pathworking and meditation

[BrightEye]

Can someone explain the difference for me please?

I've read sth about meditation in Terry Donaldson Step-by-Step Tarot and also in Pollack's 78 Degrees of Wisdom - it's basically imagining yourself inside the cards.

I've googled pathworking and from what I can tell there is not much difference between pathworking and the above form of meditation.

I'm no good at meditating, but I've been inside the cards a couple times. I was dreaming about being inside the Sun card recently and everything around me moved. And about a year ago I was just looking at a card and I felt that the figure in the picture was not an aspect of myself but someone close to me. I wasn't prepared for that, I mean meeting someone other than myself and picking up their emotions, but it might just have been my imagination running wild.

I'm curious how others would describe these two events: pathworking, meditation or neither? And how can I train myself to control these events?

 

[NightWing]

Meditation & Pathworking

What you describe yourself doing sounds to me like the beginning of meditation. I understand meditation in this context to NOT be about "control", but rather the flow of your imagination into, around, and beyond the scene offered by the card image. It might (eventually) involve interacting with and conversing with the characters in the card image. There is an element of the involuntary here; you might be led where you did not plan to go.

Though there are commonalities between card meditation and pathworking, like the use of creative imagination, in this instance I have understood pathworking to require a greater use of focus and direction; a kind of discipline, if you will. It would make sense to try to stay on the "path" that leads from one symbolic image to another.

As one person has described it to me, "Pathworking is like going on a hike from one village to another, discovering meaning in images and symbols and scenes as you go; the desired destination is known, but each person travels there by a different way."

As with most things, it would seem to be all about practice, practice, and practice. I doubt that there is one "orthodox" way of either meditating or pathworking, and I know of no "psychic police" who will come around to enforce the "rules".

I can't claim to be an expert, and stand to be corrected or expanded upon by others more experienced.

 

[HudsonGray]

From what I read online, pathworking seems to be a more structured form of meditation. I think both can give you a good deal of insight, regardless of which you prefer. I haven't done the pathworking, but did use the card image to walk into it during regular meditation, not knowing where it would take me but just letting it happen. There were a lot of surprises there, especially on the Death and Strength card.

Give both a try.

 

[BrightEye]

As one person has described it to me, "Pathworking is like going on a hike from one village to another, discovering meaning in images and symbols and scenes as you go; the desired destination is known, but each person travels there by a different way."

So how exactly does pathworking work then in relation to tarot? As I said I've read about it, but I don't quite get it.

 

[HudsonGray]

I found a very interesting site over here: http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/PT/MM.html About halfway down the page it starts talking about Pathworking and how they go about it. A lot of mentions of Kaballah's Tree of Life seem to come up when you search online about tarot pathworking, so I'm not sure if it's more specific to Thoth type decks and Kaballistic studies or not.