may 2025: five of pentacles // bite the hand

hello, friends. our card for this month is one that can be challenging even in the best of times, due to its common associations with illness, scarcity, poverty, and struggle. especially in this time of fascism and dictators, of MAGA and forced birth, of tariffs and kidnappings and anti-vaxxers, you might not be excited to read an essay about this particular card.

but the five of pentacles, in its generous wisdom, offers both acknowledgement and medicine for the challenges we face.

if you've gotten even this far into reading, if you're interested in thinking about how this card might actually have some joyful, potent support for you in this moment, i'm grateful for you. it's not easy to be brave, to consider uncomfortable ideas, to slow down and ask tough questions and sit in the tension. yet here you are, doing it anyway.

i'm glad we're here, together. i'm glad we can find courage in one another. i'm glad we can keep dreaming of futures overflowing with love and safety and compassion, with the magic of differences, with rebellion and imagination and freedom. i'm glad we can keep going, keep showing up, every day — in new ways and also in the same ways, the consistent ways.

let's consider what the five of pentacles might have for us, in this moment.

in spite of health and wellness influencers insisting that getting a million grams of protein a day and obsessing over "cortisol face" and using a little stepper for several hours at a time will make you healthy and happy and beautiful and energetic, for most of us, our relationship with our bodies is not so easily soothed. bodies are complicated, and every body has its own challenges — even for folks who would typically consider themselves non-disabled, neurotypical, and generally healthy.

it is hard to live in a body sometimes.

i'm not immune to these kinds of suggestions, these so-called "hacks" for healthy, pain-free living. as a severe lifelong insomniac, as someone with major depressive disorder, as someone who is finally in recovery from a long-needed surgery after a decade of debilitating pain, i have fallen victim to plenty of internet promises about what might help. (i even own a little stepper.) and while there can be joy and satisfaction in consistently tending to our bodies in ways that genuinely feel good, there is also a profound power in understanding how to listen to our bodies, how to be flexible with our own expectations and limitations, how to honor where we are each day instead of holding ourselves to the same high standards all the time.

this is the five of pentacles: living honestly, in the reality of challenge.

if the four of pentacles is often interpreted as imagined scarcity or feared shortages, the five of pentacles can speak to the real thing: real illness, real poverty, real lack. these are card images of unhoused people begging for aid, folks struggling against difficult weather and unkind conditions. ironically (or unironically) these souls in need are often begging for help next to fancy doors and stained glass windows, reminiscent of a church or place of worship.

many readers interpret this card as a call to accept the help that is being offered: to not stubbornly say no when we could really use assistance, to not deny our material needs, to not suffer in silence. and indeed, this can be a potent interpretation of the five of pentacles — rather than biting the hand that tries to feed us, we can instead swallow our pride and take the food, or money, or shelter, or expertise, or guidance, or comfort, or whatever else it is that we so desperately need.

but what else does this card have to offer? in a time when we see desperate people around the world begging for the essentials on our social media feeds, when many of us pass unhoused or hungry folks as part of our daily routes, when lifesaving healthcare is being stripped away from children and adults alike, what medicine could a card like this possibly give us?

what if instead of scarcity and desperation, this card is a sign of change to come, and change we choose?

don't bite the hand that feeds you as a phrase feels like the verbal equivalent of a sharp slap on the wrist. be grateful, say thank you, don't betray those who are helping you. it's a parent encouraging a child to say thank you (and that child doing so in a bored, begrudging tone), or a reluctant acknowledgement of someone offering advice that we perhaps didn't ask for or don't want. it's our elected representatives telling us to shut up and eat our food, instead of asking for more. it's a doctor telling us to "just lose weight" as some sort of magical solution to any health issue.

don't get me wrong here — if someone is being truly helpful, generous, kind, it's worth recognizing. but sometimes the help that is extended isn't actually that helpful, or may even be unintentional harm. the hand that feeds you might be offering you a loan that you can't pay back, expecting you to conform to their rules in order to receive what you need, judging you for what you can't access, or setting up an expectation of reciprocity that you aren't interested in continuing.

maybe those hungry folks outside the five of pentacles church aren't too proud to accept help. maybe they're just waiting for a kind of help that they actually feel safe accepting.

not all help comes without strings. and as we're seeing play out here in the united states, what helps one person may harm another. what looks like assistance might actually be a trap. what is framed as a benefit could be exploitative. in this particular moment, we all have to be more deeply on guard about what information we share, who we ask for help, and what kind of care we can really trust in — which is spiritually draining, mentally taxing, emotionally exhausting, and means that we might feel it's simply easier to do without.

the five of pentacles knows all of this, and doesn't flinch away from it. five as a number is one of conflict and freedom simultaneously; the challenges that come when we realize that our current situation or direction isn't working for us and we need to make change in order to make progress — and the friction that exists when we need something we can't immediately find, or when we crave something that we may have to look for. it's not a comfortable number, but it does allow us to break free of the old and find a new path forward.

within the suit of pentacles and the element of earth, the five navigates challenges in the physical realm. while you may feel well equipped to navigate conflict in relationships, or creative projects, or perspectives, or emotions, supporting our bodies or resources or health or wealth through this kind of shift can feel scary and unsettling. our homes, our physical vessels, our need for comfort and pleasure and satisfaction, are all important tenants to supporting everything else that we do. when those grounding elements are in flux, it can quickly disrupt everything else.

pentacles may be associated with steadfastness and stubbornness, an ability to keep putting one foot in front of another. but paired with the changeable, adaptable, adventurous spirit of the number five, we find shifting sands in place of solid stone. as our values and needs clarify, so do our methods of achieving them.

and when we get more confident in navigating this kind of mutable discomfort, it can empower us to fully chase after what we want, instead of wishing we didn't want or need it at all.

right now, i am feeling increasingly desperate to grow my own food. i'm the cook of the house, which means i do all of the weekly planning, source all of our groceries, prep all of our ingredients, and assemble all of our daily meals. at my best, this chore is a joy: my stacked 6th house loves to care for people, to cook for my beloved and my friends, to carefully attend to food sensitivities and preferences, to put together new meals and flavor combinations, to weave magic into the mundane every time i enter my kitchen. it's deeply satisfying work.

but groceries are expensive, my kitchen is small, and my social media feeds are imploring me to start a vegetable garden in order to survive the tariffs. every other video or post is about growing food, guerrilla and container gardening, sourcing inexpensive compost, assembling raised beds, starting seeds from grocery scraps, on and on and on. it doesn't help that i'm also reading newsletters about villaging and various styles of communal living, longing for green space and nontoxic soil, dreaming of bits of land to share with friends who are eager to tend it with me for years to come, hoping to someday host group meals and share resources and have consistent access to an overabundance of fresh vegetables and herbs and honey.

i crave it. i'm hungry for it. i know what kind of future i want to build, and i wish i could start building it right now.

but trying to figure out a way to honor this desire has been frustrating, to say the least. the small bit of land i do have access to is shared with people who don't respect it, our indoor space is lovely but too small for real gardening, and i've already had to install grow lights near our brightest windows to help supplement the limited sunlight we get each day. our nearby community gardens have years-long waiting lists, soil and compost are expensive to source and transport, and i have no idea how long we'll be able to continue to afford living here at all — which means anything i make feels necessarily temporary.

(am i solarpunk now? is this what happens to formerly emo elder millennials who never let go of their angst?)

there are a million reasons for me to not start growing food, to put it off, to wait until conditions are perfect. but instead of denying the urge, i'm giving myself permission to do a little bit, right now, to get started. i've got a few little herbs in pots, and i spend time with them every day. i'm regrowing scallions and mint and lettuce from my grocery scraps. i'm researching dwarf blackberry plants that would stay small for now and could potentially expand once i have more room for them. (i think, i hope, maybe.) i even impulsively bought a little indoor lemon tree, after talking about it nonstop and then spotting one at my local plant shop. (jeanna named her lemon breeland.)

these compromises and new starts are ways of tending an immediate physical need, of creating a self-sustaining resource that saves me a little money on fresh herbs and maybe someday, vegetables and fruits. but they're also ways of honoring this growing desire, of demonstrating to myself and the universe that my dreams are not foolish, that my plans are worth investing in, that this path is possible.

i am literally growing things that will sustain me and my beloveds, putting down roots in a way that's still flexible. and in this way, i am gently building a path towards the future that i want, one tender leaf at a time.

the five of pentacles isn't just about what you don't have, or can't accept, or are afraid to want. it's not about forcing ourselves to suffer through a gratitude practice rather than fully acknowledging something we've been struggling without. and it's definitely not about conceding without a fight.

it's instead about a significant, essential, wildly necessary pivot into a new, or more authentic, direction. five's energy is not random, senseless chaos, but instead is a seeking and searching and scrambling for something tangible to hold on to, something that feels vivid and stable in its very changeability.

this card wants you to admit what you physically need (even if that need feels big or weird or selfish) so that you can go find it, in whatever messy expression that may take.

there is stability in chosen change. if that feels contradictory, then that's fine — because it kind of is. but contradictions are not the same as impossibility. contradictions are simply multiple things getting to be true at once, and honoring what it means to try and respect those various facets coexisting. it's okay to need things that don't, on the surface, work together.

it's very reasonable, for example, to crave solitude and independence and privacy, but still also want access to a flourishing, consistent, generous community. it's very reasonable to want to have physical strength and stamina and flexibility, and also to really hate the kinds of exercise you usually participate in that would build those characteristics. it's very reasonable to start trying to grow food, or dream about keeping bees, and still also wonder if those plants will make it or produce fruit or make a difference in the grocery bills.

five isn't about ignoring what you want, what you feel, or what you need. it's not about denying the truth of a thing. it's instead about fully acknowledging those desires and cravings, in all of their messiness and truth, so that you can make the necessary adjustments to start actively pursuing them.

sometimes this means we have to grieve the safety or the health or the stability or the future that no longer feels within reach. other times this means we have to turn down help that isn't actually help. this card can be painful to adapt to, as every choice is a kind of severing — in committing to a direction, we abandon other possibilities. the five of pentacles understands this, and wants you to tend to your hurt, your sorrow, your pain, your rage, with care and compassion.

but the five of pentacles also isn't afraid of what comes next, and doesn't fear the fight ahead. it knows that the only way out is through, and that the only way to begin is by beginning.

as we move into the month of may, a five month, and consider all that this card has to offer, a few questions for you to carry forward:

what are you truly lacking right now, and how is it impacting you? what do you need that you do not have access to? has anyone offered to help you with this need, and did you feel that you could accept that assistance? why or why not?

what are you truly craving right now, and what does that desire reveal about your material needs both present and future? how have you tried to satisfy this craving? how have you tried to justify not needing something?

as you consider your own physical needs and wants, what necessary changes or adjustments might help you see things in a new light? what would it look like to name the need, accept the help, or shift direction in a way that makes those wants and needs easier to envision?

wishing you a month of satisfaction, discovery, and necessary change, friends. stay brave, keep fighting, and don't be afraid to try something new.

and if you're interested in tarot resources on rebellion, courage, and resistance, i've gathered them together on my website and created a new tarot spread collection called rebel hearts, which you can get for free if you preorder my second book!