King of Pentacles and toadstools

caridwen

Towards the left of this card are four or five red toadstools. Toadstools or mushrooms routinely appear on Death cards or cards with Death associations...

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/img/peki.jpg

I'm puzzled as to why they would appear here.

Any ideas?
 

caridwen

Been doing some digging into toadstools.

Toadstools and mushrooms in dreams are:

In a dream, these are indications of stages of stupor or intoxication. it is known that many toadstools contain alkaloids (poisonous substances) which induce such states. Mushrooms and toadstools thus have a sexual significance; the parallel can be seen in expressions like "intoxicated with love".
http://www.dhyansanjivani.org/M_DREAM.ASP

Toadstools are also representative of Jupiter.

In Lyly's Euphues the following passage appears: 'I am of this minde with Homer, that as the Snayle that crept out of hir shell was turned eftsoones into a Toad, and thereby was forced to make a stoole to sit on, disdaining hir own house...'

I can't help seeing a connection here with the snail in the Nine and the toadstools in this card.

Also look at the actual word toad stool a stool for a toad and look how staid and toadlike this king is. Afterall, toadstools grow in areas where there is little movement allowing them time to grow, dank, dark places.

Fungi are without chlorophyll and, like other non-green plants and all animals, depend upon ready-made sources of carbon for their food supplies. For this reason they are of necessity parasites, growing in and upon living animals or plants and preying upon their hosts for the food they require, consuming the reserve materials stored by the latter in their bodies or (and) breaking down the organic substances of which these bodies are actually composed, or saprophytes, using the food products of green plants such as starch and sugar, or living upon organic materials derived from the decay of plant and animal bodies after death.
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/rayner/rayner1.html

There is so much foliage around this king - does it portend resting on your laurels, complacency in your sucess leading to erosion and death of all you have gained thus far...?
 

Sophie

Are they toadstools? I always saw them as red autumn flowers - asters or late flowering poppies. The stalks seem rather long for toadstools, no?
 

caridwen

Helvetica said:
Are they toadstools? I always saw them as red autumn flowers - asters or late flowering poppies. The stalks seem rather long for toadstools, no?

I honestly don't know...they look like toadstools to me:bugeyed:
 

Penelope

caridwen said:
I'm puzzled as to why they would appear here.
You've discovered the "Gnomes" that signify Earth.
Pamela Colman Smith clearly depicted Sylphs and
Nymphs and Cherubs, but her Gnomes are natural,
like the rabbit on the Queen ~ an interesting bun.
 

cormac

wow -- one more thing i hadn't noticed til now :)

thanks for all the info as well cardiwen :)
 

Flavio

Interesting the things that can be developed out of small details... in the Universal Waite, they are white with brownish shades, they look like champignons easily found fresh at markets or canned at supermarket. These mushroms and the grapes seem to be the only edible things to be found in the earth suit. But if in the original RWS they are red, maybe they are poisonous, that changes completly the concept.
 

wizzle

I dragged out my Giant RWS and they definetly look like flowers to me. The one to the right has a bell shape, similar to a morning glory.
 

PhantomAH

Wow!! I never noticed that before.
Interesting.