As with all cards in the Tarot, there are pros and cons to the 4 of Pentacles. Let’s begin by taking a look at some of the positive and negative meanings associated with this card.
Positive Tarot Card Meanings for the 4 of Pentacles
- Financial Stability: The 4 of Pentacles represents a strong foundation in financial matters. It signifies stability, security, and the ability to manage your resources effectively.
- Boundaries and Protection: This card reminds you of the importance of setting boundaries and protecting what is rightfully yours. It encourages you to establish healthy limits to ensure your own well-being and security.
- Practicality and Material Success: The 4 of Pentacles suggests that you have a practical mindset and a knack for achieving material success. You are capable of making wise decisions and investments that lead to long-term stability and prosperity.
Negative Tarot Card Meanings for the 4 of Pentacles
- Hoarding and Greed: In its negative aspect, the 4 of Pentacles warns against being too possessive or greedy. It cautions against holding onto things or clinging tightly to money and possessions out of fear or insecurity.
- Resistance to Change: The 4 of Pentacles can indicate a resistance to change or a fear of stepping outside of your comfort zone. It signifies a reluctance to let go of old patterns and a tendency to cling to familiar circumstances, even when they no longer serve you.
- Lack of Generosity: This card may suggest that you are overly focused on your own needs and material wealth, neglecting the importance of generosity and sharing with others. It reminds you to find a balance between your desire for security and your ability to give and support others.
Remember, tarot cards carry multiple interpretations, and their meanings can vary depending on the context of the reading and the surrounding cards. Trust your intuition and consider these meanings as guidance rather than definitive truths.
Feeling into the Energy of the 4 of Pentacles
The 4 of Pentacles (Sun in Capricorn) is often considered a card of miserliness. However looking at the Thoth take on this card (Title: Power), we get an entirely different picture. Bear in mind that all 78 keys carry the full spectrum of meanings between positive and negative or light and dark.
The 4 of Pentacles showing up in a reading can indicate that we need to work on boundaries and generate more stability through our daily habits. Or it can indicate that we are clinging too tightly to things we perceive to give us security. It’s not only toddlers who use security blankets. What can you release today that has been an object of safety and comfort? For some of us, food fills that function.
Strong Foundations
You can’t build a great building on a weak foundation. You must have a solid foundation if you’re going to have a strong superstructure.
― Gordon B. Hinckley
On the plus side, this card provides a firm base and sound boundaries. On the minus side, it can sometimes make us rigid and cling too tightly to what we have. This is due to the combination of Earth (Capricorn) and the number four, a number representing stability.
In essence, the 4 of Pentacles teaches us a positive lesson about the need for a strong foundation. Capricorn is associated with the skeleton in the body and vitamin D – sunlight – is what strengthens the bones.
The trick is to learn to trust our own foundations enough to not fear opening up to change and giving of ourselves. Once those bones are strong enough, use them to give your neighbour a hand!
You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.
― John Bunyan
Affirmation: “I AM rock solid.”
4 of Pentacles Prayer
Dear Mother-Father God, thank you for a solid foundation and sound boundaries. Help me stay open to change and the needs of the world around me, firm in the knowledge that I have the power to flow with whatever life throws at me. Amen and so it is!
Correspondences for the 4 of Pentacles
Planet: Sun
Zodiac Sign: Capricorn
Archangel: Uriel, ruler of the Element of Earth
Gemstones: Black tourmaline
Essential oils: Cardamom, juniper and vetivert
The 4 of Pentacles in Love and Relationships
In a love and relationship reading, this card could symbolise a relationship that is primarily focused on financial stability. One or both parties could have sacrificed their heart’s desire to achieve a sense of security.
Alternatively, it can show that you are not working together financially but that one or both of you are wasting resources rather than looking to the future for the common good.
Power dynamics
There could be a struggle for power and control in a relationship that falls under the dominion of this card. You are examining who stands to gain the most from every decision and this is creating a sense of oppression in the relationship. One or both of you could be withholding or stonewalling the other.
You need to learn to be more generous and forgiving with each other. If you can’t get a sense of a win-win relationship, then it may be time to move on. The presence of Death or the 10 of Swords with the 4 of Pentacles is a sign that the relationship is over due to withholding and power dynamics.
Single and looking
To a single person, this card could indicate a need to strengthen personal boundaries and learn to say no, especially when reversed. Upright, it could simply mean a need to loosen up and let someone in. Needing to be in control at all times is a surefire way of staying single.
Intimacy
On an intimate level, this card could indicate a need to learn to let go of control and surrender to the beloved. There is a deep-rooted need to feel safe first and this need should be honoured. Then gradually introduce fun ways of learning to relinquish control.
Take me to the Angelic Tarot Card Meanings Index