The Pages
The pages share a lot in common with The Fool and the Aces, in that they represent the beginning of the short arc of the Court Cards in the tarot. Commonly associated with children or youthful people, they are also assigned the role of heralds or messengers, hence the more traditional association of the pages with receiving messages in the real world. The “traditional” meaning of the Pages is that of actual young people or children in our life; Eden Grey, in her venerable 1971 book Mastering the Tarot even went so far as to sketch out the hair colour and physical appearances of the types of young people the Pages are supposed to herald in our actual physical existence.
I need to reiterate my bias here. In addition to my attempt with this series to interpret and discuss the Smith-Waite tarot through an queer, ace and aro perspective, I’ve strived to also interpret and discuss the tarot here less in terms of purely divinatory concepts but also in more of a spiritually and emotionally self-analytical and self-empowering context. (And I will mention that I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically endorse and encourage people to explore tarot as a spiritually divinatory practice too!)
This is why I personally primarily think of the Pages not necessarily as specific young people who will come into your life, but more as embodiments of archetypal energies we are encouraged to express and explore. I don’t discount the possibility that the Page of Swords could very well mean that a brown-haired, brown-eyed girl or boy will make an appearance in your life. It can depend very heavily on both the questions being asked and the cards that turn up alongside it, as well as the type of tarot spread used and the positionality of the meanings involved. Isn’t context fun?
The Page of Swords, is in very simplistic terms, someone who is child-like, youthful, and innocent in the matters of speech, communication, and of the mind. But it doesn’t mean blabbing out the first thing that comes to mind, or blurting out inappropriate, puerile comments at the slightest provocation: it means being able to be coy and innocent in what you say (while being on your guard at the same time; note the youth’s sword is pointed up and held out), and it means being brash and bold enough to honestly call people out on their shenanigans if need be. It means being the kid who knows just what to say, at the right time, to get out of a sticky situation. Ironically, getting to that point of quick-thinking, fast-on-your-feet innocence often involves being remarkably mature and experienced in communicating with others, especially when it comes to difficult conversations.
For ace and aro people, this could be defusing a potentially sticky situation on a social media site like Twitter or Facebook by being coy and innocent. All too often on sites like those (but especially on a microblogging platform like Twitter) I see people often speaking in deliberately obtuse, or frustratingly vague ways, to express what usually intuitively seems to me like aphobic, queerphobic, transphobic or racist positions. Being coy and innocent in talking to these people can allow them to be more clear in their positions — whether they were being intentionally bigoted, hateful and exclusionary, or not — and thus enable you to engage with them in a way that doesn’t wind up with you looking like the bad guy. There’s nothing worse than going all Knight of Swords on someone for something they said on Twitter, only to wind up with a massive case of egg on your face because they actually meant to say something that is actually something you agree with and support. It also grants one the (in my opinion, well deserved) satisfaction of helping to expose someone’s bigotry in public, for all the world to see. Or even better, the establishment of someone in your social circles as someone who is affirming of ace and aro people.
It also means being excited and enthusiastic about new projects, particularly intellectual pursuits like research. Maybe it’s time to get cracking on the research you need to do, for that new book you’ve always wanted to see about the historical basis of asexuality and aromanticism in the history of the queer community.
The Page of Wands is the new artist. We see the wand in his hands, and with the way he looks at it, we can almost hear him thinking, “Wow, check out this new wand…I wonder what I can do with it? Or rather, what can’t I do with it?”
In a lot of ways, this card shares the same beginning fire of creativity we see in the Ace of Wands, but here, this is the Ace of Wands energy personified in you. The Ace of Wands may represent a new call for submissions by a literary journal asking for fiction or non-fiction pieces speaking to people’s experiences in being queer. The Page of Wands then, is you firing up Microsoft Word and starting work on a brand new experimental prose or non-fiction essay about being defiantly non-binary aroace in an allosexual heteronotmative world. The rise in popularity of the “Hermit Crab” class of experimental non-fiction essay is ripe with seemingly boundless possibilities for ace and aro people to explore and communicate their relationship to their sexual identity, in the context of the world and relationships around them. (Not to toot my own horn too loudly, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Hermit Crab essays I’ve done in this realm, published on the AZE Journal and with Queer Toronto Literary Magazine/The Bi+ Arts Festival.) Not a writer or an artist? Even better! That potentially grants you even more freedom (and less academic constraints!) to artistically and creatively explore yourself and your ace or aro-ness.
This dovetails nicely with the Page of Pentacles — often a figure associated with entrepreneurial activity, plugging into the Ace of Pentacles. To echo my examples used in the Page of Wands and the Ace of Wands, if the Ace of Pentacles signifies the idea of starting up a new Etsy shop or Patreon for ace and aro content you want to create, then the Page of Pentacles is you starting those first steps into making those ideas a reality. This is you signing up for that new Patreon or Etsy account, or writing down and contacting local maker faires or zine shows that you could see yourself tabling at. You’ve visualized yourself crocheting fun new Ace and Aro swag, or cranking out that punk feminist aroace zine; now’s the time to see that desire and vision made into a reality.
“Crocheting ace and aro stuff? Casting resin aro and ace trinkets? Creating aro and ace buttons? Making an ace or aro zine? And selling that stuff!?” — that’s what I can imagine some of the doubters and critics would say. (I would know because that’s the tone that my inner critic likes to take.) “You’re deluded to think that would work!”
But such flights of fancy (or flights of folly) is the domain of the Page of Cups, a figure often seen as the childlike figure in the realm of the emotions. This card, again has a very intimate relationship with the Ace of Cups; the Page challenges us to make those seemingly foolhardy connections on both an emotional and an intuitive level, with both ourselves and with others. The Page of Cups invites us to be truly loose and playful with how we think about our emotions and our intuitions; to put aside the overthinking and overanalytic habits (especially the inner doubter and critic telling you that a new online ace/aro craft store wouldn’t work) and just see where the night takes us…whether that involves a paintbrush on a canvas, a pen and a notebook, or a friend and a night on the town. The result may be a painting we never knew we could create, an essay we didn’t think we could write, or a new, powerful, and intimate friendship we didn’t foresee making. If the Ace of Cups represents a chance to hang out with a couple of old friends at a cafe, then the Page of Cups represents us being present, completely open and uninhibited to where that hang out could take us.
I remember one such hangout I had with two old friends from a previous job, who I hadn’t had the chance to connect with since before the pandemic. Not only did we really reconnect in a soulful way — but I’d gotten chance to connect with one of them I’d grown really attached to in a platonic way in the past. I came out to them, and made a really wonderful connection that I honestly didn’t see coming.
For a lot of people, our inner children are buried beneath the rubble of abusive families, toxic childhood friendships, bullies, the pain of rejection, and the struggle to fit in as other kids our age in school would enthusiastically and glowingly talk about crushes on classmates and celebrities, or secret amorous fantasies. Such experiences are ones that aro and ace people talk about as being wholly alien and unrelatable, yet these experiences open a window to a realm of experience that often leave us feeling isolated and bereft of connection. At the risk of sounding cliché, the Pages present us with an opportunity to reconnect with that same inner child: to listen to what they have to say, without fear of shame or rejection and to embrace that with all of the glorious abandon in the world.
Previous: Introduction — The Court Cards
Next: The Knights — Just Do It
