ten of pentacles

My household is changing. Patti, Karl, and Colin will be gone by June. And yet, my household will also remain the same. It is a house of spirits, and it is a house full of life. The first time I walked into it, I felt at home. When we moved in, my then two year old would talk about the “giant in the attic”. At two different initiations - magical weddings to the divine - the initiates, after spending time alone in the attic, talked about meeting a tall ghost who gave advice and guidance on a variety of things. He is not the only one. I know that this house has slew of spirits who oversee our goings on. The bones of this house are ancient redwood, built back before the last century, the house surviving the big earthquake and privy to several generations of stories. The well in the backyard is now covered with concrete, but up until the 1920’s it provided water for the local fire brigade. I can sense the water flowing deep under the ground in my backyard, adding it's harmony to the song of this place.

On the night of my birthday, that mystical door, the house was alive and humming. Many dramas and mythic tales had their origin on that night, all still unfurling. But what remains for me so striking was the variety of generations that partied down within these walls in those hours. There were babies, young children, adolescents, teenagers, and on up. The youngest was under seven months, the oldest above seventy. All seemed to be having the time of their lives.

In the last several weeks, I’ve realized how wonderful it is to have a variety of ages in this household, and how the house seems to invoke it. All of us suddenly want to have Lyra, my teenage goddess daughter, move in permanently. There are a handful of thirty-somethings who would also fit in, but the spirit of this house calls for things to be more mixed, for the chaos of multi-generations to be called forth. Spencer, Lyra’s love interest from my birthday party, and the son of one of my old friends, will be coming to visit soon. The house hums; life goes on, love goes on. Ilyse, Fern, and even my son Casey can feel it.

The ten of pentacles is the tarot card of family ties, of the wealth that comes from interaction with many different age groups. It is a card of comfort and a lesson that what one needs for survival is combined within the power of a multi-generational group’s energy. This house is teaching me about the ten of pentacles. I feel wealthy as a result. There may be a new baby here in a few years, eventually there will be elders who are dying.
I welcome the changes, and more than anything, I trust the spirits of this house, who, like me, love a good party.