, result of all the other 39 Sepheroth, their lessons and their processes.

Thus every manifestation of reality contains and perhaps clearly expresses all 39 processes from above. For example, taking a novel you've written to a critique group can often be a 5 Swords process - the reality clearly illustrates the principles of the 5 Swords process. But that reality also contains all the other processes above. Reality is "messy."

10 Pentacles is how the story comes out, how the mess manifests. This is The End. This is the climax of the novel. This is the purpose of all that activity fulfilled -- or not.

Here all the suspense is gone. It's all over. And so it can represent the end of life, or just retirement from a particular career to start yet another.

It is the life you have built, and the only way to change it now is to give up some part of it -- 10 Pentacles Reversed -- to break it up. One example might be a child building a castle out of building blocks or sand. Once completed and photographed with the proud child, it has no destiny other than being dismantled (or lacquered and kept forever).

Take for example, the ambitious businessman who gets an MBA from a top University, works 12 hours a day all his life, cashes out his business and retires wealthy. Now in 10 Pentacles, he can enjoy his wealth.

From here, there is nowhere for the descending energy to go but UP!

Yes, souls descend this ladder and turn around and climb back taking with them all the experiences and lessons gathered.

What is the Tree of Life? It is the method the Creator of the Universe used to generate this thing we call "reality." These Sephirot represented by the circles on the diagram are all the stages of Creation.

We spend our whole life in 10 Pentacles, but are not deprived at all the others because 10 Pentacles contains all the rest. Every project we do starts with an Ace of Wands, an Idea and ends with a finished product, a 10 Pentacles (or not).

At the end of life we contemplate death as the completion, the journey of return to the Creator. And we evaluate all we've accomplished in terms of the outcome, the 10 Pentacles.

Now we come to something really mystical.

The Pentacles are all about concrete reality, and that is the most mystical concept there is. Existence. Being. Is reality real? I think, therefore I am?

Humans can become afflicted with a sense of futility because it's so hard to see the result of what you've done, of what you've worked for, sacrificed for because everything is mixed up with everything else. All of one whole life's efforts can amount to nothing tangible at all. And one can be fooled into thinking a life was wasted because it had no discernible effect on the world.

But the 10 Pentacles lesson is that, no matter what you think you see looking back on your life, the true fact of the matter is that your existence has changed Reality permanently, indelibly, and irrevocably.

As we discussed in Swords, (which is contained inside Pentacles, remember), every thought, word and deed has an effect on the world around you.

A thought, word or deed, even just an emotion, an opinion kept to yourself, an observation, a hope, a dream, focused by kavana (intention) -- that is a "deliberate act" -- etches itself indelibly on the continuum, or Akashic Record.

If your thinking or feelings are messy, muddy, imprecise, or conflicted, you will leave a messy, muddy spot in the world when you leave. Someone has to clean it up; most likely you.

Our material reality has been given a receptivity to us. We are empowered to mold and change reality, and in fact if we don't take hold and do that with kavana, we do it by accident, carelessly. Because of our nature, we can't not-do it.

We have also been given Free Will. Thus we must choose what to do with our ability to change the world.

We have been given the power to "elevate" material things, to expose the divine sparks of spiritual energy within things by doing good deeds with them.

In 9 Pentacles, at the intersection between Things and Self, we organized our world around our Need. At 10 Pentacles, the Self that re-organized and coalesced in 9 Pentacles now projects into material reality.

There is a congruence between the Identity and the world that surrounds that Identity. It can be seen through astrology. It can be seen through Tarot. But we are all "works in progress," eternal web pages under construction.

Our external realities don't exactly match our internal reality. We resist (sometimes successfully for a while) the lessons pounded in by a material reality trying to reshape us, and sometimes we successfully pound back and reshape reality to our needs.

The mis-match is an area of conflict. Life is the process of resolving those conflicts, pounding back, smoothing it all out, and getting our personal reality to match our self-image or vice-versa.
But what do we do with it once we've gotten it done? What's it for?

Some traditions say that we can get off the Wheel of Birth and Death once the soul has learned these essential lessons about how material reality works. They say that some very advanced souls may voluntarily risk their perfected state by taking another incarnation in order to teach, to bring more souls to perfection.

The tradition behind the Tarot structure we've been studying looks at it the other way around. Instead of an objective of freeing ourselves from material reality, our objective is to prepare material reality so that the Creator can dwell here with us.

We touched on this in the description of material reality in 10 Swords: Your Chickens Come Home To Roost, (adjacent to 6 Pentacles, remember) where we modeled the world as a seething plasma of divine sparks swimming amidst a sea of dross.

Our job, done by all that pounding to get inside and outside worlds to match, is to free the Divine sparks and elevate as much of the dross as possible, letting the rest fall away. Once that is all completed, the world will be able to withstand the full force of the Divine presence and life here will become much nicer.

So how do you get a handle on "the world" in order to accomplish some part of this job? Where can you get hold of "reality" and change it?

Many people try to fix the world by teaching other people the right way to do things, and what never to do. They try to affect the behavior of others by disapproving of how they dress or what they eat. This is like the "misdirected problem solving energy" of 8 Pentacles Reversed -- you can work very hard for thousands of years and not make a dent in the real problem because you aren't addressing the real problem but only its reflection.

What is the real problem?

You, yourself.

Remember, in 9 Pentacles we found how reorganizing our Self, our Identity around all the lessons learned in previous processes would affect how things turn out in 10 Pentacles.

How well we learn our lessons, how we resolve our internal conflicts, identify our true needs, wants, and desires and organize our whole Self into a team effort determines how things turn out in 10 Pentacles.

The smoother we cooperate inside our-Self, the smoother the parts of our external world will work together.

That external reality comes from our internal reality -- not the other way around. Remember the 9's are the "Foundation" of the World. It's not the World that generates the 9's. It's the 9's (astral plane) that generates the World.

Thus to change the world, we change our-Self.

We change what we think, feel, believe, dream, want, desire, imagine, enjoy, and do.

If you see someone behaving badly, look into yourself and find where that flaw has its counterpart within you. It won't be identical - that would be too easy. No, you'll have to search for the counterpart.

For example, if you see a shoplifter, you know you would never - ever - just take something from a store. Now watch inside yourself for a while (could take a couple of years of vigilance) and perhaps you will find a moment when you steal the limelight from someone and get a real charge out of it, or perhaps you might incorporate more of someone else's novel into your own novel than is wise.

Change the world by fixing yourself.

And when you've got it all done, you'll come to the 10 of Pentacles process and look around to see that's it's Good.

Let's see what's happened to our writer at the end of her career.

Well, the movie was a flop she doesn't even note on her bibliography. But they paid her a bunch of money. She paid the taxes and invested the rest in mutual funds and let it sit on re-invest for all those years.

It was a struggle to pay the taxes on the dividends and capital gains from her writing income to keep the earnings reinvested, and still put her kids through school but she managed.

Now she's writing her memoirs, showing how writing each of her novels resulted in learning a seminal lesson about life. She's not expecting to publish her memoirs. This book is for her grandchildren, of which she has six.

She expects to finish by the time her husband retires. The income from investing the film proceeds will let them travel as much as they want.

She's glad she signed the contract, and in a way very glad the movie was a flop and her career merely solid, not stellar. Now she can bask in anonymity.

If she were experiencing a 10 Pentacles Reversed process, a serious mis-match between her material reality and her inner Self, you might find a number of scenarios in her life:

a) the film would have been wildly successful and, intimidated by that success, she might have been unable to write any more novels and learn the lessons from them, and thus she would be rich but her husband would have left her because she turned into a shrew, the children abandoned her, and she might be too ill to enjoy retirement.

b) the film may have been moderately successful, but she lost all the money in the dot-com boom and bust investing in stocks instead of diversified mutual funds. Her writing income never made up the difference, her husband is invalided out of work, and now they face living on social security or sponging off the kids.

c) the film may have been a flop, but that so depressed her that she was never able to write well again, so she used up all the money putting her kids through school. Now she's buried her husband and her kids are unmarried -- and who knows if they have any kids!

d) the film may have been a flop, but she learned from it all and went on to write four or five more novels that were made into good films. She's rich and famous, but not so famous she needs security guards when she travels. However, the kids don't want any part of her, her husband divorced her and got alimony, and she can't see what she's done wrong.

Frankly, I think this writer's first film was a flop, but she went on to write books and her own original screenplays, has made a good living, learned all her lessons with a full heart, and her family still loves her (but usually that's apparent only on Mother's Day).

So how can a writer use these Tarot Card processes to build a World and construct a novel?

If you think this is a useful model of reality, then try to construct a character from the inside, and then generate their world to match. Leave a piece of the character in conflict, and see how that alters the world the character creates around him/herself.

Pick one of these processes to become the whole plot. Each one is a whole story in itself, an Initiation, an eye-opener, a life-changing event. Go through a 3's process and toss away everything but one single thing to focus on.

If you're building an Alien World, it needs a Philosophy and possibly a Religion. If you study comparative religion on Earth, you will find various versions, sub-sets, and derivatives of this master pattern called the Tree of Life buried within most of them.

If there exits an "objective reality" out there somewhere, other species will be probing it too, and will find some echo of this basic pattern -- it just may not be all that easy for humans to recognize their version of it.

If you start with this Pattern, and your alien's biology, look at the Pattern through their eyes, you will see how the religions of their world would likely interpret this Pattern, or some sub-set of the Pattern.

Because the Tree of Life is so familiar on Earth, human readers will recognize enough in your aliens to accept them as "real."

You'll find an example of this in two of my mass market paperback SF novels, Molt Brother and City of a Million Legends.

Molt Brother

City of a Million Legends

The more far out the fantasy you are writing, the more necessary it is to provide the reader with a sense of reality. Using this very old, very standard model of reality which has been commonly adopted by many schools of philosophy and psychology can make your alien civilization seem real to the reader.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

7 Pentacles - The Right Answer

As noted previously, this is a chapter in a book about the Tarot aimed at Intermediate students of Tarot, not beginners or advanced students. It is particularly aimed at writers looking to learn World Building and Alien Character building.

Updated and expanded compilation of all these Tarot Just For Writers entries is now available on Kindle:

The Wands and Cups Volumes and  the Swords and Pentacles Volumes, are now all available separately on Kindle.  The 5 Volumes combined are also available on Kindle as one book, cheaper than buying them individually.

The Not So Minor Arcana: Never Cross A Palm With Silver Aug 30, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0108MC26O

The Not So Minor Arcana: Wands Sept. 1, 2015  99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106RVPKU

The Not So Minor Arcana: Cups Sept. 11, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106SATX8

The Not So Minor Arcana: Swords  Sept. 17, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0100RSPM2

The Not So Minor Arcana: Pentacles  Sept. 21, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106RVKF0

The Not So Minor Arcana: Books 1-5 combined Sept. 24, 2015 $3.25
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010E4WAOU

This series is designed not for the beginner or the advanced student, but for the intermediate student and specifically for writers doing worldbuilding..
---------------

And Remember: The meaning of a Tarot Minor Arcana resides in the placement on the Tree of Life (i.e. the number on the card) integrated with the "World" or Suit of the card.
For the Tree of Life and the Jacob's Ladder diagrams see:

http://web.onetel.net.uk/~maggyw/treeladder.html

I don't really go with the way this page explains the Tree, but it is worth thinking about. There are many other ways. For now, ponder the diagrams on this page or Google up some others.

I have been posting here since August 14th, 2007, every Tuesday, the 10 minor Arcana of the suit of Swords. The Ace of Pentacles was posted Oct 23, 2007. The 3 of Pentacles was accidentally posted dated Monday November 5th.

---------------

7 Pentacles

Here we evaluate the results of all the work that's gone into this project, whatever that project might be. The example we've been following is a writer boldly beginning her first novel and having her adventures after that, however these processes apply to almost anything you can do.

Here in 7 Pentacles our writer applies aesthetic criteria to the results of her labors and tries to figure out what is the right thing to do.

We are looking at the bottom circle in the right hand column of the Jacob's Ladder diagram. Note it has no other circle behind it or superimposed on it.

This part of the Ladder reaches down to mundane reality. This is where all that energy driving the project finally ends up manifesting in our conscious world.

The Suit of Pentacles represents the crystallization of energy -- the forming of concrete objects from philosophical abstract ideas, emotions, and actions, finally ending in something you can see, hear, touch and smell. It may be money, or what money can buy. Or it might be a tool -- or an obstacle you have created for yourself to overcome. It might even be a conundrum to consider so you will leap to a new level of spiritual insight.

This crystallized energy property of matter (yes, once again we're talking pure mysticism) is the reason the laws of magic say that it makes a difference what you say aloud while stirring the stew, what you mutter while hammering a nail, what you wish while quilting the baby's blanket, what you imagine while building a cabinet.

Things built with the power of intention (Wands), emotion, (Cups), and skilled action (Swords), manifest as an object which can outlast similar objects, be treasured by generations, have meaning when viewed in a museum, be studied in universities for hundreds of years, -- or simply change the world.

Compare 7 Pentacles with the 7 of Swords, Cups and Wands. 7 is associated with the various astrological meanings of Venus. Venus rules the natural second house, Taurus (money, and all concrete personal assets) but also the 7th House of personal relationships, Libra.

So 7 Pentacles is not so much about money alone, but rather where in your personal hierarchy of values you place "money." What are you willing to do for money? What won't you do for money? Would you promise to sell your grandmother into slavery? If so, would you deliver?

7's are about values, and those personal subconscious values are inevitably expressed in your personal aesthetic sense -- what you consider pretty, what you find funny, what you see as entertaining, what makes you cry, what makes you angry, what offends you. All that and more reveal what and who you really are, rather than who your parents wanted you to be or who you want the world to think you are.

All of your subconscious motivations, values and internal conflicts become concrete and externalized in 7 Pentacles.

Oh, here comes another cliche. As you sow; so shall yee reap.

That sums up the 7 Pentacles so we should just quit there. But who today knows what that means? There are so many thirty somethings who have hardly ever heard that phrase, as it is banned from television because, not only is it a cliche, it has religious associations. Besides, few today even sow a garden, and many 20 somethings don't know the difference between "sew" and "sow."

A family's very survival used to depend on sowing and reaping. Today people think reaping is done with a huge, expensive machine made by Caterpillar. The metaphor is broken.

But like, "As Above; So Below," "As you sow; so shall yee reap" is a maxim of the magical view of the universe. What you do has consequences that are directly relevant to your soul's journey through life.

And as noted in previous chapters, the Tarot based model of the universe is entirely rooted in Free Will. It is by your own, personal Free Will that you choose your actions.

Unfortunately, you rarely get to choose the consequences your actions produce. Even if you are trained in the methods of concentration and invocation used by practitioners of magic, and you use them, you still don't always get what you intend.

The subconscious mind projects the results of personal values into the material world, not the conscious mind. And that subconscious intention is the crop that grows as a result of actions.

But it isn't quite that simple, even at our Intermediate Level. The conscious mind may oppose the subconscious (and don't forget the levels of spirit and soul -- in the advanced study, you may learn about the 7 levels of soul within a human soul.)

If the conscious opposes the subconscious or has a different agenda, the subconscious may not be able to manifest its product cleanly against that interference. So looking at the material world result of a person's actions does not tell you (exactly) what that person's subconscious intended.

There's no way to reverse-engineer the results of an action to discover the "intent" behind the action because the result is a composite of many factors, and not all those factors originate within the individual who acted way back up there in the Swords processes.

Let's look in on our writer who gritted her teeth and started writing her first novel in Ace of Swords, had her packaging go all awry, finally began another novel in Ace of Pentacles and built a career in 4 Pentacles then lost her confidence in 5 Pentacles only to be offered a plum of a film option in 6 Pentacles.

In 7 Pentacles, she's sitting at the kitchen table over a cold, stale cup of coffee holding the pen with which to sign the option contract her agent negotiated for her.

She's been all over the web reading up on authors who have had films made of their books.

She's re-read some of the books then watched the films. She can see in her mind's eye what a horrible travesty of her book this film will be.

She just has to sign to get the money which she really needs. She remembers that striking moment of inspiration when she decided to write her first novel in Ace of Swords, opened the word processing file and stared at the blank page.

Ideas had been there for years, maybe decades. But in that moment, all the theory (Wands) and yearning (Cups) became the action (Swords) of typing a title.

It took all her courage to type those first words. But "Nothing ventured; nothing gained" so she made her fingers move.

In this moment, sitting over this option contract, knowing what it really means, that first moment of typing her very first words of fiction and this moment of signing her name, signing away creative control (because it's take it or leave it time), are connected without any intervening moments. That first letter she typed feels like it was just yesterday.

This is her dream. It's come true.

But.

And that's what stops her. Her consciously espoused values and what her subconscious has projected into the world don't exactly match.

And now, when it's too late, she realizes that the reason she has to surrender creative control of what amounts to the most important thing she owns (her family is more important but she doesn't own them) is not what she has done -- but rather what she has not done.

She wanted the "big bucks" -- but she didn't stop in her headlong plunge to get these books into print to develop the skills and credentials that would allow her to be trusted to write the script. She had in fact, never really visualized this moment when the option would be before her.

And it's not a contract to make the movie -- it's only an option. Which means the movie might never be made. Nothing may come of this. That's a lesson she learned in 5 Pentacles -- not to be so cocksure she knows what she's doing.

But in 6 Pentacles she learned a lesson hammered home into her subconscious by love which she is now trying mightily to assimilate. Though there were people who scoffed and scorned her novel, there were also those who loved it. Those are the people she wrote it for; those who would understand it.

Remember, this is the author who, when her cover and even her byline were totally messed up by the publisher, adopted the screwed up byline and appeared on local cable TV to give unstintingly of her experiences to those who hadn't yet reached that point.

In 6 Pentacles, something was given back to her, and now she is looking at the prospects opened by that gift of love. And she has to evaluate what all this means.

She can extrapolate events in a straight line from here. She knows what seeing that messed up cover and byline felt like. She knows what the total rejection of 5 Pentacles felt like. She doesn't want to experience that again by seeing the travesty this option will create of her novel.

But in 6 Pentacles, she learned an even deeper lesson.

She learned that life in this world isn't a straight line you can extrapolate like a novel plot. This isn't "Murder, She Wrote" or a "Star Trek" episode. This is real.

Events have meaning. Decisions have consequences. Everything has a price. But the connections between those elements are rarely clear.

And here's the value she has to apply to make her decision about whether to sell her soul for money to feed her family.

To what extent should we, as individuals, act to shape our own destiny -- and to what extent should we bow to a Higher Power?

At what point does humility become pride?

Who are we to know what any given event or opportunity means?

Maybe the director of this film will cherish her heart and soul -- maybe that relationship will lead to a second marriage, the birth of children who will change the world for the better?

Maybe her heart she has poured into this novel will be set on a shelf and forgotten. Maybe an award winning blockbuster film will be made that thematically says the opposite of what she, herself believes. And for that, according to this option, she might get paid residuals for years to come.

Knowing how she arrived at this moment, willy-nilly, on the wings of a hope and a prayer, on naive certainty she knew what she was doing, on sacrifice of her paying job to write these novels, knowing she didn't do this on purpose, she knows she can't consciously impose her choice of what will happen as a result of her next action. Furthermore, she's learned that total control of her world by herself might not be the best possible idea.

So she sits over her cold coffee, cream congealing, pen poised, and ponders.

What she's really doing is letting the lesson of love learned in 6 Pentacles soak into her subconscious and change her on a level she can't consciously reach.

The lesson of love in 6 Pentacles, just like the lesson of Love in 6 Swords, has its roots in the harrowing experience of the previous 5 process, which couldn't have happened had nothing been grown in the preceding 4 process, and so on back to the origin in Ace of Wands.

The philosophical abstracts upon which she's founded her life are sweeping through her mind, dragging waves of emotion in their wake, which cause jittering jerks of action toward signing, not signing, swishing the coffee around in its mug, glances at the clock.

She has to sum it all up and make a value judgement.

If she hasn't the energy to form that judgement (either a yes, or a resounding no), or if she's conditioned against forming value judgements (if she hasn't practiced by judging the values of others) she will become trapped in a 7 Pentacles Reversed situation.

All that she's endured from Ace of Swords on down will have produced valid work, good novels that entertained thousands, but she will have nothing to show for it all and will have to start a new project, perhaps a new career.

It is the forming of the judgement that is the process here -- not "getting the right answer."
We search incessantly for the right answer. We are conditioned from early grades in school to find the right answer, to get the right answers on tests, to be right.

We can spend our whole life searching for that one and only right answer.

"What does this Tarot card actually mean?"

"What should I do now?"

"What will happen to me next month?"

We ask that kind of question never suspecting that the formulation of the question leads us away from useful answers (not "right" answers; useful answers).

Having brought a project down from Ace of Wands, through Cups, into Swords where action is taken, and now deep into Pentacles -- here, in 7 Pentacles we have to figure out what we've learned, what we have actually produced, how what we've learned has changed us so that what we've produced is no longer a valid representation of what lies within.

We may learn here in 7 Pentacles that questions about values and relationships don't have answers, but rather like algebra, they have solutions.

Venus represents the subjective reality of our personal, internal life and the subconscious drives that govern (not control, govern) our personal relationships.

What is the "right" thing to do at a decision-moment like signing a coveted contract is a question that has a solution -- but no "answer."

It's not arithmetic. It's not a calculation. But it's not random either.

What this author does in this moment will have consequences. There will be a link between her action at this point and the ultimate consequence, but the nature of that ultimate consequence arises more from Divine Will than from Human Will (though both are involved).

To sign or not to sign isn't the question.

No matter what she does, she may have vast financial success or end up dying as a street person. There is no "right" answer to this kind of question.

But the question must be answered. To refuse to answer is in fact an answer and will have consequences.

So, if it doesn't matter "What" you do -- then what does matter?
Harmony. Peace.

That is ultimately what Venus is all about, and the 7's moments are Venus moments. They are moments when you take all the experiences that have come before in all these processes we've discussed and synthesize them into beauty.

To get the optimum consequence from this moment, (not right, not wrong, not best, not avoiding disaster, not defying disaster, just optimizing your performance in your personal, subjective life) -- you must use all that's come before this moment to bring your conscious and subconscious minds into harmony if not actual agreement.

You must internalize Love (the 6's) and love yourself.

All relationships are rooted in your own love of yourself, your own ability to have compassion for your tormented subconscious. To the extent that you love yourself, you will be able to love your spouse and children. To the extent you have compassion for your subconscious, you will have compassion for your intimate associates. That's the secret of solid novel plotting.

And that's why our author is sitting there so long, pen poised over this opportunity of a lifetime, hesitating.

She has to write her name in a moment when her subconscious, conscious, mind and soul and spirit are all in harmony. She has to be at peace internally to create peace as a result of this document.

That's it. Magic is subjective. Love is the glue that holds the universe together.

Having been through 3 previous 8's and 3 previous 9's and 3 previous 10's, she has a good notion what challenges await her in 8 Pentacles, 9 Pentacles, and 10 Pentacles. (You should by now, too.)

She knows that if she acts without internal conflict, she will be able to negotiate through the coming mine-fields to the end-of-life experience she prefers.

She has learned a lot (maybe not all there is, but a lot) about internal conflict by crafting it for her characters and writing about the results. She's learned the shape of the world by doing that, but she knows she's no hero. It takes more than she's got to do what she knows she must.
So where's it going to come from?

Magic is subjective. In the mystical realms, it doesn't matter what you do nearly so much as it matters who you are when you do it.

Remember, your values, summed up in the 7's, tell the world "who" you are by determining what you like, what repels you, what makes you laugh, etc. And those values bespeak "who" you are to the universe, as you act.

So whether she signs or not won't determine her fate or the fate of her novels.
But what she thinks and feels and does as she signs will determine at least some of the outcome, if not the path to that outcome. And what she thinks, feels and does is determined by those internal values, by her Identity.

Still, this one single act of signing an option contract won't change things so very much. Life is made up of a myriad acts. The policy which generates those acts (determined by her values, thus by her Identity) will ultimately determine the significance of what happens -- but it won't determine exactly what happens.

Your destiny isn't graven in stone. You craft it yourself, but you don't craft it by yourself.

Venus is about relationships and values, two of the ingredients necessary to shape your destiny because they are defining elements in your Identity.

Back to the ancient wisdom encoded in the weary, shunned cliche.

As you sow; so shall you reap. Be careful what you pray for; you might get it. Better late than never.Neither borrower nor lender be.

The results of our efforts that come to fruition in 7 Pentacles are determined by the aim we took at our goals in Ace of Wands, then Ace of Cups, then Ace of Swords, then Ace of Pentacles, and by the level of harmony within us at the time of Ace of Wands. That was many processes and experiences ago!

Crafting a life is like astrogation -- a very tiny increment of an angle difference in course at blast off to a distant galaxy can result in arriving at a very different galaxy. The 7's allow for mid-course corrections in life.

So whether she signs or not doesn't matter nearly so much as how much internal harmony she has achieved because of the experience of Love and Charity in 6 Pentacles.

If she acts in harmony now, the film gets made, maybe it doesn't resemble her novel very much, but it says what she became a writer to say. The message reaches far and wide and makes a difference in some lives. The world is enriched and her next novel provides enough new contracts that she can finish a good career and retire.

Or perhaps the film never gets made, she inherits a fortune she never expected (or wins the lottery) and can retire in comfort.

If she's in internal angst and conflict instead of harmony, if she's held motionless over this option contract because she must bludgeon her subconscious into submission, then most likely she will sign and the film will get made.

But it won't resemble her novel at all, says the opposite of what she personally values, and it bombs at the box office, ruining her reputation as a writer. Her 3rd and 4th novels are given no publicity. She can't sell a 5th no matter what she does. And she wonders if she did the right thing trying to become a writer.

Yet another possibility is that the film gets made, says the opposite of what she values, and is a smashing success. But her subsequent novels don't live up to the promise of the film because deep down, she simply doesn't believe what the film says and can't mimmick that philosophical stance.

Bottom line: you can't guide your life on purpose. You may have an intuitive sense of what your life is or will be, and you may actually end up at that point, but it won't be conscious choice that creates that end. Nor is it destiny.

The theory behind the Wisdom behind the Tarot is all about the soul and the spirit, the intangible part of the human being that survives death of the body. The Tarot is the "Royal Road" to Wisdom, not material success, nor even "happiness."

And so the cards have no "meaning" at the intermediate level and there is no "right answer" nor any roadmap to destiny or way to avoid disaster.

Still, it isn't random. It isn't futile. It isn't all just smoke and mirrors. And it most especially is not a matter of opinion with anyone's opinion being equal to anyone else's.

There is, this ancient wisdom insists, a very well defined objective reality out there, and it is within human purvue to apprehend that objective reality. The shape of it, and its rules of function, are encoded in the Tree of Life and the extension ladder of 4 Trees called Jacob's Ladder.

When you stop obsessing on finding "the" meaning of Tarot cards or a Reader who is "good," or "psychic," you will be able to place your foot on the bottom rung of the ladder that leads to solutions, not answers.

Because there are so many variables in life, there are no "right" answers, no one thing that works for everyone all the time. But there are workable, usable, general solutions to common equations.

Most of your life, even though it is unique, is just exactly like everyone else's life. That's why film makers and novel publishers want stories that are identical to successful ones - but also new, fresh, startling and unique.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://www.simegen.com/jl/

6 Pentacles - The Social Contract

As noted previously, this is a chapter in a book about the Tarot aimed at Intermediate students of Tarot, not beginners or advanced students. It is particularly aimed at writers looking to learn World Building and Alien Character building.

Updated and expanded compilation of all these Tarot Just For Writers entries is now available on Kindle:

The Wands and Cups Volumes and  the Swords and Pentacles Volumes, are now all available separately on Kindle.  The 5 Volumes combined are also available on Kindle as one book, cheaper than buying them individually.

The Not So Minor Arcana: Never Cross A Palm With Silver Aug 30, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0108MC26O

The Not So Minor Arcana: Wands Sept. 1, 2015  99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106RVPKU

The Not So Minor Arcana: Cups Sept. 11, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106SATX8

The Not So Minor Arcana: Swords  Sept. 17, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0100RSPM2

The Not So Minor Arcana: Pentacles  Sept. 21, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106RVKF0

The Not So Minor Arcana: Books 1-5 combined Sept. 24, 2015 $3.25
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010E4WAOU

This series is designed not for the beginner or the advanced student, but for the intermediate student and specifically for writers doing worldbuilding..

---------------
And Remember: The meaning of a Tarot Minor Arcana resides in the placement on the Tree of Life (i.e. the number on the card) integrated with the "World" or Suit of the card.

For the Tree of Life and the Jacob's Ladder diagrams see:

http://web.onetel.net.uk/~maggyw/treeladder.html

I don't really go with the way this page explains the Tree, but it is worth thinking about. There are many other ways. For now, ponder the diagrams on this page or Google up some others.

I have been posting here since August 14th, 2007, every Tuesday, the 10 minor Arcana of the suit of Swords. The Ace of Pentacles was posted Oct 23, 2007. The 3 of Pentacles was accidentally posted dated Monday November 5th.

---------------

6 Pentacles

What goes around comes around. Yep, I'm still on cliches.

As much as the 5 of Pentacles is about isolation, loneliness and being unable to get anyone to listen, unable to get psychological validation from another human being, the 6 of Pentacles is about connectivity.

6's are about Love, and how love opens the psyche to receive Beauty.

The shock-and-awe of the apperception of the Beauty which fuels the Universe is the essence of 6, the center of the Tree of Life.

Look at the Jacob's Ladder diagram. We are now talking about the 3rd circle up from the bottom of the MIDDLE column.

Under that 6 of Pentacles lies the 10 of Swords, so these two processes are related harmonics.

6 of Pentacles is immensely complicated because it is in fact so very simple. It is love. We've grappled with this before, discussing the 6 of Swords.

In Swords, we did not discuss how the 6 of Swords overlays the 10 of Cups, and is overlain by the Ace of Pentacles. We just tried to tease out the meaning of 6 Swords without getting so complicated.

The 10 of Cups is a vast and stable emotional joy -- a psychological stability. The 6 of Swords is a journey to start over somewhere else, despite dragging your habits with you (good or bad habits, you drag them everywhere).

The Ace of Pentacles is the start of materializing something new (not always good, just materializing whatever project you've been working on).

Here in the 6 of Pentacles, we hit the 6-note again, harmonizing with the previous 6's and bringing it all down into concrete manifestation.

How do you concretize G-d's love?

Well, a good start is Charity.

But mostly people think of Charity as giving to those less fortunate, those who have less. And its often just physical things that get donated.

But very often, the most meaningful kind of Charity is done just within your own mind, quietly inside your thoughts and opinions, your thought-habits (10 Swords).

Political correctness requires that we not judge people's values, and most especially that we not judge on a double standard.

But it's very possible that true Charity requires a double standard.

Not everyone can do what you have done -- so should you require everyone to measure up to the standard by which you judge yourself?

Look at it backwards. If you find yourself wanting, should you necessarily judge others by a higher standard?

And some people "put others on a pedestal" in order to devalue themselves.

But if you judge everyone against the same standards, you aren't "handicapping" (as in golf or gambling). You aren't allowing for the inherent differences among us.

Charity may in fact mean that you judge each person you meet against their own ideal condition.

But of course, you not being Infinitely Wise, can't possibly know what that ideal condition is. In fact, you can't know what your own ideal condition is!

So what are we to do? Not judge anyone? Political correctness indicates that one should not ever pass value judgements.

Wouldn't it be nice if life were that simple? One rule that always applies.

Something about that idea makes me suspicious.

If life were that simple, would the Tarot deck need so many cards to describe the process of living?

In the 5 of Pentacles, we experienced solitude, loneliness, and learned self-reliance. We learned to get rid of some of our emotional baggage and other clutter to make room for that which others value.

That housecleaning left us able to re-enter social interaction after the long, quiet building process of 4 Pentacles.

What we built in 4 Pentacles we are now able to SHARE with others by accepting into the spot emptied by housecleaning, what they have to share with us.

So maybe we can't judge the value systems other live by as better or lesser than our own. So maybe all we can judge is how compatible someone else's values are with our own -- at this particular time.

Everyone changes all the time, though we change within the parameters delineated by our natal charts. We can become a better example of our self, but we can't become someone else or live someone else's life.

However, at any given moment, we can respond to compatibility -- that what the Other has to share fits nicely into the empty spot within us while what we have to share fits into their empty spot.

Cliche: You scratch my back; I'll scratch yours.

And that's the Giving and Receiving contract represented by 6 Pentacles.

Once again, the Waite Rider deck images miss the point somewhat. The essence of Charity is not the wealthy giving to the poor. The essence of Charity is the Social Contract. It's not about what I have and what you have -- it's about what we have.

Yeah, love is a contract -- a legal contract! Isn't that awful?

But in a way it's true. Every human interaction is based on a contract of some sort -- a "you do this; I do that" contract.

Mystically, G-d came to Avram and said, "Come walk in my ways and I'll make of you a great nation." That's a contract. And again at Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments were given as a contract -- you do this; I'll do that. G-d interacts with humankind via a legal contract.

All human relationships mirror that, as do all civilizations.

The contract part is the concrete part, the Pentacles part of the deal.

6 is Love, the love of Beauty and the Beauty of love.

The contract of love is reciprocity -- to allow one's self to be affected, changed, as much as one offers to affect the other.

For the most part, the terms of the contract of love are unspoken, mostly subconscious and therefore un-speakable because you, yourself, don't know your own terms -- and therefore the whole contract is subject to misunderstanding.

That misunderstanding often manifests as co-dependence, sometimes in a healthy way, and sometimes not. See 5 Swords again.

So 6 Pentacles is about the individual's pairing contract mirroring the social contract which mirrors the mystical contract the Creator made with humankind.

So to figure out the 6 of Pentacles, we have to start at the top, the origin.

As we discussed in Swords, creation was Created by a Word. Much later, we learned what that Word was about via the Ten Commandments.

It's no co-incidence there are 10 Sepheroth of the Tree of Life and 10 Commandments. Trust me, no coincidence at all!

We learned that if we follow these 10 simple rules, there will be Abundance. Vast Abundance! The Universe is Abundant. It's a Law and part of the Contract. (remember the Swords discussion of the Zero Sum Game model vs. the model of Abundance).

So how come there are poor people and rich people? And the richest aren't always the best at following Commandments!

The theory is (more mysticism here) that the vast abundance flows into the world unevenly, and some people are challenged (remember, you can't judge other people very well, being a person yourself) to develop ways of redistributing the extra that they get. Yeah, being rich is (cliche!) no bed of roses.

Conundrum: If you find that you need to get more, the way to get more is to GIVE more.

So those who start out with extra and figure out how to give, (it's not that easy - look at the celebrity-gossip headlines!) find they have even more than they started with.

But it's also true that some of those who start out with too little have become prosperous after doing Charity.

Remember the movie where the fellow will inherit a fortune if he can figure out how to spend a million dollars in a short time? It was a comedy, but could be remade as an Alien Romance.

We all know from experience that giving doesn't bring more right away.

You can't (usually) get by deliberately giving for the purpose of getting.

Remember the discussion in 5 Pentacles of discarding some of the irrelevant bits accumulated in 4 Pentacles? You discard what you don't need to make room to accept something from someone else, something they cherish (an idea, a value, a joy, whatever).

Relationships are established and nurtured by exchanging such personal bits of individuality.

One of the most difficult principles of Kabbalah is Giving and Receiving. Receiving is very likely the single most difficult occult concept of all.

6 Pentacles is the process during which we complete the circuit with G-d, receiving the Love He gives and giving to others in reflection of that. This process leaves us more and more capable of loving G-d.

This process is not so simple. How many of us are even capable of letting ourselves be loved by another human being, never mind the Creator of us all?

It's a pump - you have to prime it.

Young people today don't know how to prime a pump -- all their sinks come with faucets and their cars don't have carburetors. How are they supposed to learn about love?

Well, by attempting to participate in giving and receiving, even by deliberately giving in order to get, we start to open ourselves up.

It is a stepwise process, taking many lifetimes. Eventually Pentacles can be understood in a whole new light. (when I get there, I'll let you know what color that light is)

Story characters, just like some people, often set out to get rich, to make money, to amass wealth. We like to read stories about the wantonly rich. The TV Show Colombo was about an ordinary Los Angeles Detective who investigated murders among the grandly wealthy the city is known for. His rumpled trenchcoat became an icon!

There is a fascination in how the "other half" lives. And in the USA, it is possible for the poorest among us to become the richest. So we're fascinated to a purpose.

Often, wealth is chosen as a goal. And we read many stories about people who became "hard-hearted" as they pursue that goal.

Cliche: Money Is The Root Of All Evil.

How can that be if one whole quarter of Jacob's Ladder, the path to Heaven, is formed of Pentacles? The Suit of Coins?

What's wrong with wanting to be rich?

Nothing, unless you choose having a lot of money as a goal.

Maybe that's the whole secret of it! Wealth is not a goal. It is a side-effect. Wealth is a side-effect produced by the pursuit of self-knowledge and spiritual health that lets you love and let yourself be loved.

Remember, Jacob's Ladder is the conduit down which G-d's love flows into the world, and it is also the circuit diagram of human personality-soul-spirit.

Perhaps wealth is chosen as a goal by those who despair of ever knowing love. Or perhaps they believe if they're rich enough, they'll be loved.

How many Romance novels involve a young woman yearning for the rich scion of a Titled family?

If wealth is chosen as a goal in itself, you may achieve it and never know you've made it. Or you may think you have it made only to have it all evaporate. Or you may star in one of those movies where the elderly Grandfather is dying in a huge four-poster bed, and the children are sniping at each other all over the mansion, vying for shares of the fortune.

We yearn for riches as much or maybe more than for love. Why is that? Why do we worship the almighty dollar which is represented in Tarot by the Suit of Pentacles?

There is a relationship between wealth and love.

When we feel G-d's love, we feel wealthy even if we don't have much. When we don't feel G-d's love, no matter how much wealth we have, we feel poor and use our wealth to batter at that internal barrier (hence celebrities with a $17,000/month party budget).

The 6 of Pentacles is all about puzzling out how that relationship between love and money works for you right now.

The key is to realize that money is not the root of all evil, but rather the conduit through which G-d's love flows into manifestation.

If you attempt to stand in the way of that downrushing flood more powerful than Niagra Falls, you will be swept away as surely as so many celebrities with wasted lives.

If you become an extension of that conduit, then the event that marks the 10 of Swords process (which underlies 6 Pentacles) will be a culmination of your actions resulting in filling you up with love to give.

Let's look in on our writer who gritted her teeth and started writing her first novel in Ace of Swords, and eventually had her packaging go all awry, then made changes, and finally began another novel in Ace of Pentacles and found herself building a career in 4 Pentacles and lost her confidence in 5 Pentacles.

Guess what's happening to her now that she's worked that second novel down to 6 Pentacles.

She's just been offered a FILM OPTION on her second book! That's 6 of Pentacles -- something you earned in a past life but didn't get, a big break, a leg up when you really need it, a boost you couldn't create for yourself, just "falls into your lap." I suspect many "rescuer" novels are primarily inspired by this kind of event half-remembered from a prior life and misunderstood in today's model of the universe.

To others our writer's good fortune looks as if a fumbling, incompetent beginning writer (they always blame the author for the cover) got unreasonably lucky with her second novel and got a film option. She couldn't possibly have earned it more than someone working for decades in the industry.

Well, she didn't earn it now. She drew some capital out of the karmic bank, or possibly a loan against collateral. Because of that, the right person for her got the editorial job and inherited her book contracts.

Or perhaps someone with a big karmic debt (not to her, but just a debt) was drawn to pay off that debt. The love that should have flowed to our writer splashed sideways and hit her new editor who happened to send an ARC to this producer who was moved to give because he loved her book.

Why did he love her book? Well, he didn't love her book. He just loved.

Now our writer is all excited and energized again, toiling away on her third and fourth books, working with self-confidence, once more sure that what she has to give will be well received.

And because she is glowing with all this love, she will do as well with these new novel contracts as her skills permit. If she worked hard enough acquiring skills before her first sale, she will now be able to deliver the goods. If not - she won't have the follow-up success needed to continue the build.

This writer has chosen as her goal to gift-wrap her heart and soul in order to give it away as stories. She has poured love into those stories, unstintingly, and when she's empty, love will pour back into her. Her chickens will come home to roost and lay many eggs.

6 of Pentacles Reversed happens when goals aren't chosen well, usually for lack of sufficient energy in the execution of plans.

6 of Pentacles Reversed feels like being held back a grade and having to repeat the lessons of giving and receiving, of charity and discipline of creating karmic credit.

In the Reversed process, wealth is not understood as a side-effect but as a goal on the road to power without self-knowledge.

It took knowledge of yourself to select the the right bits to discard in 5 Pentacles in order to re-enter the flow of the social contract in 6 Pentacles by receiving.

One last caution. Don't judge how well people are doing spiritually by how much wealth they have amassed, or by how "lucky" they are getting "all the breaks."

Someone can be doing splendidly in one area, with one project or one part of life, and be completely messed up in all the others. Humans are complex and develop unevenly -- and we all have challenges tailored specifically for our own lesson in this life right now.

The spiritually greatest among us can be the poorest or least lucky.

Remember that when you give to someone who has less money than yourself. You may be giving to the richest person on earth who simply doesn't have money for food at the moment in order to give you a chance to tap into abundance. You would be wise to give with respect.

There is no one answer that will work for everyone. Your right answer today will not be right tomorrow - because you will change. We'll look into that in 7 Pentacles.

But the basic principle is always there and objectively true. The universe is made out of love, and it's love that holds it all together via the social contract.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://www.simegen.com/jl/