Fourth Stack: The Nature of the Road

[degringolade]

 
The Nature of the Road

 

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I do think that it is very odd the way that the cards came out.  The past, present, future stacks all being minor arcana and not particularly positive (unless you listen to Robinson) and the stacks concerning nature of the road and road hazards being all major arcana.  Add to this that there isn’t a cup to be found.  While I am not all that conversant with the interpretation of tarot spreads,  I am doing the best that I can. and I am hoping that I can lure someone here to lend opinions.  But at first blush, and before even looking things up in my reference material, the actual cards I drew don’t particularly give me warm fuzzy feelings.

Now, this is more of a side note than anything, I use the different prediction modalities only for trying to figure out what a society (culture?  Kultur? Physical Moiety?) has coming up.  More and more, I am coming to ignore Robinson and Tomberg as their take on things is more directed to the individual's path.  I will get to that later when the spirit moves me, but for right now, I am interested in the macro rather than the micro.  So I am going to mention Robinson’s take, but I am not going to bring up Tomberg.  

Fourth three cards (nature of the road ahead):

(5) Le Pape

(0) Le Fou

(7) Le Chariot

 

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(5) Le Pape

Robinson looks at this in a way that I am trying to wrap my head around: 

“In a divination the Hierophant (Pape) might represent tradition, devotion, dogma, instruction or initiation. The number five signals a break away from the closed, formal structure of a four, and intimates some kind of necessary change, or an adjustment that might be needed to bring healing or to improve a situation.”

 Wang is on the same kind of path as Robinson, my take home out of his readings was:

“Which he called the “summa totius theologiae” when it passed into the utmost rigidity of expression.  

I am always surprised by Crowley’s brief overviews of the Major Arcana.  I like short and sweet as well as the next person, but he doesn’t lend much in the way of explanation:  

5.  Divine wisdom, manifestation, explanation, teaching, occult force voluntarily invoked

(0) Le Fou

Crowley posits this is a toughie, Crowley splits his take into spiritual and material:  

Spirituality:  Idea, thought, spirituality, that which endeavors to transcend earth

Material:  Folly, stupidity, eccentricity, or even mania

Robinson talks about:

In divination the Fool could signify new adventures, new beginnings; entering untapped territory; audacity or a foolish action. It could warn us about pitfalls in front of us or suggest for us to take off our blindfold and to really see what lies ahead. At times the card just dares us to move beyond our comfort zone and tackle a situation without any inhibitions. This is a leap of faith, a transformative transition.

Wang is a hard read.  The best that I can come up with is that we are just starting down a path.  In my mind (and this is trying to digest a couple of thousand words into a concept) is that we are starting over again and we don’t really have a map.

(7) Le Chariot

Wang left me with nothing but questions.  I gotta think hard on this.  Here is the quote that I will be pondering:

The eighteenth path is called the house of influence (by the greatness of whose abundance the influx of good things on created beings is increased).

Robinson talks about:

Herein lies the challenge of the seventh card. With the One Will of the Magician at our disposal, the healing staff of Hermes in hand, and a table full of tools, how do we begin to win the battle of ego and illusion? The second septenary of cards will take the Fool along on his journey into the sevenfold dimension of vices and virtues and life’s lessons. In the third and last septenary, we will harvest what we have sown. This is where the Devil and the Tower await us. We should pay attention to how Key 16, the Tower, when reduced by Pythagorean symbolism to number 7, will warn us about the perils that we all encounter along our path of transformation.

Crowley is short and sweet:

Triumph, victory, health (sometimes unstable)