Page of Cups

Today I drew the Page of Cups.  Waite ascribes the following meanings to this card:  Fair young man, one impelled to render service and with whom the Querent will be connected; a studious youth; news, message; application, reflection, meditation; also these things directed to business.  Reversed:  Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.

From looking at the imagery of the card that Pamela Colman Smith has given us, I can’t quite get the meanings that Waite gives us.  As with all the court card cups, it feels to me that this card too carries dysfunction.  I will explain.  The water behind the young man is choppy, ie the emotions.  The man is looking slightly bemused at a fish coming out of a cup.  A fish’s real place, of course, is in the water, and yet the man seems to find nothing odd about the creature of the sea that he sees in front of him.

I can’t help feeling that, again, the emotions play a part in all of this and the emotional state leads the person involved to not be totally realistic in their expectations, including the emotional pull to perhaps draw the person into mental health issues.  Don’t misundertand me, it is not a card of madness, but bear in mind that any form of anxiety or even depression are signs of a mental health issue.

It can also be a card of standing back and seeing what the real issues are without letting emotions get in the way, as we all tend to do.