Ace of Pentacles 

Artist: Morgan Shelley

The Ace of Pentacles is a seed. A gift. An offering. A star that we hold the potential to invite into our lives with an outstretched palm. Something that can come to us spontaneously. It symbolizes the initiation of the Pentacles suit of the minor arcana and the element of Earth, which we can use to build, create, and weave new experiences. The light of this card is creativity, interpolation, and new growth. The shadow of this card is a loss of inspiration, a stagnancy of abundance, and imaginative blocks. The six pointed star—often cited as a hexagram or The Star of David, interpretations that I was unaware of when I created my card—appears in the midst of an endless darkness and invites the vessel to reach out to access its gifts. The vessel being a POC was a deliberate artistic choice. I live in a racialized body and it is rare for such bodies to be depicted in tarot cards (particularly in the Aces, which traditionally depict hands holding items). St. Kate’s claims to be a ‘minority-serving institution,’ but does it honor us? Ace of Pentacles is an invitation to become all that we are no matter who we have been told or forced to be in the past. For all POC, Queer, and dis[abled] creatures, it is an invitation to forge our own narratives, a gift in a world that tells us who we must be the moment we open our eyes.