I am the Ace of Pentacles, and I have been pulled 4,000 times. Not once did anyone ask how I was doing.
They always want me for my money. Or what they think is my money. They slap me down on a velvet cloth, their fingers trembling with greed or desperation, and they whisper, “Finally. Something solid. A new job. A windfall. A beginning that means something.” And I sit there, golden and gleaming on my little patch of earth, and I think: You have no idea what I’ve been carrying.
Let’s talk about the Inheritance Tax Audit of the Collective Unconscious. You think that’s a metaphor? It’s not. It’s my life. Every time someone pulls me, they’re not reading a card—they’re auditing a debt. My deck-mates get to be dramatic. The Tower gets to scream, “Chaos!” and everyone nods wisely. The Death card gets to be profound. The Moon gets to be mysterious. But me? I’m the boring one. The practical one. The one who shows up and everyone says, “Oh, good, a solid foundation.” Like I’m a brick. Like I don’t have a soul.
But I do. And that soul is tired.
I remember the first time I was pulled. It was 1492, or something close. A merchant in Florence, sweating over a ledger. He wanted reassurance that his next shipment of silk would triple his fortune. He held me up to the candlelight and said, “Ah, the seed of prosperity.” He didn’t notice that the seed was also a tomb. He didn’t ask why I was holding it so tightly. He didn’t ask if I was cold.
I’ve been pulled by a woman in a cubicle who wanted a promotion she didn’t deserve. She looked at me and said, “Yes, this is about my raise.” I wanted to say, No, this is about the inheritance you never processed—the one from your father who told you you’d never amount to anything, and now you’re trying to buy his approval with a corner office. But I can’t speak. I’m a card. I just lie there, glowing, while they project their tax evasion onto my gold.
And the audits—oh, the audits. You think the IRS is bad? Try being the card that gets pulled when someone is about to lose everything. They don’t see the pentacle as a gift. They see it as a liability. They see me and think, Great, now I have to be responsible. Like responsibility is a punishment. Like I’m the one who made their life boring. I’m the one who made them get a 401(k) instead of a plane ticket to Bali. I am the card of “you should have saved for retirement,” and in the collective unconscious, that makes me the villain.
But here’s the thing you don’t understand about the Inheritance Tax Audit: it’s not about the money. It’s about what you’re hoarding. Every time someone pulls me, I see their ledger. I see the unpaid debts of their ancestors—the guilt, the shame, the unspoken rules about what you’re allowed to want. I am the card that says, “You can have this, but only if you’re willing to be audited.” And nobody wants to be audited. They just want the pentacle. They want the new job, the house, the relationship that feels stable. They don’t want the paperwork.
I was pulled last Tuesday by a man in a leather jacket who wanted to know if his startup would succeed. He looked at me and said, “Okay, so this is about the funding round.” I wanted to say, No, this is about the fact that you’ve never finished anything in your life because your mother died when you were seven and you’ve been trying to build a monument to her ever since. But I don’t say that. I just sit there, shiny and silent, while he takes a photo for Instagram.
I have been pulled 4,000 times. I have been a sign of prosperity, a warning against greed, a symbol of new beginnings, and a reminder that the earth is cold and hard and doesn’t care about your feelings. I have been misunderstood, misread, and mishandled. I have been called boring, practical, safe. I am none of those things. I am the card of the inheritance you didn’t ask for and the tax you can’t avoid. I am the card of the seed that grows into a tree that eventually kills the house. I am the card of the gold that burns your hands.
So the next time you pull me, I want you to ask me one thing. Just one. Ask me how I’m doing. Ask me if I’m tired of being the one who has to hold everything together while the rest of the deck gets to fall apart. Ask me if I ever wanted to be something else—a sword, maybe, sharp and reckless, or a cup, full of wine and forgiveness.
But you won’t. Because you’re too busy auditing my gold to hear that it’s crying.