Archetypal Magic: Coins and the Court Cards

I’m gonna do things a little differently this month! I usually choose one archetype, often one that correlates to a card in the Tarot, but this month I’ve been really interested in the journey of the court cards in the suit of Coins. 

So many of us right now are trying to figure out how to be the person we want to be in the world, how to have the space to do that thing we want to do. Many of us are figuring out how to run our own businesses. Others of us are learning how to weave our passion or calling into a dedicated practice. And it’s tricky to do under capitalism and with the messaging around making it big, quick. Or needing to make every hobby that we find fulfilling into something lucrative. There’s so much pressure and it all moves so fast. 

And if we’re not on that track, all of us are figuring out how to integrate the year we’ve had with learning how to re-enter the world. Questions around who we are now and how we’ve changed are coming up. We’re feeling into how to participate with the world in person again. Many of us have gone through really big shifts in the last year as we had to re-examine ourselves, the way we live, and our values. These are big questions. 

There’s a lot to consider within both of these themes.

I often find myself talking about the progression of the Coin court cards as a balm to these questions, and I come back to it for myself when I need help understanding where I am in my path. I hope it will be useful for you too! 

Coins or Pentacles is the suit in Tarot that represents the element of Earth. It moves slowly. Many feel it points to our material world and finances and there are people, like Lindsey Mack, who feel it represents our “soul calling”. I fall into the second camp and that’s where I’ll be speaking from in this piece. 

Coins refer to your practice, your art, your body, your profession. The thing that you do in the world. It doesn’t have to be your job, not all of us are making a living doing the thing that makes our hearts sing, but it’s the thing that you “profess” to the world. The passion you hold dear. Your body of work that centers around it. 

In the minor arcana we see the journey of the coins as a diligent and collaborative one that culminates with personal pleasure, abundance, and a sense of security that will span generations. It’s a beautiful arc, one that perhaps I’ll speak to one day, but here we’ll be focusing on what comes after that. After having learned and embodied the journey of the coins. 

This is when we move into the court cards. We’ve learned a lot, we have an awareness of what our “thing” is and now we’re beginning to understand it on a deeper level as it becomes a journey you share with others. You’ve graduated from learning about it on your own. But you’re still studying!

This is represented by The Page of Coins. The Page of Coins is a student. They’re a beginner. They ask the deep and thoughtful questions that children ask. This Page reminds us to move slowly and thoughtfully in our studies and encourages us to soak up the nutrients of the soil we’ve been planted in. There is a beauty in the beginner’s mindset. There is room for play and room for error. We don’t make enough space for this! And it’s not our fault. (I’m looking at you, capitalism.) We find something we love and we often skip this step. We want to go do the thing or be an expert at the thing. Or immediately begin to teach the thing when we, ourselves, are still learning it. We have immense pressure on us and a lot of social conditioning that encourages us to rush this stage. The Page of Coins reminds us of the beauty of the cultivation of our studies and the preciousness that lies in being a beginner. This Page is fascinated by whatever it is that they are studying, that study gets to be their whole world and they don’t rush this step. 

Give yourself this gift of space and compassion and time to learn.

After being the student, we become the apprentice. We move into the Knight of Coins. We’ve dedicated a lot of time to study and now we are ready to practice. Knights often symbolize the way we move or the quality of our movement. And the Knight of Coins is slow, mindful, and keeps their eye on preparation. This Knight knows what they’re aiming for and honors the necessary pause we need to take before heading out on a long journey. In our world, this looks a lot like practicing that thing you want to turn into your profession. Preparing yourself for what it might look like before you offer it on a larger scale. The question that this archetype is constantly asking is “what do I need in order to let myself go far?”. They’re setting themselves up for success. So when people do start knocking down their door for services, they are ready, well-stocked, and able to give. I also feel like this is really present for a lot of us right now as we are on the cusp of re-entry. We’re figuring out what contract tracing looks like now after having been vaccinated. We’re feeling into what feels safe, or safe enough, and learning how to share that with others. Some of us (myself included) are having long conversations with friends about what we need in order to feel safe, physically and emotionally, when we hang out again. Preparation and looking ahead for what might be needed is a big theme here with this archetype.

A note! So many of us are quick to identify with the court cards or to associate/assign them with other people in our lives. It’s easy to do! And great because it means we’re learning to identify and possibly embody these archetypes. With all that, we need to understand that the difference between say, the Queen of Coins and the King of Coins isn’t gender. You can identify as female and strongly feel you’re in a King of Coins time. These are archetypes that live within all of us and we all get to tap in to them. This is part of the reason I use gender neutral language when I’m talking about the figures in the cards.

After the Knight, we have the Queen of Coins. Queens bring things in rather than outputting. They radiate and are magnetic to us because of their ability to just be and to sit in their knowing. This Queen in particular teaches us how to be in our body. They run the secrets of the universe through their body. They connect with it there. And they teach us how to do that simply by modeling what it looks like to connect with and listen to our bodies. This Queen teaches us to reconnect our bodies with the ground under our feet. They teach us there is no barrier between us and the Earth. They have a sexual and maternal quality to them and they remind us that there is a treasure trove of information we can access from inside of ourselves. By being near them, we pause to ask ourselves about our own relationship with our bodies. 

How is the thing you’ve studied and have apprenticed in moving through your body? How does it affect how you’re able to be (rather than what you do) in the world. We embody this archetype when we sit with these questions. When we look at our past and then look at where we are now. What’s shifted? What is so different that you are able to really steep yourself in your own experience? Your own knowing? 

This Queen also feels like a big piece of healing from sexual or body-based trauma. The moment where you notice that how you are able to be in the world has shifted sneaks up on us sometimes and comes as a welcome surprise. Suddenly we are able to notice everything that our body holds and we recognize that with reverence, curiosity, and a sense of almost celebration. 

This Queen knows themselves and their inner world (like all Queens) and knows how it relates to the Earth and to their environment. In the progression of the court cards in the suit of Coins, the Queen represents the time in our lives when what we’ve learned and prepped for really lands in our bodies. It fuses with us and we embody it. We’re no longer just trying it on. 

Kings have the curiosity of the Page, the quality of movement of the Knight, and the inner knowing of the Queen. The King takes all of this and is able to put it out into the world. Bring it all up to the surface and move it outwards. Kings represent how you are of service to the world, with all that you’ve accumulated from the archetypes that came before it.

The King of Coins is an archetype I draw on a lot when I’m thinking about long term goals and what I’m building. They know how to carefully, brick by brick, add to the strong foundation they’ve spent time creating for themselves. Everything that is added to what they’re building, to their kingdom, is added with intention and care. This is a slow process. It’s very practical and asks us to take actionable, earth-based steps into our larger calling. The kind of success represented in this card didn’t come suddenly. It’s one that is almost fused with the King’s being (the depiction of this archetype in the Smith Rider Waite deck shows the King on their throne surrounded by and covered with luscious grape vines). There is a sensuality in having built their success slowly and mindfully. They’ve been able to enjoy every step of the process and still access a kind of earthy fertility as they continue to grow. The King has put a lot of time into what they do and, because of this, it will serve them and give them deep pleasure for decades (maybe eons) to come. This is a gradual accumulation of wealth and abundance. Not only financially, or in terms of success in business, but an abundance of pleasure. From the Earth, from the body, and from what they do out in the world and how they offer that to people. 

The King of Coins teaches us what practical steps we need to take to reach our long term goals. They give us a vision of what that could look like and then allow us to work backwards. What are those first practical steps you need to take? Where are you now and where do you want to be? How do you build that? If you’re learning how to run your own business (like me!) this might look like streamlining your systems, hiring an accountant, having a business plan or at least an awareness of where your business is now and where you want it to be. King of Coins shows us the way to get there by very practical, kind of no-nonsense, means. 

The progression of the court cards in the Coins suit teaches us the value in slowing down. Not only because it supports our ability to reach what we’re seeking in the long term, but because lessons we’re learning get to reach us more deeply when we move slowly and thoughtfully. This is a hard one! When we’re predisposed to moving quickly or we’ve been taught that speed is what’s valued most, it’s challenging to shift into slowness. It’s confronting to learn how to embrace pauses and allow things to unfold in their own time. There’s a lot of trust we have to find within ourselves and in the rhythm of the Earth’s natural cycles. But when we can access these teachings, the fruit tastes sweeter. We have access to a well of body-based knowledge we can continuously draw from. And the bounty of the eventual harvest lasts us for years to come.