4 of Coins (Nigel Jackson Tarot)
The 4 of Coins and I have a sort of love hate relationship, where love = eh and hate = curses, foul beast! In the typical RWS style deck, it shows a miser hanging onto his money for dear life, or some other image that could be interpreted as grasping, miserly greed.
But there is a flip side to it – the concept of conservation of resource, of protecting what we have from wasteful expenditure. Sure… every miser thinks that’s what they’re doing – avoiding waste, so there is certainly a need for balance between a failure to use resources appropriately, and indiscriminate waste of them.
The Nigel Jackson Tarot depicts this version of the 4 of Coins well, I think. The image is that of a fortress on a cliff – strong sturdy walls to protect the inhabitants from marauders, a location with a far reaching vision to enable one to see what’s coming and prepare for it, and the four coins are in a stable square pattern reminding me of the need for stability of resources.
It doesn’t say don’t use what you have – it says use what you have in the most efficient way possible to maximize its worth. The miserly notion some other variations depict demonstrate a false idea of worth – inflating the worth of what you have as idols and fetishes, rather than in understanding that the value is in what you can do with what you have.
I was a child of the 60s and adolescent of the 70s and ‘conservation’ was about saving water, saving the whales, learning that ‘ecology’ means that we are all connected, like it or not, and everything we use impacts us and everyone around us. So mindfulness…being aware of how you use your resources, and what the longreaching impact is is very tied up with what this card is all about.
Doesn’t mean stick your money under the bed. But it may mean that if you drive a gas guzzler and don’t bother to turn off your lights when you leave a room, you’re not only tossing your money out the window, you’re expending resources in a way that have a serious impact on many people and creatures who are connected to you by invisible threads.
Use.
Don’t waste.
Don’t hoard for no purpose other than to be the person with the most stuff.
Set aside something for emergencies and try to be attentive to avoid emergencies where possible.
That’s the short advice of this card that is all about a stable relatinship to money and things.
Morgana Fillions's Tarot Journey 