The second Path spread is a 7-level design that yields insights that you will want to become aware of in order to achieve a high level of personal and spiritual growth. The roots of the tree, shown in the first 2 cards, tell you about what you need to learn and where the challenge lies. Growing upward, the next 2 cards are about the forces that guide you and what will help boost your growth. The next 2 cards show the lower branches of the tree, which provide warnings and tell you about what you need to let go of in order to maximize your progress. Finally at the top of the tree we come to the outcome, showing where this growth process will ultimately take you.
The End Result
4 of Wands |
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Warnings You Should Heed
4 of Swords |
That Which You Should Let Pass
8 of Pentacles |
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What Powers Will Help You
The Lovers |
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Your Guiding Card
7 of Wands |
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What You Need to Learn
8 of Swords |
The Challenges Before You
2 of Pentacles |
A young man, in the act of dancing, has a pentacle in either hand, and they are joined by that endless cord which is like the number 8 reversed.
Reversed Meaning:
Enforced gaiety, simulated enjoyment, literal sense, handwriting, composition, letters of exchange.
A young man on a craggy eminence brandishing a staff; six other staves are raised towards him from below.
Divinatory Meaning:
It is a card of valour, for, on the surface, six are attacking one, who has, however, the vantage position. On the intellectual plane, it signifies discussion, wordy strife; in business – negotiations, war of trade, barter, competition. It is further a card of success, for the combatant is on the top and his enemies may be unable to reach him.
The sun shines in the zenith, and beneath is a great winged figure with arms extended, pouring down influences. In the foreground are two human figures, male and female, unveiled before each other, as if Adam and Eve when they first occupied the paradise of the earthly body. Behind the man is the Tree of Life, bearing twelve fruits, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is behind the woman; the serpent is twining round it. The figures suggest youth, virginity, innocence and love before it is contaminated by gross material desire. This is in all simplicity the card of human love, here exhibited as part of the way, the truth and the life. It replaces, by recourse to first principles, the old card of marriage, which I have described previously, and the later follies which depicted man between vice and virtue. In a very high sense, the card is a mystery of the Covenant and Sabbath.
The suggestion in respect of the woman is that she signifies that attraction towards the sensitive life which carries within it the idea of the Fall of Man, but she is rather the working of a Secret Law of Providence than a willing and conscious temptress. It is through her imputed lapse that man shall arise ultimately, and only by her can he complete himself. The card is therefore in its way another intimation concerning the great mystery of womanhood. The old meanings fall to pieces of necessity with the old pictures, but even as interpretations of the latter, some of them were of the order of commonplace and others were false in symbolism.
Reversed Meaning:
Failure, foolish designs. Another account speaks of marriage frustrated and contrarieties of all kinds.
The effigy of a knight in the attitude of prayer, at full length upon his tomb.
Divinatory Meaning:
Vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit's repose, exile, tomb and coffin. It is these last that have suggested the design.
An artist in stone at his work, which he exhibits in the form of trophies.
Divinatory Meaning:
Work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, skill in craft and business, perhaps in the preparatory stage.
From the four great staves planted in the foreground there is a great garland suspended; two female figures uplift nosegays; at their side is a bridge over a moat, leading to an old manorial house.
Divinatory Meaning:
They are for once almost on the surface – country life, haven of refuge, a species of domestic harvest-home, repose, concord, harmony, prosperity, peace, and the perfected work of these.