IN SHORT:
UPRIGHT: Legacy. Family and groups who share interests and or beliefs, irreplaceable contributions. The ability to utilize differences and criticism to ones benefit and self-betterment.
REVERSED: Extraction from the social for personal profit. Regarding the world around you as ‘research’. Beware oppressive family or social dynamics. Be open to criticism, challenges and self-improvement.
KEEP SCROLLING DOWN FOR IN DEPTH EXPLANATION
IN DEPTH: The Ten of Pentacles shows an older fellow facilitating a meeting inside a large communal tent. He was once a professor at a nearby university, now he has joined some of his students in the occupation of a forest recently sold off for the purposes of resource extraction. He no longer thinks of himself as teacher, this is partially because after living in this make-shift commune for a year he recognizes, that he does not ‘have the answers’. He is learning, as are his comrades. They are learning about & from one another new ways to work with the forest, with one another, with self-governances and most importantly with themselves. He was glad to abandon his social titles, the capitalist pace of city had drained him. Here under the green canopies he found purpose, and he found himself.
Behind him someone is hang-drying laundry. They like to hold their meetings here, it became a joke that the meetings were held here, because before decisions can be made, ‘the dirty laundry needs to be aired out’. And it often was, accountability, consideration and respect for the safety and dignity of others is paramount here. He had been called out in this room several times, and done the same to others.
To learn from criticism and learning to give constructive and considerate criticism is a cornerstone of social transformation. This is what they were building out there in the forest: a way of life and living with the planet and with one another that is worth pursuing into the future.
….
“Yet all really important innovations and changes normally start from tiny minorities of people who do use their creative freedom.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered
“No one is special, and everyone is needed.”
― Adrienne Maree Brown, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds
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