Coming off of my Court Cards workshop, and teaching the beauty of embodiment with these cards from a 1st-person, double-elemental view, I thought this would make a great blog post to share with those who aren’t or can’t be present with me in a workshop space.
The first thing that I want to say is that I am not the one who came up with double-elementation in relation to the Court cards. I first heard about it on Lindsay Mack’s podcast: Tarot for the Wild Soul. While I share her views on the elementation given to each rank of the Courts, my interpretations are my own. I have even seen double-elementation with the Courts in Rachel Pollack’s book Tarot Wisdom, and have seen other readers discuss this form of understanding and working with the Court cards on TikTok.
So, this form of understanding the Court cards is not new, nor my making, but I am excited to share with you how I work with these beautiful cards. I also want to share that all the Court cards speak to you, or whoever is receiving the reading. That is because they are all cards that ask for embodiment and ownership. When one of these beautiful cards comes forward, you are being asked to say yes, step into their shoes, and walk hand-in-hand with them in your reading, and therefore, in your life.
Following this idea that the Courts are invitations of embodiment, it is important to note that every person has all of the Court ranks within them. You and I both hold all sixteen Court cards within us; they exist within the bones and being of all. You have the inner child of the Pages, the moving and seeking of the Knights, the intuitive flow of the Queens, and the leading fire of the Kings.
The Court cards speak to:
- Ways of embodiment in a reading / in your life
- Characteristic or personality traits within the self
- Ascension in the self through experience, maturity, and understanding
- Approaches, mindsets, qualities, or abilities to lean into for your wants and needs
Working with Pages and the Element of Earth
The best place to start with the Pages, across all suits and across all decks, is to start talking about the double-elementation of the Pages. Double-elementation means that when working with any of the Court cards, you are working with not just one element, but two.
It means that before you add in the element of the suit you are working with (for example, in the image to the left the suit is Cups from the symbol on the top of the card), you begin with the element of the rank of the card.
All of the Pages, regardless of their suit from the Minors, start with the element of Earth. The Pages are Earth-elemental because they invite you to start to take up space. They invite you to start to manifest, create, or bring into being. The Pages ask you to take all that is within your dreams and visions, and initiate and usher them into the physical world.
There are many reasons why the Pages are Earth-elemental. The biggest is that the Pages, as the beginners of the Court ranks, ask you to begin where you are at, and that always comes back to the Earth. The Pages begin the process of moving up the ranks by starting at the beginning, where all seeds of potential are ushered into existing in the here and now. They are the “youth” of the Courts, but that doesn’t mean that they are potent or powerful.
The Pages can get a bad rep as being the children, babies, or youths of the Court, meaning that they aren’t to be taken as seriously as other ranks. This is false because children have this incredible ability to manifest. To the adult perspective, rigid and cold, children may not seem like they can manifest a whole lot. They don’t have credit cards, a driver’s license, money, resources, or immediate access to any of these things.
That is precisely what makes the Pages so powerful and important in readings. They say that you don’t need those things to manifest or create or conjure. You have the power to bring into being what you want or need by starting with what you have in this moment. They say that you can make your dreams and visions something with shape and substance, you just have to believe it.
This is why the Pages are so magickal. Any magick book will tell you that you can have every tool and thing for a spell, and you could spend all the money you have on these things, but if you don’t have the belief that you are able to conjure your magick into shape, no expensive thing will make up for that. You must start with the physical initiation of yourself into the existing space, bringing in your magick, your beliefs, and your visions for yourself, and this world.
Because the ranks of the Pages reside within the Earth element, this means that they are the initiators of the Courts. In the Earth element, they embody initiating, and bringing into being. They are the dreamers and the visionaries, and they embody bringing their dreams and visions into the real world, into the here and now.
That is what makes the Pages so special, but it also shows how they reside at the first tier of the Courts. They are not lesser than the other Court ranks; they merely mark the first step, the initiation that must be taken to bring things from the space of ether and dream into reality. Once they have done that, then the Knights will start to move that which the Pages brought forward. The Queens will take it within for internal mastery and then the Kings will lead, transform, and gift it to the bigger picture.
So, when a Page comes forward for you in a reading, build the foundation first from the Earth element. Take up space. Initiate what you dream and envision. Use actions and what you have and now to make that possible. Belief that you can. Belief that you have everything here to help you make these things happen.
Thank you for reading. I hope this helps bring the Pages to light a little bit more, and offer some epic and beautiful invitations for your readings. If you like the way I read and talk about tarot, consider purchasing a reading from my Store and Services section (below and in the top menu). My readings are designed to help you feel empowered, wild, and completely attuned to your path and yourself. Much love. XOXO