All Pages are brave, but which is the bravest?

The Pages in any tarot deck have a lot to remind us about the power of being a beginner.

It’s the first day of school where I live.

I can remember it now: Those nervous moments walking in the hallway. That feeling in your stomach when you enter the classroom and find your seat. The racing thoughts, the hopeful energy, the wish for this to be a good year and not one of those learn-the-hard-way years.

I’ve grown to embrace the energy that surrounds this back-to-school season. My own kid started high school today, and he hasn’t gone to school with any of these kids before, so there was an extra element of “new” to his day.

He is very much in the Page stage of high school — a beginner with new ideas and fresh curiosity and a general cluelessness about how things work.

We forget that it requires an immense amount of courage to be the least-experienced person in a room.

To show up with nothing more than a backpack and a good attitude is a big ask, no matter your age, so it was tough to watch my 14-year-old gin up that strength as we walked out of the door this morning.

With high school upon us, I’ve been thinking about the power of the Pages these past few weeks. Each of them represents a somewhat naive, but persistent and curious archetype that has both strengths and weaknesses.

They are all courageous in their own ways, but I got to thinking: Who is the bravest page?

I think that answer is unique to all of us, depending on which suit we’ve struggled with the most.

For folks who have a hard time finding peace of mind, the Page of Swords might be the recurring nightmare of never knowing what to say. Someone who has issues with money might find the free-spirited, optimistic nature of the Page of Pentacles to be too intimidating. If you’re always having love issues, trusting that your heart will be safe can be a lifelong challenge.

For me, I’m going to say that the Page of Wands is the bravest Page. Maybe that’s because of my own relationship to creativity and passion. My career was very intellectual and straight-laced for more than two decades, so cultivating a fiery artist side has required a lot of trust in the process.

Even to call myself an artist has taken many years because of some of the insecurities that this card suggests, such as the idea that my hobbies and interests are just cute little distractions from What Really Matters in Life.

But the cards tell me that this isn’t true. The Wands exist as a suit in the first place because we all have this fire energy inside that drives us to explore and grow and learn and make.

And not everybody is going to understand what makes your fire glow.

They might not understand on the first day of school, on the last day of school, on the day you announce your business, on the day you retire.

The Page of Wands says it doesn’t matter.

It says:

Keep going, and tend to your fire in your own way.

Remember that courage is a muscle that we build.

and…

Stay open to being taught, to being wrong, and also to being right.

I hope you all have had a good summer and are having a good August.

Fall will be here before we know it.

Looking forward to sharing more soon,

Addie

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