I have a little Yahoo widget on my computer desktop that randomly pops up a new picture from my photo's folder ever fifteen minutes. I was sitting at my desk the other day...staring off into space and musing absent mindedly when the Four of Pentacles (from my Deviant Moon Tarot) popped up in the top left of my screen. I glanced at it, looking at the figures on the card when my eyes suddenly zeroed in on the little clock on a chain around the demon-looking creature's neck.I've drawn this card and written about it a couple of times but I was struck by a sudden insight as I have been lately with any card from this deck...There is a time issue here, slightly reminescent of the character Ebeneezer Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol". The Four of Pentacles is typically the card of the miser. Thoughts of material possessions fill his head, leaving no room for anything else. He is not free to do anything with his life... he can't go anywhere because he is too busy holding on to his coins.
In the Deviant Moon Four of Pentacles, we can see this demon-looking creature linking arms with a rather frightened looking man (clinging pathetically to his Pentacles) and it appears to be pulling him from an empty street into a doorway filled with flames. The frightened man is looking behind him as if seeing his life in retrospect and realizing much too late that all his worldly possessions mean nothing and his whole life was for naught.
There is a lesson here...many people catch on but many do not...Life is too short, too precious to get caught up in possessions and greed, worrying about how to get more, to keep what you have to the exclusion of all else, forgetting that which is of real importance. People are important, loved ones, family, time well spent...kind words that need to be spoken, acts of random kindness perpetuated...where are the areas in which you have been miserly...? How often do you make the time that you can spend with those you love and create wonderful memories?
