Pages symbolize messengers, youth, innocence, opportunities for change, new possibilities, new growth, new experiences, acquisition of knowledge and expression of new emotions, risk-taking, grace, and art.  Cups represent emotions, love, pleasures in life, matters pertaining to the unconscious, intuition and the inner planes; the element of water.  

"You're taking some risks with your psychic abilities and allowing them to lead you into some exciting but somewhat scary directions.  You may be allowing yourself to go deeper into your meditation or take action on some intuitive flashes that seem pretty wild.  You don't know where these psychic paths might take you but you're willing to go for it.  You could also be daring to examine your hidden or feared emotions." - Gail Fairfield

The youth standing on the Halloween Page of Ghosts seems mesmeried by the fish peeping its head out of the chalice he holds.  Is it speaking to him?  What is it telling him?  Is it revealing the screts of the heart to this unsophisticated youth?  And the ghost hovering around his legs - is this a friendly spirit or one trying to spook him?  He seems friendly but maybe its a mask it wears.  The black cat prancing by seems slightly interested in these figures but only as an observer.  A sealed envelope rests on the ground nearby - what information does it contain?

On the Dark Grimoire Daughter of Chalices the woman is both frightening and friendly.  At first glance she seems harmless, holding out a chalice as she stands in the ankle deep water.  However emerging from the dark and roiling clouds behind her is a pyramidal structure.  Is she connected to that structure?  What lies in the waters beneath her feet?  The dark and almost voilent clouds behind her seem ominous and foreboding.

Of course I would look at the more frightening aspects of these cards - cups and emotions are frightening territory for me.  Give me a swords experience anyday.  However this card does raise an interesting question for me - why am I afraid to express my feelings in an honest, unsophisticated way?  Because that would mean admitting that I am vulnerable.  It is much more comfortable and safer for me to express things in a more bomastic and sarcastic manner.  My genuine, honest emotions are encased in layers of protective armor.  I'm rather like an armadillo or turtle - my protective shell allows me to deflect potential danger.  Of course the reality is that is also distances me from connecting to my real emotions about things.

And there is also a fear of letting lose some of these honest and genuine emotions.  There is a lot of pain and anguish hidden beneath that protective armor.  If I rip it off and expose those emotions, then what?  That is not an easy question for me to answer.  I don't necessarily feel that I'm crippled by this pain but I acknowledge that is might not be the healthiest way of dealing with things.  By not freely acknowledging and expressing these emotions, I create situations where the break floose and lash out in expected ways.  This just makes things worse.

So the reversed Page of Ghosts/Daughter of Chalices may be inviting me to start looking behind that mask and those dark, roiling clouds and face what I am so afraid of.  The reality is that it certainly can't be any worse than living with trying to keep the lid on this seething cauldron inside me.  Well okay maybe it's not really seething but simmering with occasional boiling over.  Right now I'm approaching things with a rather childish response - if I don't see it then it isn't really there.  That approach doesn't work anymore and it's time to find a more mature and beneficial one.  What I need to learn how to do is stir things up so that the boiling over happens less frequently and I get to appreciate the full-bodied and well-seasoned stew that is my inner emotional life.