Court Card Study: The Pages!

Helloooo magick makers, I hope you’re all doing fine and making some magick! In today’s post, we are going to dive into the court cards by studying those playful, youthful, fascinating Pages! Who they are, what they mean in readings, and how you can read the pages with more confidence.

First off, a quick explanation of the court cards.

The tarot deck is made up of two parts: the major arcana (big secrets) and the minor arcana (little secrets). There are 22 major arcana cards and 56 minor arcana cards. The major arcana cards represent the big things that happen to us in life, as well as archetypes that exist in the collective. The minor arcana represents the every day wins, challenges, situations, and people we experience.

The court cards are those people.

There are 16 court cards, four per suit (and there are four suits). There is the Page, the Knight, the Queen, and the King. Some decks call these by different names, but these are their traditional names.

Each court card is influenced by their position (ie Page, Knight, etc) and the energy of their suit. So the Page of Wands is the Page of Fire.

Sometimes reading the court cards can be challenging, because they can represent the querent (who you are reading for) or someone else in their life. The way to know is by trusting your intuition, as well as learning a few things about the court cards.

So we’ll now dive into the Pages so that you can learn about who they are, what they can represent, and how to read them well in readings.

THE PAGES

Pages in a court system were messengers. They are considered the children of the tarot. This means they can represent actual children, child-like energy, or the infant stages of a situation. When a Page card comes up, it can often mean receiving a message in alignment with their suit (ie Pages of Cups may be messages of love or intuitive messages, while the Page of Pentacles may be messages about career, money, or health).

Now, just because this is child-like energy does not necessarily mean that these figures are naive or childish. Remember the Death card in the Smith Rider Waite (see pic below). The only figure knocked on their ass is the King, and their crown has been knocked off too.

And notice this child (see the arrow). Not only are they not knocked over, they are offering Death flowers, facing Death openly and welcoming it.

Now, Death does not mean literal death in the tarot. Death is the surrender of the ego, releasing control, and realizing that in order for life to begin, we need endings. And there are things in life that are outside of our control.

But a King, a King would rule from the place that THEY are all-powerful and in-control. It’s their way or the highway, they can decide death or life for people, they can take away freedoms, they can grant them. This is a place where the ego can thrive, but our soul would suffer. Kings can also be great leaders who put their land and people first, creating great prosperity and harmony. What kind of Kings are we? How do we deal with power?

Some authors suggest that in some cases, the Pages may, in fact, be the wisest of the court cards. This would be if the person can come full circle. So they have returned to a place of child-like wonder & innocence, but it’s rooted in the wisdom of life experience, not naiveté. Many of my teachers who were elders taught us this. There is wisdom in being open, curious, loving, playful, and seeing the world through the eyes of wonder. Being serious all the time was never what we were taught.

Now, how this Page will manifest will depend on the reading. In some cases, it will be childlike in terms of literal age, or in terms of being naive. And in others, they may be wise in a childlike way. You will be able to pick up on which Page is manifesting through your intuition and where the Page is in your reading.

It’s time to meet the Pages and get to know each of them!