🌿 This week in Sage Leaves… 🌿
Greetings, wise ones, welcome to this week's Sage Leaves.
The Queen of Pentacles as a Jungian archetype in transgenerational healing work carries the energy of the Great Mother in her most practical and least romanticized form: the part of the psyche that has learned to sustain what it loves through consistent, skilled, unglamorous care, and that understands abundance not as something received from outside but as something cultivated from within through the daily, deliberate practice of tending what matters.
She arrives this week at exactly the right moment, as we tip toward the year's great hinge: Samhain is approaching, the veil between the living and the ancestral dead is thinning, and the energy of death and dying that the season carries is not morbid but genuinely sacred, the specific quality of honest reckoning with what has run its course that makes genuine renewal possible.
The Queen of Pentacles meets that reckoning the way she meets everything: with grounded, nourishing, practical attention, her gold coin held carefully in her lap, her garden still producing even as the leaves are falling, because she understands that tending does not stop at the threshold of difficult seasons but becomes most essential precisely when everything around it is letting go.
This week, Mercury entering Scorpio turns the mind toward what is hidden beneath the surface; Venus stationing retrograde in Scorpio begins a months-long examination of what is genuinely valued versus what has been held onto past the point of genuine worth; Mars directly opposing Pluto retrograde brings the force of individual will into direct confrontation with collective structural power; and the Last Quarter Moon in Cancer calls for honest emotional evaluation of what is genuinely nourishing and what has been kept out of habit rather than genuine need.
The Queen of Pentacles tends through all of it without drama and without retreat, because she has learned that the most important tending often happens in the most difficult seasons. Alongside this exploration, you will also find the Tarotscope for September 29-October 5, 2026, offering guidance for the days ahead.
The Queen of Pentacles Card As Jungian Archetype:
The Jungian Archetype of Grounded Abundance
She is easy to underestimate, and that underestimation is itself information about how our culture values what she represents. The Queen of Pentacles sits on her elaborately carved throne in a lush garden, a single gold coin held in her lap with the quiet, attentive care of someone who knows exactly what she is holding and what it took to grow it. A rabbit runs freely at the corner of the card. The flowers are blooming. Everything she tends is alive.
In Jungian psychology, the Queen of Pentacles carries the archetype of what might be called the Great Mother in her most practical and least romanticized form: not the idealized, all-giving mother of mythology but the real, embodied, resourceful woman who has learned to sustain what she loves through consistent, skilled, unglamorous care. She is the part of the psyche that understands that abundance is not a gift from outside but a capacity developed from within, through the daily, deliberate practice of tending what matters.
The key word for her archetype is stewardship. Not ownership. Not accumulation. Stewardship: the specific quality of caring for something as if its flourishing genuinely matters to you, as if you understand that what you tend well grows, and what you neglect, regardless of how much you love it in theory, does not. The Queen of Pentacles has internalized this understanding so completely that it has become her nature rather than her discipline.
“The Queen of Pentacles knows something that takes most people a lifetime to learn: that real abundance is not what you accumulate,
it is what you are willing to consistently, carefully, and lovingly tend.”
What distinguishes her from the other Queens is her relationship to the physical world. Where the Queen of Cups tends the interior life and the Queen of Swords tends the truth, the Queen of Pentacles tends the actual, material, embodied conditions of life: the body, the home, the finances, the garden, the practical infrastructure of everything that makes genuine thriving possible. In Jungian terms, she has fully integrated the sensation function: the capacity to be genuinely, attentively present to what is physically real rather than escaping into thought, feeling, or intuition as a way of avoiding the demands of material existence.
Her Jungian shadow is the figure who has confused nurturance with control, who tends so thoroughly that nothing in her care is allowed to grow in its own direction, whose generosity has a quality of management beneath it that makes the people and things she tends feel owned rather than loved. The shadow Queen of Pentacles gives abundantly and keeps the account. She is not always aware that she is doing it.
The fullest expression of her archetype is nurturance without possession: the capacity to give what is genuinely needed, to sustain what is genuinely worth sustaining, and to trust that what has been well tended can eventually tend itself.
Reflection Prompt:
The Queen of Pentacles holds her gold coin with quiet, attentive care in a garden where everything she tends is visibly alive and thriving: what in your life is currently asking for that quality of consistent, grounded, unglamorous tending, and are you giving it the practical, embodied attention it needs, or are you loving it in theory while neglecting it in practice?
🌿Sage Leaves Weekly Tarotscope
Tarotscope for September 29-October 5, 2026
This week carries two Major Arcana, two court cards, and a spread in which almost every figure is absorbed in the past or in their own interior world. Only the 2 of Swords faces you directly, and she cannot see you. This is the week's central visual fact and its most important psychological observation: a spread full of figures who are looking inward, backward, or nowhere in particular, set against a sky of extraordinary astrological intensity. Mercury entering Scorpio, Venus stationing retrograde in Scorpio, and Mars directly opposing Pluto retrograde are the dominant forces. Pentacles are entirely absent.
The Cards of the Week
Tuesday: The Hermit | Moon in Taurus square Jupiter in Leo, Mercury Trine North Node & Opposite Chiron Rx
Wednesday: Queen of Cups | Mercury Enters Scorpio
Thursday: The Fool | Moon in Gemini sextile Jupiter in Leo
Friday: 2 of Swords| Mercury in Scorpio square Mars in Leo & Pluto in Aquarius
Saturday: Ace of Wands | Venus Retrograde Begins in Scorpio, Mars in Leo directly opposes Pluto retrograde in Aquarius
Sunday: 10 of Cups | Sun in Libra opposite Saturn in Aries, Last Quarter Moon in Cancer
Monday: Page of Cups | Moon in Leo sextile Sun in Libra
Tuesday: The Hermit
Tuesday opens with The Hermit as the Moon in Taurus squares Jupiter in Leo and Mercury trines the North Node while opposing Chiron retrograde. The Hermit lifts his lantern high and peers backward into the energy of the previous week, his gaze directed away from what is coming rather than toward it. The lantern illuminates what has been rather than what is approaching.
The Moon square Jupiter creates some friction between Taurus's grounded, patient emotional register and Leo's expansive, self-expressive confidence: the desire to be seen and the need to be still are in tension. Mercury trine the North Node and opposite Chiron retrograde adds a layer of genuine complexity: the mind is briefly aligned with its own evolutionary direction while simultaneously in direct confrontation with the wound that Chiron in retrograde has been quietly excavating.
Tuesday is a day for the Hermit's particular quality of solitary, backward-illuminating attention: not avoidance of what is coming but honest integration of what has been before you can meet what is next.
Wednesday: Queen of Cups
Wednesday introduces the Queen of Cups as Mercury enters Scorpio, the week's first dominant astrological event. She gazes reflectively into her covered chalice, also oriented toward the past, absorbed in what the cup contains rather than in what is approaching from behind her.
Mercury entering Scorpio shifts the planet of communication and thought from Libra's balanced, relational register into Scorpio's probing, transformative depth: the mind now wants to go beneath surfaces, to understand what is hidden, to speak what has previously been unspeakable.
The Queen of Cups on this day is the appropriate response to Mercury's Scorpio ingress: genuine, patient, interior emotional intelligence applied to what the depths actually contain rather than what the surface suggests. Wednesday is a day to let the mind go deep rather than wide.
Thursday: The Fool
Thursday delivers The Fool as the Moon in Gemini sextiles Jupiter in Leo. The Fool skips blithely toward the edge of the cliff, focused entirely on the pleasures and possibilities of this present moment, his little dog barking at his heels, the chasm at his feet genuinely invisible to him not because he is stupid but because his attention is entirely elsewhere.
The Moon sextile Jupiter brings easy, warm, expansive emotional energy: the feeling of possibility and lightness is genuine and available. The Fool on Thursday is not a warning against optimism; he is the specific quality of unguarded, zero-based openness that every genuinely new beginning requires. The chasm is real. So is the sky above it. Thursday asks whether you can hold both simultaneously rather than choosing between the innocence and the risk.
Friday: 2 of Swords
Friday delivers the 2 of Swords as Mercury in Scorpio squares both Mars in Leo and Pluto in Aquarius. The blindfolded woman faces you directly, the week's only card to do so, her two swords crossed over her chest, her back to the great sea of the collective unconscious behind her. She cannot see you; the blindfold prevents it.
Mercury square Mars and square Pluto is a genuinely tense, pressurized configuration: the probing, transformative mind of Mercury in Scorpio is running directly into the forceful self-assertion of Mars in Leo and the structural, power-oriented intensity of Pluto in Aquarius simultaneously. The result is the 2 of Swords' particular form of paralysis: the mind knows there is a choice to be made, the pressure to make it is real and building, and the blindfold remains firmly in place.
Friday asks what you already know about the choice that the blindfold is preventing you from having to act on.
Saturday: Ace of Wands
Saturday brings the Ace of Wands as Venus stations retrograde in Scorpio and Mars in Leo directly opposes Pluto retrograde in Aquarius, the week's most seismically significant astrological day. Venus retrograde in Scorpio is a months-long invitation to examine what is genuinely valued versus what has been held onto out of habit, fear, or the momentum of the past.
Mars directly opposing Pluto retrograde is one of the year's most intensely pressurized aspects: the force of individual will and assertion running directly into the structural, generational, collective power of Pluto's retrograde examination.
Against all of this, the Ace of Wands extends a single living wand: a genuine creative beginning, green with new growth, offered into the exact moment when the pressure to choose is at its highest. Saturday asks whether you can take the wand even while the old structures are being interrogated by forces larger than any individual decision.
Sunday: 10 of Cups
Sunday offers the 10 of Cups as the Last Quarter Moon rises in Cancer, the week's third dominant astrological event. A family stands beneath the rainbow arc of ten cups with arms raised in genuine, overflowing happiness, turned away from you and entirely absorbed in their shared joy.
The Last Quarter Moon in Cancer is the phase of honest emotional evaluation: what has been built is being assessed for what is genuinely nourishing and what needs to be released. The 10 of Cups on this day is both the week's emotional peak and its most honest question: is the happiness it depicts something you are moving toward, or something you are watching from the outside while oriented toward the past like every other figure in this week's spread?
Monday: Page of Cups
Monday closes with the Page of Cups as the Moon in Leo sextiles the Sun in Libra. The Page contemplates the salmon of wisdom emerging from his cup and seems to lean toward the 10 of Cups behind him, offering the cup's wisdom back toward the joy it has not yet reached.
The Moon sextile Sun brings feeling and identity into easy, harmonious conversation. The Page of Cups on Monday is the week's most tender and most hopeful image: the beginning of emotional wisdom being offered in the direction of genuine fulfillment, the salmon surfacing with something worth knowing, the Page not yet sure what to do with it but genuinely willing to find out.
Themes of the Week
This week's arc moves from solitary backward illumination through deep interior emotional intelligence, unguarded innocent beginning, paralyzed blindfolded indecision, a genuine creative offer made under enormous astrological pressure, overflowing familial joy, and finally the emerging emotional wisdom of a figure just beginning to understand what the cup contains.
The dominant visual fact of the week, that almost no figure looks toward the future, is its most important psychological observation: this is a week in which the past is holding most of the available attention, and the astrological events, particularly Venus retrograde in Scorpio, are specifically designed to facilitate that examination. The 2 of Swords facing blindly outward while the sea of the unconscious waits behind her is the week's central image and its clearest instruction.
Suit Composition and Absence
Cups dominate with three cards, the Queen of Cups, the 10 of Cups, and the Page of Cups, confirming that emotional intelligence, memory, and the development of feeling are the week's central register. Wands appear once, in the Ace of Wands' pure creative beginning. Swords appear once, in the 2 of Swords' paralyzed indecision.
Pentacles are entirely absent this week: material reality, practical accumulation, and the patient building of something durable are not this week's concern. The absence of Pentacles alongside Venus retrograde in Scorpio and Mercury in Scorpio is significant: this is not a week for building or accumulating in the material realm. It is a week for going deep, examining what is genuinely valued, and being honest about what has been held onto past the point of genuine value. The earth is quiet this week. Everything is happening in the water and in the fire.
Numerology and Recurrences
The numbers present are 9 (The Hermit), 13 (Queen of Cups), 0 (The Fool), 2 (2 of Swords), 1 (Ace of Wands), 10 (10 of Cups), and 11 (Page of Cups). Five prime numbers appear: 0, 1, 2, 11, and 13.
The 0 of The Fool is the most unusual number in the tarot: it is not a quantity but a potential, a number before numbers, carrying the energy of pure possibility before it has become anything specific. Its presence this week alongside the Ace of Wands' 1 creates a powerful numerical pairing: zero and one, nothing and everything, the space before beginning and the beginning itself. Together they ask whether you are willing to move from the Fool's unguarded openness into the Ace's actual, committed, living new start.
The 10 of Cups at 10 and the Page of Cups at 11 form the week's closing numerical sequence: completion followed immediately by new beginning, the family's overflowing joy followed immediately by the Page's emerging wisdom, as if the spread is showing you what becomes possible when the wisdom the Page is developing is finally offered in the right direction. No cards recur this week.
Conclusion
Venus stationing retrograde in Scorpio is the week's most structurally significant event, and it will unfold across months rather than days. What it initiates this week is an honest examination of what is genuinely valued versus what has been held onto past the point of genuine value: in relationships, in creative work, in the emotional inheritance that the Cups-heavy spread is mapping so precisely.
The 2 of Swords facing blindly outward while the sea of the unconscious waits behind her is your most direct instruction for the week: the choice that has been avoided is the one that Venus retrograde is specifically designed to illuminate. The Ace of Wands is already extended. The question is whether you will take it.
Reflection:
Every card in this week's spread looks backward or inward except the 2 of Swords, who looks directly at you without being able to see you, while the sea of the collective unconscious waits patiently behind her blindfold and the Ace of Wands extends a genuine new beginning into the most pressurized astrological moment of the week: what specific choice are you currently refusing to look at directly, what does the sea behind the blindfold actually contain that you already know, and what would it take to remove the blindfold, turn around, and take the wand with both hands?
The Queen of Pentacles in transgenerational healing work tends through the difficult seasons with the same quality of grounded, unglamorous care that she brings to every other season. This week's sky is asking exactly that of all of us: Mercury in Scorpio is turning the mind toward what has been hidden beneath the surface of the lineage's story; Venus retrograde in Scorpio is beginning its honest examination of what has genuinely been valued versus what has been held onto past the point of real worth; Mars opposing Pluto retrograde is bringing the force of individual will into direct confrontation with the collective structures that have shaped the lineage across generations; and the Last Quarter Moon in Cancer is calling for the kind of honest emotional evaluation that the Queen of Pentacles does better than almost any other archetype in the deck, because she is not frightened of what the evaluation finds and she does not stop tending when the findings are uncomfortable.
Samhain is approaching, and the veil is thinning, and the Queen of Pentacles tends through that threshold the way she tends through every other one: with her hands in the soil and her attention on what is real.
In clinical herbalism, this is the moment to work with hen of the woods, Grifola frondosa, now fruiting at the base of oak trees in the autumn chill, one of the most rigorously researched medicinal mushrooms available for immune modulation and metabolic support, a genuinely potent ally for a body and a nervous system moving through the intensity of this particular season.
One more thing before we part: I will be offering free Lenormand readings in Second Life over Samhain weekend, first come, first served, and I would love to see you there. Take care, be well, and good-bye for now,
—Dr. Winkler
That’s it for this week! Look for Sage Leaves in your inbox on Tuesday afternoons (North American time.) We look forward to exploring more about Tarot, Healing and more! Take care, be well, and good-bye for now!
Thanks for the reminder to order Maitake Mushrooms. I buy them online from Northwest Wild Foods. I brew them in a tea and drink it at bedtime. I sleep like a rocker UNDER an oak tree! 😴