Katie: Hey, Jim. Yeah. What's your favorite way to decide if you should do something or not?
Jim: I usually stay up all night pacing back and forth and make a pro and con list and think about it too much and cry until finally the decision is made for me. I wish there was an easier way.
Katie: Now there is. What? Did you know? That there's an ancient method of deciding simply by flipping a coin. What
Jim: I know, I had no idea. How does it work?
Katie: It turns out you can designate each side to have a yes and then the other to have a no. Ask your questions, flip it and let fate decide.
Jim: Wow. On this episode of Knit A Spell, we're gonna learn a new and improved way of deciding yes or no questions.
Jim: The coin flip!
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I'm magical maker: Katie Rempe.
And I'm the maker of magic: James Divine.
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Katie: The best thing about a coin flip is it will help you decide what you really want. Even if you don't do what the coin says, if you're like, no! Guess what? You just found your answer.
Jim: You know what, my daughter used to do this.
Jim: She would make me hold the thing in my hand and then make her pick, and then she would pick one and whichever one she got, then it would make her decide, oh, is that the one I really wanted or did I really want the other one? I love that you are totally keyed into that. Cuz if I flip the coin and then that's my choice and I'm like, I'm stuck with.
Jim: Am I happy about that or not? And it helps me discern a lot better. That's brilliant.
Katie: Or like you said, it helps you let go with wild abandon, which we'll talk about later in how I'm going to use them when I go to Vegas to decide which slot should I play and which slot should I go away from.
Jim: Yeah. Play or go away.
Jim: All right, let's talk about coins. So this whole episode is how to use coins for Luck.
Jim: Are there certain coins that are lucky? I know that in United States currency, a lot of people talk about coins that are made out of pure silver, but the coins are currently in currency now are not silver.
Jim: But if you find an old mercury dime, those are often used for magic. What are lucky coins? Have you researched that?
Katie: Yes. One that I thought of right away was if you're ever walking down the street and suddenly you look down, oh, there's a penny looking at you. I don't know about you, but what I think is: find a penny pick it up all day long you'll have good luck.
Katie: Where did this start? Yeah. I don't know, but that's where always my mind goes.
Jim: You're like totally a poet. Where it started. I don't know, but there you go. So what if it's heads down? What if it's the tail? Does it have to be heads up to pick it up?
Katie: Oh, I don't know, does it?
Jim: I thought it had to be only if a penny is heads up looking at you. You even said if it's looking at you, which you didn't realize, but what if it's, see, you never thought about that. That's deep. What if the penny is tails up? Then you leave it alone.
Katie: Okay. Yes. I want, I like this.
Jim: I wanna know from people listening, what's lucky? Do you pick up any penny? Or only the penny that's heads up? What about other coins?
Jim: They'd ran experiments in New York City, or if there's a penny on the ground, pennies have a little bit of a superstition, will people bend down to pick up a nickle?
Jim: Or a dime? Or a quarter? People won't pick up nickels. It's not worth it. What? It has to be a more valuable coin these days cuz people just don't care enough.
Katie: Oh my gosh. It costs at least 10 cents for me to stop and bend over to pick this up.
Katie: Yeah. I'm sorry. How dare you.
Jim: Apparently it costs at least 10 cents to mint a penny. Whoa. It's just why they wanna do away with pennies.
Jim: And of course there are coins that are actually made for this purpose.
Katie: Yes. One such coin we may have alluded to in last week's episode, which was the Billiken coin that we got from Madame Pamita over at Parlour of Wonders that you see here.
Jim: Is that the Billiken?
Katie: It's him. Them? It. That is it!
Jim: What does it say on it? Oof.
Katie: Oops. Whoops.
Katie: It says The God of things as they ought to be. And then the back, it says, this is your Good luck piece. And basically what the spiel says is that if you put this on top of the project that you want good luck for before you start it, that gives you the luck.
Katie: If you wanted to use it for, any sort of divination or your yes or no, all you then have to decide is which side do you want to be The yes versus the no? Because I feel like that's always just your. Unless it obviously says yes and no.
Jim: I think the Billiken is yes. And the word side is no.
Jim: That's what I thought too. So am I going to Vegas with you? Let's see what happens. Oh, all here we go. Yes. Am I gonna go to Vegas with you? No pressure.
Katie: Maybe not.
Jim: No, I don't currently have plans to go to Vegas with you. Oh God. And Bill Ken says, Nope, Jim is not going to Vegas with you. That's true. You're going by yourself. You're going with other people, but not with me.
Katie: That's a good point.
Jim: I will be there in spirit or via the podcast.
Jim: This is cute. I've seen some that say yes or no. And I've seen others that have tarot card sort of images on them. This is a really cute one.
Katie: And I was very impressed with the size of it and how vintage feeling it was.
Katie: And then my friends over at Billy and Baa sent me another option to use for my coin flipping . And Jim, let me tell you, when I pulled this out of the box, I was like, oh, that is, weighty. What the? Yes!
Jim: That's huge.
Jim: Does it hurt your thumb to flip it?
Katie: It doesn't hurt, but it definitely feels like it has a weighted answer. So I respect what this frog tells me to do.
Jim: All right, so what is on there? What, tell us what that says. So what's image?
Katie: Billy and Baa is a knitting company and thusly, it is a knitting themed coin here, which on this side there's a frog and it says, frog it and fix it.
Katie: Meaning you should go back because maybe you just found an error in your knitting, making whatever. You should go back and fix it versus the other side which has a picture of knitting that you can see a little error. A few rows down in right here, Uhhuh , which even just looking at it as a knitter makes me a little nuts.
Katie: This side says, forget it! This is your no. Forget it.
Jim: I love this. So it. Frog it or forget
Katie: it, frog it or forget it.
Jim: I got it. Yes. That's really cool. All right what question do you want to ask?
Katie: Ah, I'm gonna ask because this has a frog on it, Should I watch for symbols of frogs as my lucky charm while I am in Vegas?
Jim: Okay, let's see.
Jim: Ooh.
Katie: Oh, that's the
Jim: frog side. Frog it. Yes. If there's a frog, you better play that slot or that game.
Katie: Pay attention to the frogs.
Katie: Hop on.
Jim: That's very cute for knitters. And another way to flip a coin is actually to spin it on a table and see where it lands if you don't want to hurt your finger.
Katie: Oh, smart. I never would've thought of that.
Jim: So as a knitter, are you ever on the fence on whether to fix something? Is the coin actually a thing that could help you?
Katie: I think yes, because really much like we said earlier, it will help you discover really if you want to just take the time to go back and fix it. Most people, I would say, want to do it or wish they had.
Katie: If you're not quite that person, or you're like me, I know myself I have to go back now that I know. This is a helpful tool.
Jim: If you flip the coin and it said, forget it, then you can just say, all right, I really did decide to forget it.
Jim: I'm going to forget it. This is just the karma of the piece. It's part of the character of it. I'm done. That's it. Yep. moveon.org.
Jim: I'm curious, do you think some coins are luckier than others? Do those coins that are made for that purpose feel luckier?
Jim: Do you think a coin that is found on the ground that is heads up is luckier than a coin found on the ground that is tails up?
Katie: Probably like super subjective to each person, right? I mean if I didn't even think to consider that up or down might be an issue, then that's not gonna even be an issue for me.
Katie: But I think, again, the more you think about it and put your personal spins on things, The more fun it can also be.
Jim: Sure. Is there a coin that you think is more inherently.
Katie: The coin I would bend over for every time is a quarter. At least for our American currency, that's the one I would go towards.
Katie: What about you?
Jim: Yeah I had such an amazing experience with the five yen coin in Japan. Oh. That's always the coin that I think is the most lucky. And of course in American currency, the Mercury dime is Oh yes, so amazing. It's pure silver. It has the image of Mercury on the back, which is the Greek Hermes, and that is such a magical deity that it's this Roman deity on our coin, which there's not a lot of American coins that have Roman or Greek deity on them.
Jim: Silver brings the energy of the moon a lunar quality. So I think that's a really cool lucky coin. And can be used for a lot of magic.
Jim: So that's me personally, but I'm curious what the listeners think. What is a lucky coin in the Canadian currency? A loony has a beautiful loon on the front, that $1 Canadian coin is golden color .
Jim: If you pay for something in Canada with a $20 bill, you get a bunch of change back. Don't just jump that change in a tip jar because you might have just tipped someone $8. That's right. Which I have done in the past and then realized I just gave them a bunch of loonies and toonies cuz it was just coins and I thought it was quarters.
Jim: But they give you dollars and $2 back in coins in Canada.
Katie: Yes. I had a very similar experience when I was in Europe and everything was the euro and I kept wonder, Where the heck is all my money going. I have twenties and nothing. And that was because everything else smaller was coins and I just was not used to it.
Jim: We're such big tippers.
Katie: You'd made that person's day, whether you meant to or not. That's funny.
Katie: You were mentioning you had a story about it, the go yen. Why don't you tell us about that?
Jim: Oh, yes, the go end. I had a friend of a friend who visited from Japan. He was a baseball coach, and we became really good friends and we were showing him all over, Seattle on the Pacific Northwest.
Jim: And one day he took me aside and he said, Jim-san. This is for you. And he handed me a five yen coin, which is about 5 cents or so.
Jim: It's a round coin with a square hole in the center. And Goen. Is five but it is a hominem for another, for two characters that are more complex characters that sound the same. And those are a formal go, and en which is a casual term for like friendship or like a casual relationship.
Jim: When you give someone a go in coin it's a symbol for be my good friend. Or, you are my respected friend.
Jim: And so I've kept that go in coin and it's a really wonderful symbol of friendship. And I just have always cherished that. And I think about that coin and it turns out that it's seen as a very lucky coin in Japanese culture and is used to bring luck and fortune because of its happy hominem.
Jim: between the five yen, goen and, respected friendship and prosperity. So I think that's a really wonderful little story about the Goen coin.
Katie: That's really nice. Thank you for sharing that story. Why don't we go ahead and take a quick break and we'll be right back.
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Katie: And we're back. How do we use coins for luck and divination purposes? How do you use them?
Jim: For luck, like we said before we went to break, you can wear or bring with you a lucky coin. So if I had a mercury dime and I thought that was really lucky, I might tuck it in my coin pocket in my jeans. Or you might want to tuck it in a pocket or in your bra or something like that. And carry it with you because it's a coin that brings you luck or put it in your little bag that you might hang around your neck or something like that.
Jim: If it's a Goen coin or in China they have the quan coins. The lucky coins with the characters on them that are symbolized money. Yes. You can get three of those and tie them or put a string through them and wear that around your neck. So this is one of the ways to use it for luck.
Jim: And maybe you wanna anoint it with good luck oil or something like that.
Jim: And you can bring that along with you.
Katie: I was just thinking that exact thing, right? Because then anything becomes the lucky coin, right? Yes. Or lucky, whatever.
Jim: Yeah. You might wanna put your two coins that you had at the top of the show, you were flipping. Put those through incense to purify them.
Jim: You can anoint them with oil around, discernment or spirit guide oil or anything like that.
Jim: And then when you flip them, they can maybe be, helpful, smart. When I was in college, I used to do the iChing, which is, I used three coins to create hexagrams, which is a series of six castings of three coins.
Jim: And from that I would make dots, whether it was a dash, if it was heads and it dot if it was tails. And from that, I would create this hexagram, and then I would look. In book I think the book I was using was called The Book of Changes, but there are other books that tell you the meaning of et hexagram that you would cast.
Jim: So this can get very enlightening and deep. But each of these hexagrams has a meaning to it. And you can look at the top hexagram and the bottom half of the hexagram, the right and the left side, and the middle section. And it just becomes this really cool way of casting coins for divination.
Jim: So that's another way, to do it besides just the yes or no flip or spin a coin.
Jim: That's fun. Have you ever used coins for divination?
Katie: I only really even thought about that recently. Because you know me, I like to make things really complicated. So I was like, oh, I would probably bring like dice and then if it was even versus odd, that would have a meaning.
Katie: And then if they were certain numbers, that would have more meaning. And I thought, wow, okay, I'm already making this as difficult as possible for myself. And Brianne was like, I would just flip a coin. And I was like, Oh, that Yes, that.
Jim: So you've already created a whole casting bag full of bones from Sindy Todo and you've got all kinds of little findings and you've got coins in there and dice, and you're throwing it down in your, thing. And I got
Katie: print material coming from Canva that I've designed with instructions I've created. Yeah. Because I just can't use the obvious thing right in front of me.
Jim: When can we buy
Katie: it.
Katie: Maybe later this year. Who knows? More enlightening in this whole fact was, I thought how the heck did we even start this? Who started like heads or tails to begin with?
Jim: Did you look at some history from Dr. Google?
Katie: I did, yes. Yeah. And via the US Mint they have suggested that coin flip state back to the Roman Empire, where it was originally known as heads or ships because of the coins they used, one had ahead, one had a ship, and thus heads are ships.
Jim: What did they use heads or ships to decide?
Katie: So lot, probably not a lot of things.
Jim: Probably not important things. No,
Katie: No. Certainly not like life or death situations. In the case of Julius Caesar, how should this person live or die? No, let's wait. Is
Jim: this decide?
Jim: Is this sarcasm? Did they really do that?
Katie: History implies that this could be the case. Was I there? No, but I have read it in multiple places.
Jim: So people were deciding life and death situations with a coin. I
Katie: mean, people probably still are right.
Jim: Oh my god. Humans. Yeah. So this is why I like dogs.
Katie: For all of those who aren't basing perhaps major decisions on the coin flip, other people saw it for. What we also like to do, which is an entertainment aspect. So maybe I'm not deciding life or death, but maybe we're just gambling on it. Okay, is this one gonna be heads or tails?
Katie: Take, I'll bet you on this, or Sure. Whatever. So yeah many games out. There on coin flips, if you wanna go down that rabbit hole. Oh,
Jim: sure. Football or soccer game. Who gets the ball first? Oh, of course we flip a coin. That's right.
Katie: Yeah, sure. Very obvious one that I didn't even think of until I went down this rabbit
Jim: hole,
Jim: I didn't think of it until right now. For some people that seems like life and. Yeah,
Katie: right. Good point. And one example could have been life and death. In 1903, I read Orville and Wilbur Wright tossed a coin to decide who would fly in their first historic flight.
Katie: Do you wanna win that one? they like Maybe was the winner the one in the plane or the one not in the plane? That I don't know.
Katie: Lots of things have been decided in the coin flip, including hopefully what will be my, uh, winning slot machines and yes, other lucky happenings that I will decide through both of the coins that I'm going to bring with me, which are my frog and forget it coin versus the Billiken coin.
Katie: It'll also be fun cuz they're two different colors, two different material. We'll see
Jim: what happens.
Jim: Testing your luck. Now I wanna know about that. Maybe you just need to pick one and go with it.
Katie: Oh, okay. Since this one did claim my attention The frog or flip it coin. Maybe the Billiken needs to go to like Brianne or Rob who will be joining me on the trip. We'll flip to see which one it wants to go with, and we'll see whose coin is the luckiest.
Jim: Yeah. And we'll just see who makes out.
Jim: Yeah.
Katie: Hopefully we'll, I'll make out in the end. Yeah,
Jim: because then. Whoever wins you win. That's right. Spread the luck around.
Jim: I love all these sayings that we have about luck. Spread the luck around. Don't push your luck. It's a coin toss.
Katie: Yeah. What is with that?
Jim: That's cool. I just thought of these. Okay. The Chinese coins. So let's really talk about that.
Jim: So like at Lunar New Year, we often see this motif of these round coins or the square hole in the middle with these Chinese characters on them. So what did you find out about those? What did those mean?
Katie: Looking up lucky coins, this is one of the top results, and it is the circle coin with the square hole cut out of it, which represents the heaven, which is the circle and earth, which is the square being one. And it's deemed especially auspicious. So it's used in a multitude of Feng settings.
Katie: So you can use them in like threes, six, nine, and they can be in, all of these different shapes. Again, I've seen them in like long strips versus these more elaborate patterns with the red ribbons.
Jim: I've seen them being held by the Golden Buddha. So if you go into a Vietnamese restaurant or a Chinese restaurant, you suddenly see that Golden Buddha who's nice and plump, and he's sitting there with, the spheres and the coins at his feet.
Jim: And they're often those coins that are pictured as part of the sculpture. know I, I'll see
Katie: a ton of them in Vegas so it will be interesting to see where they pop up and how they're being used.
Jim: Sure. So what's your big coin strategy while you're in Vegas? How are you gonna use coin magic? What are some of the ideas?
Katie: I am going to use it to go up to a slot machine.
Katie: Is this one going to pay me should I stay or should I go and I will flip it and if it says stay, I'll stay and play. And if it says, Then I'll keep moving until I find one.
Katie: Maybe I'll do $20 in each one or something and just see how it goes based on if it says I'm gonna win or not.
Jim: Yeah. So maybe you play both. So if you flip and it's a lip and and it says yes, play the max. And see what happens. And if you flip and it says, don't play the max and see if you lose. Because then it would validate huh. Could be interesting. Mm, Yeah. Good. I don't know. Point yes.
Jim: Or maybe only play if it says yes and follow that lucky streak along.
Jim: Have a little faith. Maybe not test your luck, maybe just believe your luck.
Jim: Oh, I love that.
Katie: We'll see if any other ideas, pop in before you know now and then.
Jim: If you're listening in and you're like, no, Katie, no do it this way. Yeah, let me know. What should Katie do? Let her know. Guide us.
Jim: And one of the best ways that you can interact with us where Katie and I will get your comments, is on our Patreon.
Jim: You can join our Patreon for just $13 a month and you will see all kinds of cool stuff that we'll post there. Stuff we don't post anywhere else, so check that out. I am so excited for your Vegas trip. Go to the chandelier bar.
Jim: Oh, it's one of my favorite places. Done. Sounds fabulous. It's a, it's like a multi-story chandelier. It's the biggest chandelier in the world. And you can have cocktails inside a chandelier.
Katie: What? Yes. Hello, please.
Jim: Hello? Hello? Sparkles.
Katie: I will take some sparkling wine in the sparkling place, please. Yes.
Jim: It's amazing.
Katie: Appreciate the heads up.
Jim: Speaking of Paton and sparkles, do we have a challenge in our Patreon ? Yes.
Katie: What? So this week's challenge in our Patreon, we're doing month of challenges.
Katie: So every week we have a fun challenge for our listeners based on our episode that week. This week's challenge is tell us your lucky coin.
Katie: Comment in the post, which is related to this week's challenge to let us know what your lucky coin is, and you'll be entered for a chance to win this week's prize.
Jim:
Jim: What's this week's prize?
Katie: This week's prize is a signed copy of the Empath's Oracle deck.
Jim: You are gonna love that deck all about being an amazing empath. The artwork on that deck is beautiful.
Katie: Stunning. Yeah, it is really inspiring. So make sure you enter before next week for your chance to win. And remember, if you enter all five, no matter if you win one of them, you will be entered to win our grand prize, which is a palm reading with Jim.
Jim: You'll love that! I can't wait to read someone's poem. That's gonna be so fun.
Katie: Me too. Appreciate you offering that to our subscribers now. Always. And remember, it's open to our Knit A Spell level on Patreon and our Super Fans Combo.
Katie: So if you also wanna be in my Magical Making Circle, which takes magical making to a whole new level, even more than we do in Knit A Spell, I have an option for you there as well.
Katie: You can learn more at patreon.com/light from lantern. Katie,
Jim: I don't know how to decide Should I join the NPE level or the making level? Maybe I should.
Katie: Flip a coin. A coin
Katie: Oh my God. We're nerds and I love it. I'm a dork.
Jim: This is awesome. I think you should keep listening next week. We have a very special guest next week, Pamela Unicorn. She will talk all about quantum money magic, quantum manifesting all kinds of cool stuff. I think we might even talk. Aliens?
Katie: Yes, it's a really amazing episode. Learn all about making abundance in your life. As much money as you need and more, it's gonna be awesome. So don't miss out.
Jim: Tune in next week and we will see you then. Bye everybody.
Jim: Bye-bye.
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