Your reading methodology seems spookily close to mine (although I'll allow it's been 30 or more years since I used mine). I used to have (may still have) an Aquarian pack, which is a variant on the Rider-Waite, and I used the Minor Arcana as well. I never thought too hard about how it worked, to be honest. I suppose I had some notion about Time being 'wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, stuff' before The Doctor put it into words.