Editor’s Note: If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc
By Sarah Taylor
Having gone through the “pip” tarot cards, from Ace through Ten, we now enter another domain: that of the court cards. Although part of the tarot deck’s minor arcana, the court cards have a quality all their own. They are essentially a separate, complementary unit to the preceding ten cards, representing the encounters we have with others, or ourselves, and of character traits that are asking for our attention.
I’m going to be writing a more in-depth article about the court cards — what they can symbolise and how they manifest in our lives — at a later date. For now, however, I want to focus on the Pages, the first of the tarot royal family, the monarchs-in-waiting of their suit.
Page of Wands
The Page of Wands — the suit of creativity and inspiration — makes an interesting contrast to his successor, the Knight. He is in many respects like all of the Pages, the Knight in embryo — before he has to armour himself and become an active principle in his own experience. Unlike the older version of himself, this Page is receptive, and there is no immediate need for armour — either physical or psychological.
His clothes are sumptuous, heavy, and in good fettle; the Knight’s are well-worn, ragged, flapping in his wake as he gallops forward. The tail of fire emanating from the Knight’s helmet is but a single feather of flame with the Page. This is the beginning of the burning: the zeal, the lust, the drive is hinted at, but hasn’t yet caught him by the jugular, is not yet driving him.
Right now, he’s sizing up his potential — holding his wand with both hands as he directs his gaze to the top of it. He seems slightly in awe of it, or at least as if he’s not quite sure what to do with it yet. He hasn’t bonded with it in the way that the Knight has, who owns his with a firm grip. By contrast, the Page’s demeanour is cautious — his left leg is faintly bent and, although not a given, I was left with the feeling that he is about to get down on one knee. Neophyte; not yet master.