Minor Arcana, Pentacles
Seven of Pentacles
patience, assessment, harvest, business
Upright
Leaning on a hoe, a farmer looks at coins growing on a green bush. Waite calls the meanings contradictory: money, business and barter in the main, with quarrels in one reading and innocence in another. The image shows a pause to judge the work so far.
Months into a side business or a long course, stop and measure what has grown. Count the hours and the results honestly, then decide whether to keep tending, change the method or stop.
Reversed
Waite gives one specific meaning for this position: cause for anxiety about money someone proposes to lend. That may be money you lend or money you borrow.
A friend asking for a loan or a relative offering one deserves a calm talk and written terms. Lend only what you could afford to lose. This is no forecast of repayment or returns, so consult a qualified financial adviser for larger sums.
A card is a prompt for reflection. It cannot promise a result, and it is no substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.
In Waite's words
Upright: These are exceedingly contradictory; in the main, it is a card of money, business, barter; but one reading gives altercation, quarrel—and another innocence, ingenuity, purgation.
Reversed: Cause for anxiety regarding money which it may be proposed to lend.
From A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), Part 3, on Wikisource. The meanings above are by Cast & Chart.
Card art by Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.