Taurus II: Everybody Wants Some

Six of Pentacles

“No, no, you chose. You chose to get ahead. You want this life. Those choices are necessary.” — Miranda Priestly

During a rewatch of The Devil Wears Prada ahead of the new movie, it occurred to me that opportunities are only gifts when we understand the motivations of the giver. Without that understanding, we lack the ability to employ discernment in deciding for ourselves — to “choose for ourselves,” as Miranda notes to Andy in Paris. Andy spent the better part of a year believing she was the recipient of mentorship, of access, of a rare and generous hand extended downward. She was. But the hand was never open. It was always holding something back.

That’s the Six of Pentacles.

Six of pentacles tarot card

We transition out of Taurus I into Taurus II, and that transition was the Five of Pentacles — the card where we chose the outside path. We chose to leave the structure. Not alone, but still a struggle. We had help, we had a partner in it, but the road was hard and the safety net was gone.

The Six finds us on the other side of that. Either in a more stable, better-resourced place, or standing at the threshold of that stability being offered to us. Either way — inflection point.

Before we get into what the card is actually asking, let’s look at the astrological architecture underneath it. Taurus II is ruled by the Moon and Mercury, with Venus as the sign’s natural ruler underneath all of it.

The Moon is the emotional undercurrent. The ebb and flow. What you feel before you have words for it. The receiver in this card knows something is off before they can tell you why. That’s the Moon doing its work.

Mercury is the zip zap — the orator, the networker, and sometimes the trickster. The performance. The framing. The two coins still in the hand while the scales are held up for everyone to see. We’ll come back to that.

Venus is the hinge. She’s grounded in a way the other two aren’t — beauty with roots to the earth’s core, love that doesn’t need an audience. And she’s the one asking the only question that matters here: are your aims actually altruistic? Not are they dressed that way. Is this truly a gift?

The imagery in the Rider Waite Smith deck shows a merchant, hand extended, dropping four coins into the open palms of a beggar kneeling before him. A second figure kneels to his other side. In his other hand, scales — as though he is weighing his own actions. Note: he’s only dropping four coins. Two are still in his hand. This is not total generosity. There is calibration; something is being held back.

The Golden Dawn calls this card the Lord of Material Success, and its Book T entry is direct: Success and gain in material undertakings. Power, influence, rank, nobility, rule over the people. And if ill dignified: purse-proud, insolent from excess, or prodigal. There is no charitable giving in the original text. The Golden Dawn is simply talking about power, rank, and dominion.

Which makes the Golden Dawn’s description of the figure all the more interesting: someone in the guise of a merchant. Not a merchant. Someone performing the role. And Agrippa goes further. His image for this decan isn’t a robed benefactor at all. It’s a naked man, holding in his hand a key. It giveth power, nobility, and dominion over people. Strip away the costume and that is who is standing in the Six of Pentacles. Not a giver. A keyholder. Someone with access, with dominion, deciding who gets through the door and who kneels outside it.

That’s Mercury’s shadow at work — the trickster, the framer, the one who can make anything sound like what you need to hear.

The first read on this card is about giving. When we are the one with resources to distribute, the card asks us to look hard at our own motivation. Are we giving from a genuine desire to balance the scales? Or are we giving from a need to control — from the elevated position, literally centered in the frame, while the recipients kneel?

Generosity and control can wear the same face. The scales don’t prove fairness, they prove someone is doing the measuring.

The Six of Pentacles is the only minor arcana card to feature scales — an image that pulls directly back to Justice. In Justice, you reap what you sow. The scales don’t lie. But in the Six, the scales are held by someone in a costume. This is Justice cosplay. The merchant borrowed the iconography of fairness to dress up something that is fundamentally about power and access.

Yet the card cuts both ways. If you are the one kneeling — if you walked through the Five, chose the hard road, did it without the safety net — the Six is asking you a different set of questions.

Do you know who is holding the scales? Do you know what’s attached to what’s being offered? The Golden Dawn calls this figure someone in a guise. Agrippa gives us the naked man with the key — power and dominion underneath the costume of generosity. The receiver kneeling in this card may not be able to see any of that. They feel the coins dropping into their open hands and they call it grace.

The question of motive runs through both positions identically. Is this gift given in good measure? Is what’s being offered actually what you need, or is it what the keyholder has decided you deserve? Are you grounded enough — rooted enough in your body, in what you know to be true — to feel the difference?

The Moon says you already know. The question is whether you’re listening.

T. Susan Chang points to the dual rulership of Taurus II as key to understanding what’s actually at play. The decan sits at the intersection of the High Priestess and the Hierophant — the esoteric and the exoteric, the inner world and the outer order. The High Priestess is inner knowing, the quiet voice that doesn’t need an audience. The Hierophant is structure, institution, the imposition of order on an outside group. He speaks outward. He performs.

That tension maps directly onto the card’s central question. When you are the one holding the scales, which of these forces is driving you? Are you giving because something deep and true in you compels you toward genuine balance? Or are you giving as the Hierophant gives — from authority, according to your own measure, in a way that reinforces rather than relinquishes your power?

The merchant in the guise is not a neutral figure. He could be either. The card doesn’t tell you which. That’s the work it’s asking you to do — on yourself, before you open your hand.

The coins are real. But the key is what matters.

Be sure you know what it opens before you turn it.