4 of Pentacles. Greed and miserliness.

      The four of Pentacles is a card about greed and miserliness. Picking out this card has given me the opportunity to really examine my views on greed and stinginess.
    Greed has always been one of those negative traits that has kind of been out there, one that other people possess. Possessed by people who roll around in money and laughingly clutch at their vast array of belongings. I guess Scrooge McDuck, or King Midas comes to mind when I think of greed. Miserliness for some reason speaks to me of a penny pinching attitude, possessed by the poor. Regardless after some reflection I have realised that these fictitious individuals don't really reflect the true face of greed. Often we think of greedy people as being jolly and somewhat corpulent, always wanting more. This I feel blinds us to its true face.
     The King in the card has little regalness.  He hunches over on a simple stone plinth, holding tight to his pentacle. The drab steel grey of the sky and the somewhat muddied colours of his clothing present a somewhat dreary picture. What strikes you about the figure is his attachment to the pentacles, they are on his mind, in his hands and literally under his feet. He is out of touch with everything apart from the material, even the city seems distant.  Everything in his posture talks of tightness and clenching. This mindset exemplifies greed.
       Greed is being so scared about the lack of money, that one holds onto what one has for fear of losing it. This is the real face of it, not laughing exuberance and swimming through money. Charles Dicken's Scrooge was much close to the reality, although his general unpleasantness made it hard to empathise with him. Most people are so repulsed by this exaggeration that they would rarely ask themselves if they are driven or motivated by greed. A better way to phrase it would be, are they motivated by fear of lack?
       Most people's understanding of greed is closer to gluttony. The reality of greed is much sadder. It is a genuine fear of not having enough, it is generated by a poverty mindset. It rarely matters if they actually have enough, the fear is so all consuming that it doesn't allow them to look around and appreciate, they need to consider how to survive. This creates a tension and a tightness. How could they possibly give if they don't even have enough to guarantee their own security!
     In the card you can see a beautifully coloured city behind the seated figure. He seems unaware of it, so concerned with the four coins he holds. The purple robe, now darkened is a remnant of his divine pedigree. The red robe beneath it speaks of the passion and activeness now gone stale and stagnant, his energy simply being used only to hold on tightly to what he holds in his hands. The streak of blue on his robe relates to communication and spirituality, which has fallen all the way to the hemline. It shows that all is not lost, but things are upside down, that his priorities are switched.
       Money has an importance, it is a form of energy. It is a crystallised symbol of a transaction. It denotes a level of power and freedom, but only on the material plane. Outside of this it is powerless, apart from the level of fascination it holds for others similarly entranced.
       This card has one other element which is of importance. It is to do with a closed hand, or a closed circuit. The figure's arms on the card form a closed loop. While he retains a closed grip nothing new can enter the equation, only by opening up and letting go does he allow the greater flow through him. Any situation that remains locked in place cannot be open to change apart from through violent means (see the Tower card!).
     For me this card has allowed me to look at my own interactions with money. It all came home to me recently when I had my first client at the healing centre I work at. His payment was by credit card and it being a holiday, it means that the money will not hit my account until midweek when the cheque clears (from the centre). As soon as I received the cheque, even though I could not cash or spend it, it was already mentally split and spent. This left me with a sense of lack, which is silly given that I hadn't even had the money yet. It is like the demons that need to be pacified hide in the shadows and wait until they see a glint of gold. As soon as this occurs these desperate energies descend like proverbial harpies and it is all I can do to hold onto what I have. I am realising now (thanks to some great advice from Zoe) that I need to wait until the harpies have flown away empty handed before I choose the way in which to apply the money. This will allow me to not give in to panic and end up blowing the money on whichever fear is the most intimidating. It seems so simple and it is a technique I apply in pretty much every other area of my life, but with money it is so easy to lose my head and given in to these pressures. What is worse is allowing these thought to intrude on situations with our combined money since we have had to pool resources to make things work.
    I am hoping that there will be a better way to deal with these concerns than to be paying constant attention to them, but it may simply be learning to be more aware! When this card appears, it is showing us that we are holding onto something too tightly in our life and are not open to an influx of the new, be it a relationship, a new job, more money or even a new way of thinking.