Page Of Wands

I've walked across the forest
through brush and rivers, in its hands
and I walk on-

I've walked across the sky
four winds, five rainstorms, in its clouds
and I walk on-

and now into the desert.
I feel no heat; I have shade.
I feel no thirst; the rains are with me.

The forest is inside me.
The sky rest on my brow.


I like this Page of Wands; it seems a wiser young adventurer than many. The card always reminds me of a someone who I never really knew, someone I hope I'll know better one day - her name is Dominique, and I think the reason why she is adventurous is because everywhere around her she sees the rewards of adventurousness. The Page Of Wands, you might say, knows only the survivors.

A Wand could never tumble into the pitfalls of the Page Of Swords; Wands, even a Wand who doesn't have it herself, value lived experience, value realities - they just value dreams equally so. That's not perverse, just nature - you can't love anything without being drawn to its opposite, and the Wands are up-down channels between one world and the next. Their flames need fuel. She's only just setting out, but the Page of Wands is carrying her journey upon her sturdy back. She only knows the survivors. Her eyes are wide, but alert. She has yet to see disaster.


Images of the Page of Wands:

Phrixus, the Mythic Page - the image shows him fleeing from his evil stepmother, on the back of what later became the Golden Fleece. His twin sister took a nosedive into the sea shortly before this image was sketched.

Amano brings out a possible reverse meaning of his Page of Wands; he's dreaming. I think all of Amano's pages have two faces; this shows one daylit face, playing with a flock of birds - and in the corner of the card, blocked from the other figure by a swan, is a shadowed face, eyes closed, surrounded by darkness and stars. This Page seems to be yet to leave his bedroom; the birds are, perhaps, his colourful dreams. (And damn, now I wish I knew what the swan means in Japanese myth).

The Osho Zen Page says life is a jape, and she and all the rest of us are clowns.