Meditations on the Nature of Nurturing: Queen of Pentacles

The Queen of Pentacles or Coins represents abundance and practicality. As with many of the court cards in the tarot, these characteristics are more than likely associated with a person than with a situation. She is nurturing and protective as well as financially astute (shocking that the Queen of Coins is good with coin!). She also represents fertility which is often manifested as business or materialistically fertile, but it could also represent physical fertility (there’s a wee rabbit at her feet in the Rider-Waite deck).

This generous, nurturing queen of the Earth’s bounty is meant to represent a period of nurturing — whether that is a home, a garden, a business, or a person. She is a person who is orderly, and understands how to bring forth abundance and results. When it comes to matters of how to grow and encourage things to bring forth all that they can, it’s wise to seek her counsel. As a master caretaker she also serves as an archetype of an adept parent, and this card often appears if the querant is thrust into the position of carer.

Many decks focus on a lush color set for this card, bringing out the abundance in greens and golds that dominate the suit of Coins. No deck of mine demonstrates this better that Ciro Marchetti’s Legacy of the Divine Tarot, whose Queen of Coins is dressed in green and gold, with a blazing bright pentacle behind her, and set at her third eye. This card emphasizes the feminine receptiveness of the entire suit of coins, while also showing the queen’s ability to both visualize and manifest.

When reversed, that caring energy is turned inward, towards self-care and self-reliance. It might represent a desire or drive towards retreating to care for your needs, or it might represent falling through financial nurturing and care to the point of materialism. Reversals can also indicate a Queen detached from her reality, withdrawn into a bubble of her own design. She can serve as a warning that your focus and therefore your priorities are not in the correct order.

The Queen of Coins is a chance to take stock, and find the beauty in all that is around you. Meditations that focus on self-compassion, mindful awareness, or gratitude are well advised when this card appears.