The Archetype and The Tarot: The Angel and Eight of Pentacles
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The Angel Archetype
The Angel archetype is most often seen as an intermediary between us and the Divine. In this capacity, The Angel can act as a messenger, guardian, protector, guide, or healer. When I looked up the etymology of the word, I found that the Old English word for angel is aerendgast, which literally translates to “errand ghost” (omg, I love that!). When I put all of that together, what I see is a being with a super helpful spirit.
On the light side, this pattern can show up as someone who appears in a moment of trouble with the exact help that’s needed. This is a pattern that most of us can recognize, whether in ourselves or others. When someone arrives with the jumper cables, grocery money, warm food, or whatever might be needed—and asks for nothing in return—we often call them Angels.
The shadow Angel can be what is commonly thought of as a fallen Angel. Personally, I don’t want to perpetuate the concept of binaries like good and evil, so I tend to simply think of a fallen Angel as one who takes pleasure in others’ pain or misfortune. Sometimes a shadow Angel looks like someone who puts on an insincere or inauthentic angelic countenance. Most commonly, however, the shadow side of the Angel appears as a pattern of helping others at the sacrifice of one’s own wellbeing. Similar to the shadow Martyr (but with a different motive), and the shadow Rescuer, this aspect of the shadow Angel gets a sense of self (or identity) from being the needed one. It can be a dangerous position because, in it, we rely on others’ misfortunes in order to feel whole.
Some questions to consider this week:
Am I beyond my capacity to be of service?
What are my motivations for wanting to help?
Am I a channel for Divine assistance?
When have I been helped by an Angel?
Eight of Pentacles
In this card, we see a figure sitting on a workbench, chiseling away at his pentacles. They already have six pentacles completed, which are hanging up for display, one is in-process, and one is stashed away under the bench.
When it comes to making pentacles, this one knows what they’re doing. Through commitment and dedication, they have shown up over and over again, practicing their technique until it’s perfect. In short, they have mastered their craft.
When this card shows up in a reading, it’s usually a call for us to recognize where we have mastery in life. Where have we endured the pain of practice and repetition? Where have we become so proficient at something that we have even been able to improve upon what we’ve been taught?
How do these two work together?
With this pair, what I keep seeing is the story arc of Darth Vader from Star Wars. Starting out as a potent Jedi Knight, he then fell to the dark side and caused all kinds of problems. But in the end, he turned back to the light side and used the skills he’d mastered to save Luke.
Though hopefully less dramatically, we all encounter situations where we can choose to be controlled by not-so-helpful forces, or we can allow the mastery inherent inside of us to shine instead.
I think our guiding question this week is: How might we be of help to others by sharing what we’ve mastered?
This is going to require us to see ourselves as the brilliant geniuses that we are, and so it’s not the time for modesty. I can’t wait to read all about the things you’ve mastered. Let me know in the comments below!
Love this Jenna! I’ve lately been thinking about how far I’ve come with my photography, so that definite strikes a chord with the right of pentacles. Ooof for the angel though, it hits home since I just came out of three days of family events for the holidays, which required a lot of holding emotional space for other people, and now I’m exhausted 😴
I definitely have to watch out for the fallen Angel playing front and center in my life in the desire to 'help' and perhaps feel a false sense of virtue in doing so. Yikes!
Mastery is interesting! When I think about it I realize it flutuates, sometimes day to day depending on my own energy level. However, after being in private practice as a chiropractor for 27 years I feel I can finally say I am a master and I gotta tell you, it feels awesome! It took me at least 15 years of diligent practice at getting better to even begin to get there.
Thank you for this great post Jenna and the very special pdf I can keep❤