The Princess (Page) Cards in the Tarot

The Cards of Earthly Manifestation

For many people learning tarot, the court cards can be fairly enigmatic or confusing as a whole. The court cards feature four figures per suit comprising sixteen cards: Kings, Queens, Princes and Princesses (there are variants naming the last two knights and pages respectively and then a system that flips knights and kings as titles altogether).

They can also be thought of as divine Father, Mother, Son and Daughter. They are associated with four of the Sephirot on the Tree of Life in kabbalah. (2) Chokmah/King (3) Binah/Queen (6) Tiphereth/Son/prince and (10) Malchut/daughter or princess. Malchut is the world of manifestation, the kingdom. This is the earth itself expressed in each of the four suits in tarot; wands/fire, cups/water, swords/air and disks/earth.

Princesses - Unique, Distinctively Free

The princesses are special and somewhat different from the other three court cards in a significant way. Tarot is connected inextricably to astrology. The court cards are linked with the triplicity modality of the seasonal stages of the four season year of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Cardinal signs start a season, fixed signs see it in its fullness and mutable signs conclude a season. In tarot Queens are cardinal, Kings are mutable and Princes are fixed. So where does that leave the Princess/Page? She is without a modality and has an embodied freedom.

The court cards are linked to the elements as well. Kings with fire, queens with water, princes with air and princesses with earth! But lacking a seasonally derived modality what does the earthy part of each suit do or mean? The answer may be tied to the Aces of each suit.

The Aces start off each suit in a manner of speaking because the aces are the root or potential of an element or suit. This means something that is not yet in form or manifestation. It could even be the idea of a seed of thought or the very first seed planted. At the other end of each suit in the minor arcana from the Ace is the Princess card. She is the physical form, she who has an unshod foot upon the fire, water, air and earth! She who stands ostensibly naked in her element. The princess is what we do within an element or suit here in the kingdom of earth.

Lessons from the Princess Tarot Cards

How do we enact our lives? What can we bring forth into being-ness? The Princess reminds us that now is all we have. There is no denying the body while we are alive.

The foolish thing would be to dampen our inner light, to wear too much figurative and representational armor, to not feel the wind on our faces.

So let our inner child be free! Let our wildest imagination show us insight. Let our simple lives be meaningful! May we inspire each other over and over again. We only have this moment.

The Princess of Wands

The Princess of Wands holds the creative spirit in her hands. This is the life force of our heart’s desire. We have burning passions, therefore we must act and apply our will-spirit as a sacred action. Speak up and be an individual. Live and let live. Do not be afraid of your unique path in life. Blaze a trail. To Inspire is to in-spirit. We are the human part of the green living world, the Flowering Wand. The heart is everything to this princess, the font of life, the cradle of birth, the sexual and creative drive.

The Princess of Cups

The Princess of Cups works within her birthright to use her sensitivity and emotional fluency to empower and transform herself into a rich, authentic, softer, more compassionate being of loving-kindness. She is wise to keep in touch with her magical emotional world of connection. She creates and sustains a world of harmony and connection. She actively engages in gratitude. She holds the cup of her own experience of reality by embracing an active relationship with her feelings, dreams and intuition.

The Princess of Swords

The Princess of Swords is the daughter of the Queen of Swords. While her mother uses intellect and knowledge to find clarity and solutions, the princess creates new ideas and thought-forms that are needed in her present world. She is a crafter of culture and finds meaning with what she has in her circumstances. She makes new and better situations in life. She is an active problem solver within her own reach. With a sword in her hand and her feet naked upon the ground she reminds us that we cannot practice the life we want unless we are grounded in the pragmatic energy of the earth. Visions take work to be made real in actuality.

The Princess of Disks

The Princess of Disks is the very last card in Tarot, earth of earth. She is the ultimate in working with what we have, using our hands. Manifest. She is the tool and the toolmaker and she starts with the ultimate technology–her body in this physical realm. This is the energy of noticing, deep noticing of our surroundings with all of the sensory perceptions, letting our perceiving organs show us the way.

And in doing so we can become more sensitive to the world even beyond the five senses. Our conscious minds becomes partnered with our senses and we expand into the greater universe as much as we are able and that leads us to the doorstep of mystery and back to beginner’s mind, back to where we started from. The here, the now, the present form is always where we end and start from over and over.

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