Tarot Card Study - The Pages

[LisaT4P]

Page of Wands
Page of Swords
Page of Cups
Page of Pentacles

Please put pictures of your favorite versions of these cards if you have them. They can all be from the same deck or different decks. If you have more than one favorite, feel free to post all of them! Part of the fun of this will be showing off our decks and the fun for others will be seeing the images!

Please discuss why this / these are your fave version(s) of the particular card. What in the card speaks the most to you? How does it relate to the other Pages & Court cards? Is there a particular Major card that you associate with the Pages? Does looking @ the cards in this way change your perspectives?

Pages are also known as Princesses in some decks. Do you have any decks that call them something else? How does this different naming affect the way that you interact with the cards, if at all?

How would you interpret this card in different types of readings? What is your most frequent interpretation of this card, or what is your keyword or phrase for it?

[LisaT4P]

Some of the way that I view the Pages / Princesses in a deck are:

1. Messengers - the querent is about to receive a message or some sort of information regarding their question and the suit the card is in.
This could include:
Cups - a love letter, a hug, a kiss, etc.
Swords - an informative or inquisitive letter, phone call, etc.
Wands - a letter that requires you to take some form of action, a more visual cue, etc.
Pentacles - a letter or something to do with the home, finanaces, a current project you're working on. Bills, LOL.

2. As people - generally I see the Pages as young people, or people acting in a young way. This could mean being playful and fun, or being immature and a pain in the @ss.
Cups - a very affectionate person, someone just starting a relationship, someone behaving immaturely in love. Also, a head-in-the-clouds type of person, very active imagination.
Swords - a very inquisitive mind, always wanting to know how things tick, quick thinking, or not using all of the information one has and ignoring it on purpose, using it to trick someone.
Wands - this is the kid that all the other kids follow, they come up with the games, they are the most magnetic. They can also be hyper-active and often act before they think.
Pentacles - studious, practical, this is the older child who helps out with the younger siblings & does all of their chores, etc. Not a risk-taker, sometimes needs to be pushed out of the box / nest, can be quite stubborn.

3. As aspects of the querent - this just sort of takes the last one and applies it to one's self as opposed to an outside person.

[Windsmith]

I use an extremely bastardized version of Elemental Dignities to read court cards. So, because my associations are wands = Air, swords = Fire, cups = Water, and coins = Earth, then the Pages (they're Princesses in my deck), would look like this:

• Princess of Pens = Air of Air. Querent is way too much in head-space and needs to find ways to reconnect to their emotions and physical side. Or, querent needs to use their noodle more and rely a bit less on gut reactions in this case. Or, seek the counsel of an egg-head, preferably a young'un.
• Princess of Guns = Air of Fire. Querent needs to think about possible actions and consequences before committing themselves, to avoid going off half-cocked.
• Princess of Jars = Air of Water. Querent might be creating a Utopian (or Distopian) daydream about what certain emotional states might be like (e.g. "Everything would be sunshine and kitty-cats if Jimmy loved me," or "Life will be awful if I come out to Granny."). While these daydreams might be fun to create, be aware that the reality of the situation might be very different indeed.
• Princess of Clocks = Air of Earth. Querent may want to get their finances in order, perhaps by creating a budget, or their health by creating a fitness plan. Just being aware of the physical aspects of life would stand them in very good stead right now.

Of course, these are for when the card is in a very specific position. If the card seems more general in the reading, I might get a sense that these are larger behavior patterns that need to be addressed, or that, at the very least, inform the rest of the reading.

One of the great things about the Victoria Regina deck, which I use, is that all of the court cards are real people. Sometimes thinking about the lives of the person portrayed helps show another interpretation of the cards. So, for instance, the Princess of Guns is a young Victoria, shortly after the line of succession and her eventual queenship was explained to her. The Princess of Clocks is her daughter Beatrice, who sacrificed her own personal life - marriage, home, children, even hobbies - to be her mother's personal secretary. These sort of pointed details can add tremendous layers of meaning and comprehension to a reading - both for me and for the querent.

[Zephyrstorm]

Today I came across Greer and Little's Understanding the Tarot Court when the hubby took me to Barnes and Nobles.
I'll add some as I can.

[LisaT4P]

Today I came across Greer and Little's Understanding the Tarot Court when the hubby took me to Barnes and Nobles.
I'll add some as I can.

LOVE that book, the exercises are really helpful, IMO.

Thank you for that, Windsmith. I need to study the dignities and start using them. So far I've not done that. I'm lazy. :hahugh:

[Shatril]

The Witches Tarot Princesses

Pages in my deck are Princesses. The author of the cards uses the analogy of the seasons to define the traits of the court cards. The princess is the harvest or manifistation of the seeds choosen by the king, planted by the queen, in summer the princes are the seedling (you know where it is going). The princess is the harvest of the crop you have sown.

Also in my deck these cards are always modifiers of the next card draw. I will always draw the next card and lay it next to the court card. This gives a much deeper reading and actually give a kind of timing to the event defined in the card modified.

Princess of Wands-The journey is done, the havest complete. That indicated by the card modified is complete. Reversed-Something has caused the harvest to fail. It is possible that the harvest has come and it was far from what the querent wanted. This IS what the querent has grown.

Princess of Swords(action)-That action which is indicated by the card modified has already happened. Reveresed-The action hasn't happened yet or it may not happen at all.

Princess of Cups(emotions)-That emotion or intuition represented by the card modified has come to manifestation. Reversed-I has not.

Princess of Pentacles(physical)-The physical thing represented by the card modified has happened. Reversed-The end of the journey has not been reached. You need to continue. What was planned was not meant to be.