Sheaf of Corn

What this is

A bound sheaf of ripe corn, set at the head of the fifteenth folio. It is the emblem of harvest gathered, of plenty earned, and of the reward of patient husbandry. Its verses speak of abundance, increase, and the barn filling after the long season.

What it governs

Presides over harvest, plenty, increase, and the reward of labour gathered in. Folio 15. It rules the yield of the field and any venture grown and gathered.

Its properties

Its colour is harvest-gold and autumn russet; its number fifteen; its season the gathering at summer's end. The quality is fruitfulness, the satisfaction of enough and more, the generosity of a full store. In shadow it is waste, plenty squandered, the harvest taken for granted and let rot, hoarding that lets the grain spoil in the barn.

Where else it appears

The same note is Demeter's sheaf and the single ear of grain held up in silence at the height of the mysteries; the sickle and the bound corn on every harvest emblem; the horn of plenty overflowing; Lakshmi's flowing fullness. One sheaf, many barns of the same increase.

Where you meet it on the Oracle

It surfaces as the Folio of the Day and as a closing folio, and it is the natural folio for questions of harvest, of the season's yield, and of prosperity. When it heads your day, bring in what is ripe and share the surplus; the day rewards the gatherer and warns the waster. In a reading it answers questions of plenty with a generous yes and counsels you not to let the store spoil.

Why it matters

It stands fifteenth because the oracle's kindest news is that labour can bear fruit, and the Sheaf of Corn is that news bound and gathered. It asks you to receive abundance gracefully and to keep it against the lean seasons.

Correspondences

planet

Jupiter

element

Earth

zodiac

Virgo

number

15

sephirah

Chesed

day

Thursday

colour

Harvest-gold, russet

metal

Tin

tarot

The Empress