Question for our Collective Reading: How can humans best transform waste?
The Card: Queen of Pentacles, Minor Arcana
Rulerships: Taurus. Season: Winter. Element: Earth. Colours: Green, Brown. Direction: North.
The Deck: The Rider-Waite Coleman-Smith, first published in 1910.
Lunar Position: I cast the reading during the Waxing Gibbous Moon in Leo, with white sage and compassion. May it harm none.
Card Description:
The Queen of Pentacles is at home under an arbor of red roses in a lush and fertile land. She holds on her lap one single gold pentacle. Creatures of the forest draw near to her. There is a rabbit close to her foot. The soil erupts in red tulips and wildflowers. Blue mountains and clear waters are visible from the queen’s vantage point. Her ruby-red robes are fine, and she wears a gold crown ornamented with a bird. From the crown falls an ankle-length long-green veil. Her stone throne is carved with goats, cows and other animal figures.
Advice:
The answer to our question, How can humans best transform waste? is, in short, by respecting the Earth and all of the creatures and beings that inhabit the planet. This card is all about taking good care of the land while also tending to the health of the human body—your body! Generally, the less you pollute your body, the less you pollute the planet.
Queen of Pentacles is in the suit of Earth, where we encounter our relationship to physical things and all matters of soil and earth. In this card, we are reminded that prosperity and treasure come from respecting and caring for nature and the abundance offered and generated by the planet.
Composting is advised, and considering the theme of this issue, composting toilets and outhouses are too. A long-time dry-cabin dweller, my mind reels thinking about the massive amounts of water wasted by toilets, daily, worldwide. Earth and composting transform waste, while adding waste to fresh water creates, well, soiled water that then must be cleaned, a process that uses an enormous amount of energy. Seriously. Look into installing a composting toilet.
The Queen of Pentacles is a complex card with a simple message for us here: Transform not just the waste itself, but our relationship to waste.
