The second Path spread is a seven-level design that yields insight to achieve a high level of personal and spiritual growth. The roots of the tree, shown in the first two cards, suggest what you need to learn and where the challenge lies. Growing upward, the next two cards are about the forces that guide you and what will help boost your growth. The next two cards show the lower branches of the tree, which provide warnings about what you need to let go of in order to maximise your progress. Finally at the top of the tree, we come to the outcome, showing where this growth process will ultimately lead.
The End Result
 2 of Pentacles |
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Warnings You Should Heed
 The Lovers |
That Which You Should Let Pass
 King of Swords |
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What Powers Will Help You
 Knight of Swords |
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Your Guiding Card
 The Empress |
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What You Need to Learn
 The Hierophant |
The Challenges Before You
 The World |
What You Need to Learn
Seated on his throne, the Pope symbolises the male understanding of the spiritual workings of the world and traditional values. Two monks flank him on either side.
Upright Meaning:
Tradition, custom, light, truth, marriage, alliance, captivity, servitude, mercy, inspiration, understanding, spiritual awareness.
A nude, dancing female holding two batons, symbolic of Mother Earth and Mother Nature. She is encircled by a wreath and surrounded by the cherubs who are the guardians of Heaven and Earth.
Reversed Meaning:
fixity, stagnation, absence, nullification, dullness, discouragement, false visions, non-existence, lack-lustre, nullity.
Seated on her throne, the Empress holds up the golden sceptre. She represents the archetypal female.
Upright Meaning:
Fertility, pregnancy, motherly instincts, fruitfulness, compassion, diplomacy, public rejoicings, jubilation.
He is riding in full course, as if scattering his enemies. In the design he is really a prototypical hero of romantic chivalry. He might even be Galahad, whose sword is swift and sure because he is clean of heart.
Reversed Meaning:
Imprudence, incapacity, extravagance, ruin.
An angel unifies two lovers which are Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Upright Meaning:
A choice, decision, attraction, love, beauty, trials overcome, happiness, fulfilment, romance, variety, pleasure.
He sits in judgement, holding the unsheathed sword. He recalls the conventional symbol of justice in the Major Arcana, and he may represent this virtue, but he is rather the power of life and death.
Upright Meaning:
Power, command, authority, militant intelligence, law, defensiveness, security, high office, duty, public service.
A dancing young man has a pentacle in either hand, and they are joined by the lemniscate, the sign of eternity.
Reversed Meaning:
Enforced gaiety, simulated enjoyment, literal sense, handwriting, composition, exchanging letters.