Coin, The Trickster Spirit

A few of us witches got together this weekend mainly to decompress for a moment during the harvest.  One of the young ladies is having money problems and wondered what magic she could perform to help her family out.  Many ideas came out, both mundane and magical, but then the conversation changed.  Why is money so important to us at this moment is history?  We all have our ideas from bad politics, to a greedy society, to no personal responsibility.  Most ideas were on the negative side, in case you can't see from my list here.  lol

For me though I do not see money as a negative.  Now, before you decide that I am crazy, I don't see many things as purely negative.  What I see money as is a trickster spirit, one I often call Coin.  So many spirits or god/dess that we modern day humans follow are of the far distant past.  But Coin is a contemporary spirit that has followed the human race throughout most of its history.

Coin is not evil, per say, but instead likes to play jokes on people.  Some of those jokes can get downright nasty and in this modern day and age when we are so sensitive to being victims, nasty jokes are really looked down on.  This is probably why we humans have a love-hate relationship with this spirit.  While she helps us out, she also can be...well...a bit of a bitch too.

Coin is a spirit that one can be friends with, just cautious friends.  She can help, if worked with on a wise level, but she can also pull the rug out from under a person when they least expect it, if they work with her foolishly.  She doesn't mind holding up a mirror to our face and letting us see our strengths and our weaknesses.  And I think this is why she is despised most of all.  We don't like to think of ourselves as having weaknesses.  We don't like to think we can fool ourselves.  We like to think that every though in our head is always correct and can never lead us in the wrong direction.  We forget our humanity which is bound to our flaws and mistakes as well as our triumphs and accomplishments.  To never had made a mistake is to never have pushed one's self hard enough to step into unfamiliar territory.  Stagnation may be the biggest mistake of all.

Coin has a way of bringing out both our good side and our bad side.  We can work with her to help ourselves become stronger and better for the world.  Where I live right now going off grid is becoming the fashion trend.  People are going solar or wind/solar powered, we're even seeing a couple of big methane generators being put in this fall.  All of this needs coin to work.  A methane generator alone starts at a million dollars.  Coin is willing to work with us to make the world a better place by using less fossil fuel and nuclear power plants to power our lives.  Coin can be worked with to help feed the hungry or keep an animal shelter going.  Coin helps us with buying livestock or starting our seed collection.  Coin is willing to do her part to build schools and community centers for everyone.  Coin can help us find quality over quantity.  Coin can help us laugh at a comedy club or enjoy friends at a restaurant.  Coin can help us see the world through travels.  Coin looks to be a friend.

But Coin will also get a person addicted to her.  She will work with us to give us our fondest desires, even if those desires may not be good for us.  She will maintain a relationship with us, building our egos around the stuff we have instead of the person we are.  She will help us buy more and more and more, and leave us unsatisfied with what we have, always wanting the next "in" thing.  She will sit back and laugh as we hear seductive whispers about what we need to have.  And she will role on the floor when we start to believe those whispers.  She will bring in so called friends that only love us for the things we have and disappear when we are not part of the "cool" crowd.  She will allow herself to be used for that "next big thing".  She will wait for the next shop-a-holic fix each person needs.  And just when a person is at their worst, she will fade from their life, her laughter echoing in the darkness of their empty life. 

Coin is not a bad spirit.  She is more of a mirror that shows every line and every wrinkle.  There is no plastic surgeon to fix the person who stares back at us, because it is our souls that do.  Coin is the one that can teach us lessons, sometimes the hard way.  But that is what trickster spirits do.  Throughout history tricksters have been seen as creators and destroyers.  It is only in this modern day world that has so little color and sees only in black and white where we label them as evil.  They are us at our best and at our worst.  It is our choice on how we work with them.  They are willing to come along for the ride.  It's just best never to turn our back on them.