Ace of Coins

Earth in Kether ~ Potential of Security ~ Birth

Metaphysics. This is perhaps the most mysterious, most miraculous of the aces. It represents the possibility of reality. What are we to make of such a paradox? Whereas the other aces show aspects of subjective Being, the ace of coins shows objective Being in its most abstract, ethereal form. As fluid as the world of potential is, it contains within the potential of solidification, of anchoring, of fixity. Being has the potential to express itself through ineluctable, irreducible form.

The ace of coins represents the true miracle of creation: the possibility that the imagined may become real; one possibility out of trillions is selected and given tangible existence. The keyword birth is meant to be both abstract and concrete. It signifies the notion of manifestation on the one hand, and the indecipherable miracle of the birth of living organisms on the other. Abstract genetic codes and combinations are translated into actual beings, struggling for survival and security in the cosmos of material existence. There is an inexplicable magic to this, an elusive something that can bestow the gift of permanent, material reality upon an abstraction. That something is the ace of coins.

The fourfold symmetry of the ace of coins represents the solidity of the right angle, the four walls of the home, the crystalline structure of the diamond. It is constraint, hard facts, inescapable reality, but also the wondrous reality of spirit embodied. In the Hermit's Tarot, the material world is not a seductive illusion, as the Hindus and gnostics would have it, but the ultimate expression of the great potential itself, God's most sacred work. The possibility of solidification that this card represents is also the greatest beauty: the breathtaking inevitability of a perfect crystal, the inspiring abundance of the fertile earth arising in accordance with natural law in the midst of the deadly vacuum of space.

Finally, the ace of coins represents the Earth itself, the mother of our precious mode of being, the inexhaustible expanse of stability upon whose surface life plays itself out and flourishes. She is the Great Grandmother within the Mind of God, the anchor, the deep root, the solid core of life.

Psychology. The ace of coins is the boundary between the imagined and the actual, the deep principle that connects the reality of the senses with the reality of the psyche. It is the possibility of new things becoming real, the strong but loving reality of the enclosing universe, which grounds fantasy and reminds us to touch all that we value. This is the card of the "reality check", the whisper of practicality, the possibility that what is wandering freely in the mind may take tangible form and be made to work.

Events. Look for signs of the potential becoming actual, await the "breakthrough" that represents the awaited prospect of tangible production from the motions of the internal world. It may, profoundly, represent the actual birth of a child or the coming of spring. The ace of coins can be observed in the material world, as it is not aloof like the other aces. It can even stand for one of those precious moments when one is caught up in the simple miracle of the physical existence of the all.

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Copyright © 1999 Tom Tadfor Little