Minor — Pentacles

Six of Pentacles

Healed, the heroine hands a coin to a young apprentice whose hands are joined in gratitude; beside the closed Book sits a money-changer's scale; on the shelf, six pentacles are lined up. The Six of Pentacles is fair recompense: giving what is due — neither alms nor favour.

Symbolic reading

Tradition shows a wealthy man distributing alms, scales in hand; the DAL shifts the scene from charity to justice: she who knew destitution in the Five does not give charity — she pays what is due, on time, in fair measure. The scale placed beside the closed Book says that equity is a form of knowledge: one learns to weigh just as one learns to carve stone. The young man with joined hands may be her grown son, or the workshop apprentice — the card leaves both readings open, because the lesson is the same: to pass on a craft begins with fairly rewarding the person who is learning it. The six pentacles on the shelf measure the rebuilding: piece by piece, the workshop comes back to life.

Reversed reading

The scale tilts: generosity that humiliates, a debt left unpaid, help given in order to bind — or fair measure restored, on both sides of the counter.

• justice
• recompense
• equity
• generosity
• rebuilding
• transmission