Sketchbook - Ace of Coins

You're probably wondering if this is my "Happy Squirrel" card. I somehow doubt that it is...

My partner was recently accepted to Harvard Divinity School and spent part of last week touring the campus in MA. The visit was pretty uneventful mostly, but at one point he did call me to complain that at an albino squirrel had just thrown an Easter egg at him.

...Yeah, that's pretty much how I felt when I heard, too.

I guess the squirrel must have found a leftover egg that had been too well hidden. Do squirrels eat hard-boiled eggs, or did it just think this one was pretty? Regardless, Tex was nearly egged by an achromatic (and possibly very unhappy) rodent.

I told him I couldn't help but see that as an omen of some kind, and I admit I thumbed through the index of my Complete Book of Superstition, Prophecy, and Luck to see if there were any insights as to whether it bode well or ill.

I figure that anything the ghostly white hand of providence heaves in one's direction should be accepted as graciously as possible, and so I decided I would honor this strange little incident by reconfiguring it as my Ace of Coins. I am hoping that Tex (and by association, myself) can look forward to a new chapter of health, wealth, vitality, contentment, and generally enriching experiences. Spring, as Easter strives to remind us, contains the potential for all these things.

Maybe your opportunity will be handed to you, maybe it will be hurled at you from the top of a fence-post, or maybe you will have to do a little digging in the newly-soft earth to uncover it. Signs and omens are only as useful as the reactions they inspire in us.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Ace Of Coins

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"...The Key That Unlocks A Heavy Door."

According to the Rosetta Project, globalization may eliminate up to 90% of the world’s linguistic diversity within the next century. Rosetta's academics, linguists, and anthropologists have taken on the challenge of creating a low-tech, physical artifact that documents as many of mankind's languages as possible. The result? The Rosetta Disk, a three-inch coin etched with over 13,000 microscopic pages containing the keys to at least 1,500 languages. It's designed to last for 10,000 years, in hopes that our descendants will find it useful. Since the only technology required to use it is simple magnification, it's hard to imagine a civilization incapable of learning to use it. It's easy to imagine that such a record will one day seem to future generations as a sort of magical gift from the aether, which is how the Ace of Coins is commonly depicted. Like any translation device, it is the key that unlocks a heavy door.

Whether you call them Coins, Disks, or Pentacles, the cards in this suit describe creative energy in its ultimate form, in which it finally manifests as physical matter. I guess you could say that the entire suit is a little obsessed with obtaining results -- there is none of the wanderlust or dreaminess that pops up in the other suits. The realms of the mind, heart, and spirit are incredibly subtle and sensitive, and unless matters are tended to in the real world, access to these less tangible areas of ourselves becomes incredibly limited. The Ace promises that certain burdens will be eased and obstacles overturned, allowing you to actually explore and enjoy the garden you've been tending. It portends fortuitous opportunities and nudges one toward an awakening of senses that have long laid dormant.

I find it fascinating that Rosetta Project has resulted in the creation of a sort of Ur-coin. Language itself is considered divine by many cultures (remember how the Old Testament God spoke the world into being?) and now it is manifest in matter. In fact, many of the disk's language samples are passages from the Book of Genesis, which may be attributed to it being one of the most frequently-translated documents in human history. The choice bears additional symbolic weight, however, when you consider the journey that ideas take from conception to execution, from aether to tablet. [Via]

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Ace of Coins

Summary only...

Ace of Coins

1. Material gain
2. Any plan or project
3. A vision of money

-- David Allen Hulse, The Western Mysteries

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Ace of Coins

Disks, coins, pentacles, pocket-watches, vinyl records, and Communion wafers have more in common than just their basic shape; they are all concrete, physical manifestations of things normally considered insubstantial, such as time, value, music, or even faith. An icon you can actually lay hands on is a constant reminder of how real these things are to us, even though you can't necessarily see or sense them.

Click the link above and you'll be presented with a round, blank space that you can fill with whatever patterns you like. This is a physical act-- you are moving your eyes and fingers to do so, and your brain enjoys playing with patterns. Then click the button marked "2D Rotate" and your pattern springs to life kaleidoscopically. Click "3D Rotate" and it unfolds into a fully spherical configuration, spinning beautifully out of control. You can continue to add more and more layers to the pattern, but by then your mind has been completely distracted from the simple mechanics of pointing and clicking and pattern-making; you've become totally absorbed in manipulating the chaotic, "three-dimensional" microcosmic world that you set into motion.

We spend most of our time like that. The Ace of Coins dispels these flights of fancy in favor of what's immediately possible and worthwhile for its own sake. It draws you back into the rich physical potential of your body and the world around it-- you may discover golden opportunities that you'd have overlooked if you'd kept your head in the clouds. Without a regular reminder of your physical limitations to reset your focus, every other part of your consciousness is forced to fend for itself, resulting in less pleasant reality-checks further down the road. Consider this one a freebie!

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