AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve been following the drama surrounding the proposed White House ballroom. Statements made by the administration that the court only prohibited ground-breaking and that planning would still proceed reminded me of my current thinking on the tarot suit of Pentacles (aka Coins and Disks).

A few years ago I developed a set of what I call “tarot euphemisms” for the 40 Minor Arcana based on various cultural metaphors and aphorisms, and this subject brought to mind my favorite euphemism for the 3 of Pentacles that came from the business axiom:

“Plan the work and work the plan.”

In thinking about it today, I realized that “planning the work” could be applied to the conceptualizing and prepping activities depicted by the first three cards of the suit, and most explicitly by the third one, which picks up where the preliminary scoping of the previous cards leaves off. The Waite-Smith version of the Three appears to show a blueprint being consulted during a pause in the artisan’s labor, while the Thoth card is formally titled “Work.”

Some tarot readers call it the card of mastery, but it is too early in the series to suggest professional expertise so I consider it the “journeyman” card because the effort is being supervised, whereas in the 8 of Pentacles — the true “expert craftsman” card — it is self-directed.

“Working the plan” in accordance with the architect’s vision begins in earnest with the mobilizing of material and manpower resources in the 4 of Pentacles; conforming the physical site to accommodate the architectural plans via “earth-moving” in the 5 of Pentacles; laying the foundation in the 6 of Pentacles; adapting the configuration to the realities of standard construction practice in the 7 of Pentacles; raising the “shell,” roofing and enclosing it in the 8 of Pentacles, finalizing the interior “comfort-and-convenience” appointments in the 9 of Pentacles, and releasing the building for its intended use in the 10 of Pentacles.

This mental exercise was considerably more fun than sticking with the shopworn definitions of the traditional knowledge base and more stimulating than tapping into the intuitive speculation that has been brought to bear on the images over the years, much of which I find to be unconvincing folkloric innuendo derived from subjective free-association. It amounts to a marriage of inspiration, imagination and ingenuity with the fundamental nature of esoteric Earth and the way it plays out in purely mundane terms. This is how I create most of my unconventional definitions for all of the cards, and it beats intuitive guesswork as an interpretive model.