This post continues the reading started in Part 1: The setup.
The reading is one using “traditional” meanings (gleaned from authors such as Arthur Edward Waite, Eden Gray, and Leanna Greenaway), in a “predictive” (or fortunetelling) reading. The purpose of this reading is not fortunetelling, but to demonstrate how a predictive reading can be used to stimulate the creative imagination and as an aid in problem solving. (See Part 1 of this series for the reasoning behind the exercise.)
This is below you (The foundation): Page of Pentacles
Court cards are often difficult to read, mostly because 1) they can represent a person, an aspect of your (or someone else’s) personality, an atmosphere, or a type of action or event (“do as I do”), and 2) there seems to be confusion about the people represented by each of these 16 cards.
Older Tarot books would describe the appearance of each of the cards (“dark eyes and hair,” “blond hair with light-coloured eyes” and so on), but there are several opinions on which descriptions belong to which suit. There are even more divergent opinions on the type of person each court card represents.
One convention is to associate Pages with beginners/beginnings, students and apprentices, and with that kind of mindset: optimistic, enthusiastic, idealistic, young, immature, innocent, curious, and trusting. These aspects are then merged with the general characteristics of the suit. Pentacles are usually seen as grounded, stable, hardworking, reliable, traditional/conservative, the senses (sensuality; being in touch with the body, surroundings and nature), economically minded, practical.
The Page of Pentacles will be eager to learn about the physical world and everything that influences him or her. The least energetic of the Pages (Pentacles has the lowest energy), the Page of Pentacles is, nevertheless, enthusiastic and optimistic, and therefore a good student. He or she will apply themselves to learning and to practical skills.
The “good student” is only one aspect of the Page of Pentacles, but the one I decided to use for this reading.
The “Below you” or “Foundation” position describes the underlying forces in this situation, the root or cause of a problem, or something that the situation is based on. It can also depict a hidden, unconscious influence, especially if you have decided to treat card 3 (the “Crowns you” card) as “conscious, known influences.” According the Waite, the position portrays something that has already come to pass, something the reader or querent has made his or her own; some Tarotists therefore refer to this position as the “deep past,” further back than the “behind you” position, which refers to the recent past.
For this reading, I have taken this position as the basis of the situation.
In the “foundation” position, I see this Page as depicting the hard work that has gone into my study of Tarot, and in writing the book so far. In considering the “wholesome” aspect of the Pentacles suit, I decide that the work I have done so far is something to be proud of. Although there have been many quick insights, flights of imagination and grave analyses (characteristic of the Wands, Cups and Swords suits respectively), overall, I think I have done some solid and “worthy” work.
It seems I am more positive about the project that I realized! This interpretation of the Page of Pentacles seems to fit, so I will be looking to other aspects of the situation to help me formulate the problem statement, which I can then use as the basis of the next spread.
Comments