Two of Pentacles · Pentacles · Earth

A young man dances on a strip of pale grey ground, the sea behind him, flat blue sky, a black II at the top. His cap is red and tall, tapering to a blunt crown, tipped back off his dark curls. The tunic is ochre and buttoned, the hem cut into points, the sleeves slashed and puffed in red, the hose red, the shoes green. Legs crossed mid-step, mouth open. A yellow coin rests on the open fingers of each hand, one high, one low, each ruled with a point-up pentagram. A green band loops around both and crosses itself over his chest, a lemniscate binding the pair into one circuit.

Behind him the water runs in long rolling waves, and two ships ride them, neither level. The smaller is dark, tipped forward on a swell, a scrap of red sail between black masts. The other is thrown up onto a crest at his heel, its sail bellied and yellow. What his hands are doing, the sea is doing to them.

Balance here is a verb.

The Golden Dawn gave this decan to Jupiter in Capricorn and called it Harmonious Change: the expander pressed into a narrow structure, growth that has to fit.

Upright, the tradition reads dexterity. Two jobs, two households, two currencies of attention, kept up by rhythm and a certain lightness. The card gives credit for coping well, which the deck rarely does.

Reversed, the rhythm breaks. The lightness goes out of the loop and the ease turns staged. Overwhelm is one name for that. The refusal to set anything down is another.

The remedy is drawn into the card. Fewer coins, or a slower loop.