rwcarter said:
dangerdork,
I'm working on that spreadsheet I mentioned to you in PM. For the Minors, do the paths have the same meanings? For example, is the Outer Path for the Minors still Environment and Events and does it still represent the Material World? And is the Inner Path still Lessons and Reactions to the Outer Path and does it still represent the Psychological World?
I'm pretty sure the answer is "Yes" but thought I'd check.
Well, Rodney, this is an interactive activity. I still think there's room for revision and improvement. SO, "Material World" seems to work for the "odd numbers" path and "Inner Path" or "Lessons" seems to work for the even numbers, but I have also considered:
Could they BOTH be "material world" paths; one for the "Masculine, Assertive, Type A" person and one for the "Feminine, Passive, Contemplative, Type B" person? It seems to work. One thing I've enjoyed doing (and not had time to document yet) is to take one of the Paths in the minors and (Disregarding the Stations for a moment) read it as a little plot of a story. Imagine those seven cards as the storyboard for a movie. Maybe make it in first person, and then just read the story across.
For example, in the Outer Path of Wands we would get something like:
"When I was young, I was always active, on the go, bursting with energy and involved in many ways with others around me. As I matured, I discovered a passion for My Thing, and it inspired me as a way to focus and channel my energies. I took steps and enjoyed early success with My Enterprise, which empowered me to pursue my passion. A Turning Point in my life was when I had expanded My Enterprise to the point where I could compete with all others in my field, and I made a commitment to be the best at My Thing. My commitment truly transformed me and soon I found that although I still had competitors, I was in a strong and unassailable position. Only then did I realize the burden of responsibility that comes from this commitment to excellence and lifelong pursuit of one's passions and dreams. I sit before you today having learned these lessons, a leader in my field. People admire and respect me, and pay attention when I speak. I have fulfilled my youthful dream."
I hope I've told this story in a way that you can easily trace the progression along the path described by the cards.
This is one practical application, I think, of this system. It's a little game anyone can play, novice or expert, to connect with different decks and put the stories told by the Minors in a perspective that may shine new light on your readings or meditations.
ANOTHER exercise I was playing with is to look at decks which give short descriptive labels to the cards and plug them into the formula. For instance, let's look at the Golden Dawn Magical deck in the Passive or Path 2 of Pentacles:
Your Origin - (Princess)
Your Inspiration - Harmonious Change
Your Power - Earthly Power
The Turning Point - Material Success
Your Transformation - Prudence
Your Epiphany - Wealth
Your Destiny - (Queen).
(note: I've changed the Seventh Stations label from "Your Goal" to "Your Destiny," as reflected in the handouts. Hopefully it's obvious that it just works better.)
Now, in some suits the Stations labels don't make all that good a correlation, and in the case of the Thoth deck they paint a pretty dark personality picture of most of the Courts - but as a description of the maturation of the "Baby Cards" in the Courts to their mature counterparts, every one of these series taken by itself seems to tell a not just a coherent story, but one relevant to the King or Queen with which it is associated.
Another idea that I'll eventually be toying with is this: we have eight Minor Paths (Inner and Outer for each of the four suits), each telling a certain story as described above. I think it will be tremendous fun to go and examine each of these with the MBPI system.
Another practical application would be to develop a spread where some significator is used (like the Fool in the spread described earlier for Majors Only) to determine where along a specific path the Querent is in their Journey. Even better, maybe if they have a Work question you could specifically look at the Wands paths, a Love question the Cups, etc. Still need to put some thought into this and work it out, but in the spirit of sharing all of this as I make it up and think through it, well, there you go.