The 5 of Pentacles

Two figures, injured and impoverished, walk in the snow outside of the magnificent stained-glass windows of a cathedral. The scene depicted in the imagery of the RWS deck is one of helplessness, desolation and of being an outsider. Traditionally interpreted as a card of destitution, the 5 of Pentacles is one of the most feared cards of tarot. I have been reading and working with tarot for years, but recently my grasp of this particular card was enriched thanks to Courtney Alexander’s magnificent Dust II Onyx tarot.

The Dust 2 Onyx has me shook

When I first saw the 5 of Coins from the Dust II Onyx, I recognised that Alexander had chosen to display the stained-glass window of the cathedral. A fraction of a second later I realised that the image in the card was actually the famous photograph by Massimo Sestini of a crowded refugee boat off the coast of Libya during the refugee crisis in 2014. This was no cathedral window, this was an image of people risking their lives, leaving everything they know and have behind them to flee the conflict in Syria. Thousands of refugees attempt the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe every year. In 2018 alone there were ten incidents in which 50 or more people died and the crossings have become deadlier than ever.

The image in the the Dust II Onyx, captures the traditional energy of the 5 of Pentacles, but it takes it further by relating it to modern events and experience. This card does not allow us, as the reader, to be disconnected from what we are looking at. Rather than the hand-drawn image of the pauper archetype which we know so well, The Dust II Onyx shows the faces of real-life people. The boat in the image is moving away from the coins as they sink into the sea, a depiction of how these people have sacrificed everything in the hope for a better future, a chance in life.

A deeper connection

As I was looking at the 5 of Coins, the blood drained from my head and I felt instantly ill with a deep sense of despair and empathy settling into the pit of my stomach. The Dust II Onyx had forced me to connect with this card in a painfully visceral way.

The Dust II Onyx is an important deck, not only for what it does for representation, but also because it is truly profound.

I will be reviewing the Dust II Onyx in detail.