Page of Coins: A Little Memorial
I’m at the age in life – mid 40s – where hearing news about the deaths of people I have known has a certain sort of regularity. The biggest losses for me have been my parents. Otherwise, I am yet to lose someone who I have been particularly close to in life, at least as far as humans go. (Cats and dogs are another matter and have broken my heart many times).
I’m not sure what makes one acquaintance’s death feel more significant than another’s for me. The death of internet friends who I ‘only’ exchanged emails with has sometimes caused more grief than the passing of old friends who I used to see almost daily. I have come to the conclusion that these mini griefs are as much about what that person represents to me as the person themselves – cold as it seems to admit that to myself.
We associate certain people with special places or even times in our lives. We might think of these periods in time as ‘eras’ or ‘chapters’ in our life history, as if our lives were fairy tales. The death of an old colleague might represent that workplace being forever dead in our life story. I think it’s important to be mindful of this when someone who we know dies. We can allow this theme to make itself known whilst not confusing it with grief for that person. This is human and there is no shame in it. Some energy has shifted in our lives and the loss wants to be acknowledged. We might feel that we have ‘no right’ to feel so sad about the death of someone who we barely knew, but since when was sadness a logical process that is used up in credits?
The death of an old acquaintance will sometimes prompt me to take a little natural object and place it in a beautiful place, somewhere where I can walk by in the future and bow to it. This might be at the base of a tree, or perhaps tucked away in some outdoor place that holds some kind of symbolic significance for that person. It’s a small memorial site, and yet this is all purely for myself. I’m not sure that it matters to the person who is dead – or even if they would like my choices in some cases! But something happens to me when I walk past these places afterwards (usually wooded areas), moving past my private little memorials that are often are hidden out of sight. There is a wave of sadness, and yet also recognition of the privacy of our own lives. No matter how much we share with others, even those close to us in our lives, sometimes we can only truly express what we feel with the Earth itself. (Although the Earth can be brutal; the first place that I used for this purpose was destroyed in a flood and became completely unrecognisable. Who knows where Gregory’s memorial crystal is now!)
Above: Valet de Deniers (Page of Coins) from Jodorowsky / Camoin’s Tarot de Marseille
The Page of Coins is Earth of Earth. (Pages represent Earth, as does the suit of Coins/Pentacles.) Everything is of the Earth with them. We all have this Page within us – the youth who is learning something new about death every time that someone passes away. How can someone just disappear like that? Where have they gone? How can someone who was so full of life, energy, plans and solidity just no longer be here on this Earth with us? It just seems to make no sense. And it can be frightening. Being a Page – the youths of the Tarot’s court cards – they are forever learning, forever innocent. They feel death like a hole in the heart, and they turn to the Earth for support.
The Marseille Page of Coins (pictured) holds one coin up in the air; another is buried beneath his feet, out of sight to him, but not to us. In some decks, he points towards the buried coin, though his eyes look elsewhere, as if he is indicating a secret to us. In the Jodorowsky / Camoin version the Marseille, he holds something round and yellow between these fingers: a tiny Sun perhaps, representing a light of energy that moves on somewhere, somehow, yet is never understood as long as we are human (and perhaps even after that).
Above: Page of Rainbows from Osho Zen Tarot
The Page’s feet point in different directions. They are not sure where to go, past or future? So they just stay still for a while, and feel it. Stay with the Earth, and allow it to support you in your sadness and grief, even if it is ‘just’ one of life’s smaller griefs. You are allowed to be sad. It’s a natural response to life. Feel it and honour it, with tree and with soil. The body may be buried, just like that hidden coin, and it is confusing. And if it helps to bury a little something meaningful (non toxic) in the soil, as a memorial of some kind to this person, no matter how ‘illogical’ that seems, the Page will do it.
Perhaps, when the time comes for us to pass away ourselves, we may experience the Osho Zen version of this card: the Page of Rainbows. Adventure. Who knows?
That’s all for now, friends. Thank you for being here – and please check out my Tarot Therapy Sessions if you’d like us to work together. You can also sign up for the Tarot Blog newsletter (different to my main newsletter) below to receive occasional email updates (roughly monthly) with the latest posts.
Smiles from Scotland,
Stephen
