Decan: 20°-29° Taurus

Dates 2024: 11 May – 20 May

Ruling planet/luminary: Saturn

Zodiac sign : Taurus ~ Fixed Earth 🜃

Tarot card: 7 of Pentacles

Golden Dawn Title: Lord of Success Unfulfilled

Associated Major Arcana:

The World (Saturn) & The Hierophant (Taurus)

About The World being Universally “fine & wonderful”

Before we get started, here’s a little Tarot throwback:

As a teenager of the late 1980s, sitting around the kitchen table at my best friend’s house, we used to spend endless hours playing with her battered Sheridan-Douglas Tarot deck (original 1970s edtion). She could read Tarot because her mother (an Astrologer, Rebirther, Jungian Therapist and Author) brought her up on it and had gifted her that old deck.

Just this week I have been lucky enough to spend some time with both those two brilliant women! Daughter and mother.

A couple of nights ago I sat up late at my kitchen table with this old friend, now herself a published author and screenwriter. We flipped through a my (less battered) copy of the Sheridan-Douglas Tarot alongside a Tarot cheatsheet that she hand wrote for me to go with my first Tarot deck (a pocket Marseille) that she bought me when I was in my 2nd or 3rd year of University. Aeons ago.

I mention all of this because back then, playing with Tarot as teens in the the 80s, we considered The World card to be always and forever nothing less than the card of “Everything will be absolutely, unconditionally, universally fine and wonderful. The end.”

I guess we must have needed that in amongst all the teenage angst as an antidote to all the Swords and other dark cards we might pull.

But was it true?

Where does the rulership of Saturn come in to all the “fine and wonderful”? And how does that sit with 7 of Pentacles?

What energy does Saturn bring to the World?

What Saturn brings to the World is discipline, dedication and patience. Also known as the God of Time, this great planet may indicate periodic generation and regeneration – the completion and achievement of a cycle of growth! And such cycles might relate to the briefest measures of time or to whole lifetimes, to generations and perhaps even millennia.

As with previous Decans, I have found it useful to look at some keywords to see what ideas it may spark about the current Decan of Taurus III.

Earth of Earth ~ 7 of Pentacles

When The World of weighty Saturn is paired with The Hierophant – ruler of Taurus and figure of authority, stability, tradition – in the 7 of Pentacles, we may be brought somewhat heavily down to earth.

Authoritative Saturn in the fixed earthy sign of Taurus is suggestive of quite a heavy energy – and we do see this in the 7 of Pentacles in certain decks. This is particularly true in murky image we see in the 7 of Disks from the iconic 1943 Thoth tarot deck, by Aleister Crowley and artist Frieda Harris.

This version emits a feeling of darkness and inertia and yet I also get a sense of earthiness and hibernation. These Disks could be seeds in the ground (or eggs in a nest) offering the potential for growth given time, the right care and conditions. I get a similar sense from the Light Seer’s Tarot where we see a young man directing his energy into a single plant. We also see the vital roots of this plant pushing deep into the ground.

Here is someone who is patiently nurturing a ‘project’ into which he has already invested a good deal of his resources – time, energy, money maybe. There’s some powerful Taurean energy right there – deeply, perhaps stubbornly, focussed. Intent on a successful outcome.

Here is someone who has faith in a positive result that comes of his effort. And for me this offers a really positive and hopeful spin on the 7 of Pentacles, which presents with such dark names including ‘Failure’ and ‘Lord of Success Unfulfilled’.

Decks: The Spacious Tarot, Thoth, The Light Seer’s Tarot

More on the positive spin ~ the benefit of consistent effort

If I had to rename this card, I would name the 7 of Pentacles ‘The benefit of consistent effort’ or perhaps ‘Lord of delayed success’.

Working through Taurus, a sign that is most driven by the need to succeed and to create security, Saturn teaches us that in order to succeed, and to fulfil our destinies, we must dedicate ourselves to the work that is required to achieve our goals.

Properly directed effort, consistently applied over time gets results.

And Saturn wants to see we get there – by stick or by carrot.

Where we may stumble, however, and suffer the frustration of limited success, is in a lack of patience and persistence. We may fail because we give up too early. Maybe the results we are looking for aren’t coming quickly enough. Failure through a lack of effort may in turn may be due to the fear of failure itself.

Hmmm. This sounds all too familiar to me.

Prompts for 7 of Pentacles ~ Saturn in Taurus

When considering goals both personal and professional

Ask yourself:

• In what area of your life could be giving more effort? Your work, your relationships?
• Where can you put in more consistent effort?
• Are you about to give up, when you should be persevering?
• Who or what needs nurturing and grounding?
• Do you have your feet on the ground? Or are you stuck in the mud?
• Do you fear failure?
• Is the fear of failure holding you back from reaching for your dreams?
• What limits you right now? Who or what has set those limits?
• To what authority must you answer?

Observations and synchronicities ~ on Taurus III

I’m making a space here to return to over the coming days of Taurus III, to add any thoughts, ideas and synchronicities as they arise…

This Decan is an interesting one for me as I have Saturn in Taurus at 21° in my 5th House ~ house of pleasure, children & creativity

I have to be very aware of my inner critic, especially the one that tells me that I do not have time to spend on unpaid creativity, or ‘frivolous’ art projects. But with the current Jupiter-Uranus joint residency in Taurus, taking up the space of my natal Saturn, I have been feeling and have answered the call of such ‘frivolous’ creative pursuits that definitely fall outside my usual zone of business.

So, I have to watch out for the voice that says:

“You will not succeed with this ‘frivolous work’.
You don’t have the skill, the talent, experience, courage or commitment to climb out of your regular box.
You cannot afford to be dabbling in ‘art for art’s sake’.
That won’t put food on the table.
Get back in your box.
Stay in your lane.
KNOW YOUR LIMITS!”

Saturn, The Inner Critic

Of ‘frivolous’ work & the 7 of Pentacles

This was one of many topics of conversation with the dear old writer friend mentioned at the top of the post. She assured me that for a long time 50% of the work she did as a writer was ‘frivolous’, unpaid, unpublished. It was all part of honing her skill and craft as a writer – having the discipline to show up on the page and put in the consistent effort over time.

To keep showing up in the face of actual and potential failure is part of the job – whatever that my be – and it feels like deep 7 of Pentacles stuff to me.

Notes on the Decan Walk 2024/25

For more information on Decans, Astrology and Tarot and how they all synchronise please read this Substack article by Rebeka Kulcsar-Kurdi and T. Susan Chang’s 36 Secrets: A Decanic Journey through the Minor Arcana of the Tarot.

And, if you care to join me for this continuing solar return, you’ll find me on Facebook and Instagram hanging out on the corner of #decanwalk2024 and #decanastrology And I will be following @astroco_op and @tsusanchang

Here’s to another trip around the Sun!