march 2025: three of pentacles // roots & resources

hello, friends. before we dive into this month's essay on the three of pentacles, a few reminders:

-i am currently recovering from major surgery (which went very well! thank you for the well wishes!), and will be pretty quiet this month. you'l still get all of the usual 3am.tarot content as newsletter pieces and CARD TALK episodes have been written and scheduled in advance, but i won't be checking my email for a few weeks, and i'll be relatively absent from social media. i appreciate your patience! (and if you are feeling generous and want to send a financial gift to support my recovery, you can do so via ko-fi!)

-because i won't be releasing any new courses for the next month or two (at least), if you've been eager to learn more about tarot or expand and deepen your existing practice, this is an ideal time to join the 3am.tarot conservatory membership program. i also have plenty of other lectures, workbooks, and self-paced courses over on my website.

-some of my beloveds are doing some really cool shit! pallas has a gorgeous new venus rx workbook, maeg just shared a badass new piece on learning fixed stars, jeanna has an amaaaaazing new mini reading available, and a lot of really talented practitioners are participating in a raffle to support an incredible trans woman of color.

-if you have been patiently waiting for me to open up one-on-one mentorship spots, my plan is to do so once i've recovered fully from surgery! sign up here to get a notification when i make this customizable offering available.

-finally, i recently announced that my second book TAROT SPREADS is available for pre-order! you can read the full announcement here, and purchase your copy for delivery in july via bookshop.org.

now, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. take a moment to check in with your body, to grab water or a snack, to release any tension in your muscles, to honor any pressing needs. let's get into the three of pentacles.

at the baptist church i was raised in, the sacrament of communion was a deeply solemn and sacred ceremony — important enough that we did it every single week. a small piece of bread, a small sip of grape juice, and we were partaking in a ritual initiated by christ himself: a ritual that declared to god (and to anyone else who was paying attention) that our faith was rock solid, authentic, true.

when i was a child, i found communion strange and confusing, and had dozens of questions for my parents. ("why do we call it our daily bread if we only eat it on sundays?" and "when i'm hungry can i take a bigger piece of jesus' body?") but over the years, like any good ritual, the lord's supper gained a significance and comfort of its own. it roots into you, creating a foundational support system, weaving magic that binds.

those mandatory, weekly church services and sacraments taught me a lot. i learned how to sit through two hour long sermons without fidgeting, how to sing eight verses of a slow hymn in perfect harmony, how to patiently wait to slip out to the bathroom during moments of transition in the service — but the pageantry of communion was the real test, the loudest consistent marker of authentic, lasting faith. taking communion each week was a choice, one with significant consequences.

anyone was welcome to participate in the sacrament, provided that their personal definition of being a born-again believer matched the church's. but choosing not to take the bread and juice marked you as Other: unclean, unworthy, unsaved. a public confession paired with an empty belly, an outing of sorts. it was expected that those not taking part in the ritual would sit quietly in solemn atonement, humbly pleading for god to soften their heart and save them from eternal hellfire.

because communion was not just a sacrament, but also something of a performance. i was always keenly aware of taking the bread and juice plates with care, choosing my portion wisely, passing the dish on with grace, eating delicately, moving slowly and silently. i knew that my parents were watching, that other adults in the church were watching, that god was watching for proof positive of my worthiness. the witnessing itself was part of the act, part of the point: it was important for me to be seen as someone who understood the weight of the ritual, who took salvation and submission seriously, who was satisfied with this small piece of bread representing a larger-than-life commitment to faith.

does the effort of a righteous act still have significance if you happen to enjoy it? does communion fully count if other people don't know about it, don't see you partake? does a sacrament have to be solemn in order to also be holy?

planting seeds, like anything we build for the future, is a long game. it is known, rather famously, that we don't harvest the fruit the same day that the seed goes into the ground. but — the first time we notice a tender green shoot bursting through the soil, taking its first greedy gulps of fresh air, it can feel like we've won the lottery. all of the dreaming and planning, the careful choosing and the gentle tending and the hopeful effort, have culminated in a sweet little seedling that we can see and touch, praise and delight in. a promise of all that's to come, all that will grow and fruit.

it's a gorgeous, glorious thing to behold: new life, new hope, our vision made manifest. what was once merely a twinkling of the eye is now here, tangible, slowly growing into something bigger each day. it's why three is such an exciting number: we are beginning to see the results of our labor, the manifestation of the dream, the vision come to life. if one is the idea and two is the choice, three is the reality, the first draft, the expression.

but it's not just what's on the surface that matters, when it comes to the three of pentacles. it's also about what lies beneath: what supports the seedling, what grounds the growth, what sustains the expansion, what inspires the quest for more. what is seen and what is unseen (the number three), what is needed and what is sought (the element of earth), what we do daily and weekly and monthly, are all essential to this card's energy and medicine.

the building blocks of this card — the number three's passion for creating something new and real and wild and joyful, combined with the element of earth's desire for slow, intentional, persistent, undisrupted progress — make this a card of the steady, certain joy of an early milestone, an initial manifestation in a long-term effort. this is the first flush of hope, even as we know that more work is ahead.

this is not being afraid to be seen — and recognizing that the seeing, the witnessing, is part of the magic.

when i think about sharing bread and wine with friends and neighbors these days, it's never about expectation, or perfection — and it certainly isn't solemn. dishes being passed between hands, everyone filling each others' glasses, delightedly complimenting what someone brought or made or found, endless sounds of overlapping stories and generous laughter. i absolutely adore hosting meals of all kinds with witchy friends, nerdy friends, old friends, new friends.

and one of my favorite parts, besides that my friends have fantastic taste in wine and snacks, is that we all show up just as we are: in comfortable clothes, not hiding the day's feelings, bringing our joys and our sorrows and our needs and our victories straight to the table.

for me, this is what communion is when it's lived rather than performed: authentic fellowship, casual intimacy, messy exchange. texting local friends to see if they want to attend the local food pantry volunteer training, sharing resources on online action items for the week and asking for accountability in getting them done, creating networks of care to support friends who are having a hard time. asking for help in getting through major surgery, even when i feel like i've already asked for too much help (whatever that means) in the last year. establishing regular rituals of connection. literally telling our people what we're doing, what we're trying out, what we're asking for. letting our love be a tangible thing in our work, our play, our compassion.

it's shared value, shared desire, care and witnessing and offerings: to be able to be beautifully unfinished, perfectly imperfect, making something raw and real together brick by brick. it's remembering that love, too, is a resource. it's slowly and patiently building our own cathedrals, our own holy places for communion and devotion, with their own ever-growing root systems.

communion isn't about who is worthy of accepting bread, of receiving love, of being granted forgiveness or salvation. it's not about performing perfectly, the first time and every time. it's instead about everyone having a hand in building the table, one with room enough for all.

and it all starts with expressing a need, a hunger, for more than what we have.

roots don't grow overnight. they don't appear by magic, manifesting without purpose. they exist to nourish and connect, to stabilize, to open lines of communication. roots, in both plants and people, take courage to begin, faith to strengthen, love to sustain.

as the seed cracks open and takes up more space, breaking its own heart in order to plunge a taproot in the earth and stretch up blindly to find the sunlight, it gathers what it needs along the way, seeking and finding. without the effort, without the exploration, the seed would remain dormant. but it's in the messy breaking and the yearning for more that we find progress, growth, stability, connection. it's in vulnerability and witnessing that we find hope.

in the same way, the three of pentacles isn't about drowning in fear or isolation, wishing necessary resources would fall magically into our laps, hoping someone else happens to make exactly the thing we need so that we don't have to be uncomfortable. the magic of this card lives in respecting what we crave, being willing to try to make it ourselves, and joining our efforts in with the existing systems. taking a risk, and potentially having the reward of deeper stability and support, is its own kind of creative expression.

sharing our victories, and our mistakes, in the name of authenticity.

i'll admit that it seems easier, especially in the short term, not to believe at all in the possibility of a future: to stay cynical, to keep quiet, to tuck ourselves away and hide from change. simpler, less hassle, to abandon any hope of roots at all, to throw up our hands and cry that our government is collapsing and fascism is everywhere and there is absolutely nothing for it except "protecting our peace" and turning off the news and clinging to whatever shreds of normalcy we can find, for as long as we can. after all, we can't be let down if we don't ever hope in the first place.

but that's no way to live. i don't want you covering your eyes and ears, hiding in a made-up bubble of safety. i don't want you surrendering your humanity for the sake of perceived protection. i want you branching out, rooting down, expanding your resources, and building your own hope. i want you remembering who you are, and what you dream of, every goddamn day — so that you can keep sharing it, talking about it, fighting for it.

because faith is a risk, always. and vulnerability is a risk, always. it's always more work to imagine, to create, to express, to share. it's always more challenging to establish a taproot and slowly stretch out into foreign soil, making our way blindly, hoping to tangle our roots with others to find and fashion more solid ground. it's always more energy to believe in a different kind of world.

yet this is the beautiful, challenging, long-term yearning of the three of pentacles: to find joy in the process of rooting, to not abandon our known and not-yet-discovered resources, to share what we have and let others see the beautiful mess of it all. to let our beloveds in to what we're working on, to allow our dreams to be witnessed, to not hide our actions or our ambitions from the world.

to show off what we're making, what we're dreaming of, what brings us daily joy. these things aren't frivolous wastes of time: they are the stuff of life itself.

this consistent work is what we now have, our daily bread. it is our charge, our call, our conviction: to hold out our broken hearts and find those who are doing the same. to dig our heels into the earth and make whatever stability we can, day by day, slowly and perhaps painfully. to stretch our arms up and out, snatching up the sunshine whenever it pierces the storm clouds, delighting in the strange and unfinished birthing of whatever is to come.

those tender shoots, pushing through the crust of the earth, attached to those slowly growing roots, give us a model for what we can also do with what we have.

what does it mean, to be not only in collaboration or connection, but in communion? what is your version of breaking bread, of rooting outward, of expanding resources? which resources do you know you have, and which have you found along the way, surprising or unexpected in their beauty? how are you intentionally taking risks, and where are you willing to explore, to experiment?

who is at your table, and how do you feel when you're sharing what you have, or asking for what you need? whose roots are yours tangled up with?

what is your soil, your sunshine? what shape is your broken heart making?

and as you think about the three of pentacles this month, how can you let yourself cherish the slow growth, and celebrate every single moment of rooting?

wishing you a connected, supported, curious and compassionate march, friends. i'll be back later this month with posts on the numerology of march 2025, spreads for all, and some more ways to work with the three of pentacles. in the meantime, for more writing and resources make sure you explore the archives!