Playing Cards and Decans: Taurus III — The Seven of Diamonds
See the master post on my 2024 decan walk and playing cards
Seven of Diamonds
Taurus III is the decan of Taurus 20° to 29° (inclusive). It is ruled by Saturn.
The traditional English method divinatory meanings for this card are:
- Satire. Scandal. Unpleasant business matters.
- denotes that you will be troubled by the infidelity of your conjugal partner, or lover, and loss of property.
- Unpleasant rumours, scandal.
- Satire, evil speaking.
Reflection
We made it to the end of Taurus! The first sign of this decan walk is complete. A series of negative delineations are in the sources, matching the classic malefic nature of Saturn (sect of your natal chart aside, yada yada). The playing card meanings cover a few different topics — but 2, 4, and 5 focus on ‘evil speaking’ (including satire!), with infidelity and loss of property mentioned by 3.
The image of the decan given by Agrippa is equally morose:
in the third face, ascendeth a man in whose hand is a Serpent, and a dart, and is the image of necessity and profit, and also of misery & slavery.
The holding of a serpent brings to mind the snake card in Lenormand. Mary Hawkins writes that the snake ‘warns you “something is up,” likely in an unpleasant sort of way’ and that generally it ‘symbolizes deceit, betrayal, and complications, particularly in a relationship reading’. The serpent imagery matches with this card extremely well. The undercurrent of infidelity is also worth pointing out, in relation to the theme of speech — to be troubled by infidelity, you need to know that it’s happening (or suspect that it’s happening). While there are many ways of discovering this, either being told directly or hearing rumours are likely candidates.
This flows with the astrological imagery when returning to the base association of Taurus with the throat. Taurus III is Saturn caught in the throat, an unpleasant lump caught in the throat, a symptom of anxiety so common it has its own latin term — globus hystericus.
Let’s look at the Rider-Waite tarot:
Seven of Pentacles
This image is comparatively calm. A. E. White’s Pictoral Key to the Tarot says of the figure looking at the bushes that ‘one would say that these were his treasures and that his heart was there’. White brings in the speech-related imagery of this card in his delineation:
Divinatory Meanings: These are exceedingly contradictory; in the main, it is a card of money, business, barter; but one reading gives altercation, quarrels—and another innocence, ingenuity, purgation. Reversed: Cause for anxiety regarding money which it may be proposed to lend.
Money is the classic concern of pentacles, and the full shrub certainly lends a positive omen for money (this is also reflected in the ‘necessity and profit’ part of Agrippa’s decan image). I interpret the quarrels and altercations it can lead to as a possible outcome of those blossoming pentacles. When one’s heart is entirely in the pentacles, everything else can be left behind — leading to quarrels, confusion, rumours, and infidelity. The playing cards simply skip the phase of attachment to money, and highlight one possible ending to that story. When gazing at your blossoms, remember the garden around you.
Peace,
⭕