The Five of Pentacles appears when there’s a contraction around finances, our values, and our connection to Earth. We usually associate this card with poverty, a scarcity mindset, and worry about the future. I’m in San Cristobal de las Casas right now (a few hours from the Guatemalan border), and despite the real struggle for many families in this part of the world to survive, there is a sense of contentment here. They don’t have the same kind of loss around family structure and deep connection to land + ancestors + traditional language that I’ve experienced growing up in USA that I believe causes soul loss.
Yesterday I visited the Museum of Mayan Medicine. The Mayans had six types of healers: the candle maker, the midwife, the herbalist, the bone doctor, the pulsero (understood disease through strength of pulse and voice), and the Mountaintop Prayer Healer (or Koponei Witz). The Koponei Witz prayed to the spirits of the mountain to be kind to the crops and to provide for the people. They had direct communication with the land and a vital connection that we’ve lost long ago, but that many people are trying to recover now as we remember the importance of revering the land and our ancestors.
I thought of how the fives are connected to the Hierophant. In the town I visited, there is a police force and a spiritual council. They work together with the community to keep peace. The church is filled with leaves, flowers, candles and mirrors instead of saints and pews. People come to this spiritual hospital to have the shaman work on the energetic plugs that are causing disease. Generations of families pass down herbal knowledge and take care of one another financially. Nobody is alone, isolated, or stuck in a care facility. The native language is taught in schools as the primary language, ensuring the preservation of a way of thought. If you’re bilingual, you know that they way you speak changes the way that you think.
It seems to me that the real poverty and scarcity mindset in the Five of Pentacles is the disconnection from land, ancestors, generational support, mother tongue, and deep respect for the environment. When I think of the contrast of living in isolated bubbles eating processed food and no connection to the spirit of the land, I understand the Five of Pentacles in a much deeper way.