There is a difference between the generation of pentacles in the Seven and the generation seen here in the Eight.  The Seven of Pentacles is themed around growth, around cultivation of something that grows with the aid of natural assistance.  In other words, it has help from the cycles of Nature and the forces that create growth in living things.  The Eight of Pentacles shows a man creating pentacles solely through his own efforts.  If he were to stop his craft, there is no chance — even remotely — that the pentacles portrayed would continue to create themselves.  At least in the Seven, if the farmer walks away, Nature could continue to produce the natural abundance on its own.

There is a huge difference between cultivating natural abundance sources (things that grow on their own, with or without your assistance) and cultivating abundance that you have designed and created in your mind to be brought into reality.  In the Seven, the Powers-That-Be play a major role and are helpmeets in your success.  But when you choose to create something new, something from your own inspiration, then you become the Powers-That-Be for your creation.  Then you are both the earthly servant as well as the source of abundance joined into one.

The creator of the pentacles in the Eight is obviously a skilled craftsman.  His work is uniform and demonstrates precision.  He has acquired tools of his trade and knows their value as investments in his work.  What is your work?  Have you practiced it?  Have you spent your money investing in what you need to do your job?

Finally, the pentacles that are being crafted are on display with more in progress and more stored up to also be displayed.  This is a very important meaning in this card.  If the man was merely doing this work for himself, why display them?  Why make so many?  This is obviously work to be shared, perhaps sold so that the energy he has put into his creations can be transformed into money (a different manifestation of wealth and abundance).

When you find your talents and invest in them, they must be gifted to the world for the abundance to continue to flow.  The man in the Seven of Pentacles might be tending something for himself, with or without the intention of sharing what is produced, but the craftsman in the Eight of Pentacles creates something that cannot be consumed but yet must be shared.  After all, what is he going to do with eight identical pentacles?  What is created from Divine inspiration (which all works of art ARE, on some level) must be shared with the world.  That is the difference between a skill (farming/carving) and an art (the making of a pentacle) — the sharing of it with the world.

Lessons From The Eight: Divine inspiration to create a thing requires special effort from you as you are bringing something totally new into existence, find your skills and develop them, invest in the right tools that you may excel at your work, your “art” serves a higher purpose and must be shared to reach its full potential.

Read about the Nine of Pentacles…

Photo of Eight of Pentacles card, art by Pamela Colman Smith under direction of A.E. Waite, originally published by the Rider Company, 1909.