Okay, that bear draws my eye. At first I thought the figure on its shoulders was being cruel, poking the bear with a stick or something — but what if he isn’t being cruel? What if that bear isn’t bellowing in pain, but is just showing off?
I confess, I took a magnifying glass to this card, and it turns out the bear is wearing a headstall made of (I think) gold. Chains? And that’s not a stick, that’s a rein (silly me). Now, the bear could snap that fine rein laughably easily, I bet. And the rein is taut, as if the rider can barely control it — yet he doesn’t look worried to me. (Is it a he? Strength is traditionally female, and the figure’s body looks pretty feminine, but the face strikes me as male and I just cant call it “she” somehow.) I think he’s smiling. Perhaps that bear is rearing and roaring for the sheer joy of it, and the figure who rides it shares its joy. Perhaps they have a partnership. Perhaps this is Strength made manifest: the powerful animal-nature in accord with the human-nature.
The figures in the Five of Pentacles are so different from what I’m used to. Merpeople, crowned in gold and floating amongst glittering treasure. Is the treasure sinking? Are they worried? Or have they just found it and are pleased as they raise it to the surface? One of the mermen seems to be trying to leave the water, but can he succeed? Can he live outside the water?
This could mean so many things, I love the layers of meaning. What use is gold in the sea, after all? Might it not just weight you down? And how important is all that treasure anyway? The Five of Pents is about poverty and hardship, and being left out in the cold either literally or figuratively; but perhaps it’s better to stop worrying so much. Let the treasure sink away, and crawl out of the depths of our despair.
Or it could be interpreted wholly differently. Water can symbolise life, purity, emotions, the subconscious… The gold in the sea might represent wealth in one of those areas? Perhaps it’s time to recognise the treasures we do have, and stop trying to crawl into the earthly realm in search of material treasure…
But are the bear-&-rider heading away from or towards those figures in the Five? Is the rider trying to turn the bear, and that’s why the rein’s so taut? And if they go to the Five, will they help them? Or have they just left? Perhaps they have won free of the concerns of the Five, and that’s why they’re so happy and so strong together.
Either way, I think this card suggests that inner strength will help you when poverty strikes, or when you lose faith. These cards complement each other in so many intriguing ways, I could babble on forever! But that’s enough.