The Suit of Disks

Disks are the round, weighted things of the world — coins, seeds, the turning earth. Other decks call them pentacles or coins. They are the suit of the material: money and work, the body and its health, the house and the garden and the craft learnt over years. Where a Disk falls, the matter has a practical side that wants attending to.

In other decks: pentacles or coins.

The element of earth

Earth is the element that stays. It is slow, fertile, patient and heavy; what is planted in it grows in its own season and not before. In a reading, earth speaks of the tangible — of resources, security, effort and results — and of the long view, where a thing is judged by whether it lasts.

In astrology, earth is the element of Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn, and nine of these cards are the ten-day slices of those three signs. How the cards and the zodiac are paired.

Ace to Ten

The Ace is a coin held out of the cloud: an opportunity with substance. Two juggles, Three builds the cathedral with others. Four grips what it has. Five is out in the snow past the lit window, and Six is charity given and weighed. Seven leans on the hoe to watch the vine; Eight works coin after coin until the craft is mastered. Nine is the falcon in the garden, self-sufficient; Ten is three generations at the gate. The suit is the whole long labour of making a life.

The court

The court of Disks are people of the earth. The Page studies the coin closely, ambitious and patient; the Knight rides the slow, sure horse; the Queen keeps the hearth and the garden; the King is wealth that endures, security built and kept.

Disks in a spread

A spread weighted with Disks is about the practical — work, money, health, home — and about what can be built with steady effort.

A spread with no Disks may be floating a little above the ground. It is worth asking what the matter needs in the real world: time, money, a body, a plan.

The other suits

• The Suit of Wands — The suit of fire: will, desire, the spark that starts things and the drive that carries them through.
• The Suit of Cups — The suit of water: feeling, love, intuition and the life of the heart.
• The Suit of Swords — The suit of air: the mind, truth, conflict, and the words that cut both ways.
• The major arcana — the twenty-two cards outside the suits, and the one beyond them.