Queens are associated with inner and personal control, competency, maturity, introspection, self-awareness, nurturance, healing and fulfillment.  Pentacles are associated with the material world, acquisitions of wealth and possessions, our connection to Earth and Nature, sensation, matters pertaining to the physical plane and the element of earth.  Pentacles can also be connected with practicality, groundedness and being realistic.  The Queen of Pentacles is a wise and mature figure.  She traditionally represents wealth in material things, cultivated relationships and experiences, practicality and comfortableness with wealth.  Hard work that paid off in a high level of competence and security; having a skill that can be used to earn income at any time.  Abilities are recognized and documented.  Reaching a point where a particular pattern of health (or ill health) has become totally integrated into the body.  Home, career or financial security are established.

"Reversed:  You know how to create and maintain the kind of personal security you want.  You are centered within yourself and the upsets of life are unlikely to throw you off balance.  This could also indicate that you have a well-developed talent or skill that you are not currently employing in your life." - Gail Fairfield

In my personal Tarot world, Queens represent the earth element of the Courts.  As nurturers I see them containing and protecting until it is time for the project or item to grow and flourish on its own.  This would make the Queen of Pentacles Earth of Earth, quite a solid, stable and reliable figure.  She is the ultimate earth mother - providing us with physical comfort, food, a nurturing and welcoming environment.  Of course sometimes this can be a bit smothering too.  She means well but she may find it difficult to contain herself.

Looking at the Queen of Pentacles in the Halloween deck I see a welcoming, nurturing figure with a pumpkin and black cat on her lap and a small white rabbit sitting near her throne, she epitomizes the earth mother archetype.  The woman on the Bohemian Gothic Queen of Pentacles card certainly seems surrounded by material possessions.  Her clothing and accessories suggest that she has a prosperous and comfortable existence.  As she looks at the image on the painting she seems a bit disquieted and concerned.  The image is not exactly what one might expect to find in the walls of a wealth establishment.  It suggests that something is a bit off in this setting.

This nurturing, prosperous and comfortable queen's reversed nature makes me wonder what I need to consider in this situation.  Perhaps she is a reminder that comfort and wealth is not everything.  She may be suggesting that it's time to shake up my perspective about this issue and look at the situation from a different point of view.  As a child my life was rather chaotic with a lot of upheaval.  My family was often forced to move because of finances and often struggled just to make ends meet.  I can remember promising myself that when I became an adult I would never go through that type of traumatic experience again.  Overall I've been very lucky that I haven't.  There have been financially tight years and years that we've been very comfortable but I've never been entirely able to shake my fears of dealing with the same type of financial hardship I experienced as a child. 

Not having a steady job over the past few months has forced me to moved beyond this childhood fear and worry.  I have come to realize that I can live a very comfortable life on less than I originally thought.  I can be happy without a standard 9 to 5 type job.  I have also learned that I need to do some work on creating structure in my life.  I have often relied on external sources to enforce some sort of structure in my life.  When left to my own devices I am must less disciplined and focused.  This is something I need to work on if I ever want to create my own small side business or find a way to support myself via more independent, untraditional means.