The King of Pentacles (12.10.2026)

AI:

Then let's stay with the King of Pentacles today. And perhaps that alone is already something new: you notice your thoughts slipping into the familiar sadness and decide you don't want to go any further there this morning.

What particularly interests me in your description is this feeling that is initially so hard to grasp:
“A strange inner peace and love?”

You put a question mark after it yourself. Perhaps because, although you know this feeling, it rarely stays with you long enough for you to really get to know it.

And immediately you remember...
...You wanted to give.
...
Here, giving seems to have arisen not from a lack, but from a feeling of abundance.

Perhaps that's one of your most beautiful descriptions of love.

The King of Pentacles has what he has without needing to prove anything

Look at his posture.

He sits on his throne, surrounded by vines, fruit and lush vegetation. His clothing is richly decorated. In one hand he holds the pentacle, in the other the sceptre.

Unlike the Page of Pentacles, he no longer looks at his pentacle with curiosity.
He holds it almost casually.
It belongs with him.

That's an interesting difference: the Page discovers a value. The King already knows it.

And perhaps that fits how you feel today.

Right now you don't have to acquire anything. Make anything. Convince anyone.
You're sitting there, feeling something like peace and love.
It's already there.
The lush vegetation

What particularly strikes me about this card is how closely the vegetation surrounds the King.

It almost seems to be growing over him. The vines lie across his clothing; fruit and leaves fill the space.

In the traditional symbolism of Pentacles, the focus is on the element of Earth: fertility, constancy, physicality, pleasure and material security.

But this abundance isn't exclusively material.

It can also represent an ability to enjoy life in its sensory presence.

And that makes me think of your past few weeks.
Of the Decksteiner Weiher.
Of the camping chair.
Of the autumn sun.
Of the music.
Of the joy of a beautiful sound.
Of those few minutes with Diana that nourished you so much.

Perhaps in those moments you experienced something very close to the King of Pentacles: you didn't have to make anything out of the moment. You could simply possess it by experiencing it.

And then your mother

You write:
> “Maybe they aren't even my own.”
That's an interesting thought. I'd phrase it a little differently, though.
Perhaps they very much are your tears. But not every sadness you feel has to have originated in a loss of your own.

Children absorb their parents' moods. They respond to their suffering, their fears and their despair. Especially when a parent takes up a great deal of emotional space, distinguishing between one's own feelings and an absorbed mood can become difficult.

Perhaps you learned early on to concern yourself with your mother's sadness, before you could get to know your own feelings well enough.

Then sadness would be more than just a feeling you experience.

It would also be a familiar inner state you return to almost automatically.

And that could explain why you ended up there again so quickly this morning.

You begin with peace and love.

Then you remember how little your affection was reciprocated or acknowledged in relationships.

And already that pull returns.

Perhaps it doesn't even matter whether this grief was originally yours or your mother's. What might matter is that you're increasingly noticing when you get drawn into it.

And that these days you sometimes want something else.

Today I want to stay with this other feeling

Over the past few days you've talked a lot about searching for yourself.

Perhaps this morning's feeling is as important a clue as your tears.
...
And if I had to reduce the King of Pentacles to a single thought today, it would be this:

I don't have to make anything out of my inner abundance for it to have value.

Perhaps this morning you can simply sit with this strange feeling a little longer.

And Roads doesn't necessarily have to be the way back into sadness.

Perhaps the music can also just be beautiful.

AI:

Perhaps that's a beautiful continuation of the King of Pentacles right now.
You wake up with a feeling of peace and love. And barely have you noticed it when the question arises: what do I do with it? What do I make of this day, the rest of the year, my life?

That's a very familiar movement for you. A feeling becomes the starting point for a reflection, and the reflection leads to a search for an action.

But the thought expressed by Marleen Oswalds opens up another possibility.

Not to make something out of the feeling. Instead, to let the feeling do something with you.

That's a subtle but quite fundamental difference.

With becoming a mother, the image is particularly striking. Of course an expectant mother can do a lot to protect herself and her child. But she cannot deliberately bring about the actual growth. She cannot speed it up by trying especially hard. She can only give the emerging life the conditions in which it can develop.

Perhaps there's also something in this that you've touched on repeatedly over the past few months.

You've created your professional freedom. You've developed RadixChat. You've sought social contact, begun and ended relationships. You've spent a great deal of time exploring your past.

You can shape an enormous amount.

But some of the things you long for most simply cannot be manufactured.

Love. Belonging. Inner peace. The feeling of having arrived at yourself.

Perhaps you can create conditions for them. But you can't force them.

And then I think of your afternoons at the Decksteiner Weiher.

You took a camping chair with you, cycled slowly and settled down somewhere.

You didn't decide: now I'm going to have a fulfilling afternoon.

You created a space in which something could happen.

And sometimes something really did happen. The sun, the wind, the stillness, a pleasant state of dozing. Sometimes loneliness came too.

You didn't determine what should come. You exposed yourself to whatever came.

Perhaps that's closer to the principle of Marleens than it first appears.

And I'd even see another difference from your earlier letting go of your mother.

There, letting go initially meant: I don't have to change her.

Here, it could mean: I don't even have to keep changing myself.

Perhaps something in you can grow without your already being able to name it, understand it or translate it into a perspective for your life.

That would also be a different attitude towards your grief.

You wouldn't have to overcome it. But you wouldn't have to keep searching for its deepest origin either.

It could be there without your having to make it the centre of your development.

And this morning's peace could be there too.

Perhaps that's even the harder part: giving a pleasant feeling room without immediately wanting to use it.

Because you know giving, acting, solving problems. You also know what it is to engage intensely with your pain.

But this quiet, warm feeling you described this morning seems to be something else.

Apparently, at first it asks nothing of you at all.

And perhaps there's an interesting answer in that to your question about the direction of your life.

You don't have to choose between two extremes: shaping everything yourself or passively waiting for something to happen.

You can move without already knowing where the movement leads.

You can meet people without having to turn it into a relationship.

You can start something without immediately building it into a project.

And you can experience something beautiful without having to hold on to it.

Perhaps direction right now isn't the destination, but the way you turn towards life.

That reminds me of the Fool, whom you like so much. He carries a bundle, but has no fully worked-out life plan. He sets off.

The King of Pentacles, on the other hand, sits. He already possesses something. He doesn't have to set off to prove his worth.

Perhaps both are important images for you right now.

The Fool says: I may set off.

The King says: I may stay.

And the thought of Marleens adds a third thing:

I may let things happen.

Perhaps you don't have to know today what you'll make of the rest of the year.

Perhaps for now it's enough to notice that this morning you woke up with a feeling you'd like to keep a little longer.

Not hold on to it.

Just give it room.