The Three of Pentacles tarot card is all about the balance between material failure and financial success. It can show that strength, courage, determination, imagination, and resiliency are the tools you are using to tweak your desire for material failure into financial success. What matters in this card is how you perceive yourself in the context of achievement or failure. Successful spiritual development depends upon your deep inner approach towards wisdom, modesty, and humility.

Keywords

Upright: collaboration, working together as a team, learning, putting into practice

Reversed: discord, misalignment, solo ventures, disharmony

Imagery Description

Three people with different backgrounds and skill levels can come together to collaborate on a project and create something better than what they could have made individually.

The Three of Pentacles represents a project that is being run smoothly, but it could be even better with collaboration. We need to appreciate the people who have helped us get this far and invite them to contribute their ideas. We see this illustrated in the card‘s drawing: The architects have designed a cathedral with towering ceilings, intricate engravings, and stone vaulting.

They are relying on the stonemason to implement their plans. They look to the stonemason with appreciation, letting us (the viewers) know that the stonemason’s work is appreciated and essential to the overall success of the project. There are many details we could go into regarding the imagery description, but the overall message is that “teamwork makes the dream work” naturally; this is the overall message this card brings to us.

While the stonemason sits with his tools apart from the two architects who are holding their plans for the extensive project, it is clear that the architects value the stonemason and acknowledge that his contributions are valuable to the project- despite being the lesser educated of the trio. 

While this description is based on the Rider Waite deck, many other card decks insulate the same sentiment, with most of them depicting the stonemason (clearly the ‘artist’ and less educated of them) as being the link that brings the whole project together. 

Overall, the message is that everyone has an integral role to play, no matter their skills or calling.