Page Of Cups

drip, drip, drip
the softest of impacts
the most fleeting of kisses
the smallest of waves
the slightest of sips

from the cup of the river
from the bloodstream of life
from the veins of my body
drip, drip
and turn

the gentlest of slopes
(stretching down to the sea)
the smoothest of sands
(in my toes, by the sea)
the shallowest of waters
(laps my legs, in the sea)
the palest of suns
(warms my flesh, under sea)

(This is my borderland).


I am seeing this beautiful card through amethyst, as if for the first time, on a night near the far edge of the year, and I think she may drown me in her teacup, or in her deep blue eyes. She is the edge of the water. I doubt I've got a screenie of it, but in the Mythic Tarot this is Narcissus sat on the bank of the pool, in love with his own reflection. This Page is head, shoulders and half an arm, by the water of an inlet, seemingly naked - but severed at the border, so we'll never know.

I get it now. She's the edge of the universal river, the point before you learn whether you'll sink or swim, the point where you're just deciding how deep in you're going to go. She's the first sip from the first chalice; maybe a voice of warning, maybe a glimmer of light that beckons you further on - or maybe, as Narcissus never realised, your own reflection, simultaneously trapping you and preventing you from going deeper. She's the first drop; the first tear. Not an advisor, a gatekeeper or a guardian, just a girl on a beach with a question, and eyes so blue that you're lost.

Images of the Page of Cups

The RWS was the source of the beach setting you see in many Pages of Cups; here's one from the Robin Wood tarot, all leggy and ambiguously gendered.

This bizzare construction from Amano also makes used of a winding borderline, and a boy who's between sleeping and waking.

The Osho Zen deck is going with Awakening, and the door of the canary cage swinging open to admit the sky.