Tarot Spreads

The Tarot Spread There are just as many Spreads as there are Tarot decks and psychic readers. There are some basics that you should find in every Tarot book. But it's important to remember the style of the spread is entirely up to the reader. Try different layouts to keep yourself interested. If you get bored, you're likely to concentrate less on your cards and it maybe difficult to get a clear message.   Before you layout a spread it's important for you to give each card an intent. In other words, each card represents an aspect or time, thus the intent of the card in the spread has a specific meaning. In a traditional 3 card spread, the first card is usually for Past actions, the 2nd for Present events and the 3rd for Future consequences. So when you "make-up" your own spread, know the intent of each card before it's chosen and placed on the table.   How to Read a Spread Shuffle the deck several times. The client (if the reading is for yourself, you are the client) should focus on one question, situation or event. Before any cards are drawn from the deck, you should have an idea of what you're going to layout and the intent being given to each card. Again, by intent I mean, the purpose of each card in the spread. Let me give an example; My client has chosen a past, present and future spread. As I select the cards from the deck and lay them on the table, I am projecting the purpose of the card on the card. I lay down the first card and say (out loud or to myself) "This is the Past" and so on until all 3 cards are on the table.   Common Spreads The following are examples of the most common spreads used in divination.   Daily Spread The Daily spread can be used to layout your actions for the start of a day, you can gain insights or warnings before the day begins. Perhaps you should wear a business suite today for an unexpected visit from the boss. Or you can use this spread at the end of a day to review/explain any events that might have occurred. Perhaps you require clarification or additional information about an event that took place.   Crossing Challenge This spread indicates the situation through the first card and any blockage that may exist through the second card. If the two cards are of the same suite, then the blockage maybe easily overcome.     The Past, Present and Future This spread requires 3 cards, laid out from left to right. Typically a specific question is being addressed by this spread. The Past explains the situation and how it came to be. The Present explains the current status of the situation and any blockages that may exist. The Future explains any consequences and/or any additional influences that may play a part in the situation.   Celtic Cross This is one of the most famous spreads and can be one of the most difficult to read. Each card in this spread has a specific intent which builds on the card before it. Connolly give a pictorial example of this spread and how it should be laid out (because this document is designed for generic email transmissions, this type of graphical examples is not possible).   1. The Significator: the present position of the situation. 2. The Crossing: existing influences or obstacles. 3. The Foundation: subconscious influences and the relationship of the questioner to the issue. 4. The Goal: the desired outcome of the issue. 5. The Past: influences in the recent or distant past which are still in operation. 6. The Future: influences that will come into manifestation. 7. The Attitude: present position and attitude of the questioner. 8. The Environment: influences from nearby energies or other people. 9. The Feelings: inner hopes, feelings or anxieties not expressed by the questioner. 10. Manifestation: the final result and culmination of the issue.   Additional Spreads The Faery Ring This spread is used to discover your inner strengths and weaknesses. What you can celebrate as you dance through the Faery circle and what you need to work on once you leave the Faery celebration. The spread utilizes 12 cards placed in a circle in 2 group layouts.   The first 6 cards define your strengths: 1. Your greatest spiritual strength 2. Your most enterprising characteristics 3. Your greatest emotional strength 4. Your instinctive reaction to problems 5. Your greatest financial/resource ability 6. Your favorite personality trait   Once you have completed reading the first 6 cards, lay out the second 6 cards on top of the first set. This next group defines your weaknesses: 1. Your greatest spiritual challenge 2. Your problematic attitude toward work 3. Your biggest emotional challenge 4. Your biggest fear when facing problems 5. Your greatest financial/resource weakness 6. Your least favorite personality trait   The Lunar Spread The Moon presides over movement and cycle of growth. This spread can be used to explore the cycle of a situation, from the unknown, to your inner hidden knowledge, what you need to learn and how to create a positive outcome. 1. The Dark side of the moon. Represents your unconscious feelings surrounding the issue and your fears or anxieties about it. 2. The Light side of the moon. Provides insight into your conscious feelings surrounding the issue and your hopes or desires about it. 3. The Waning Moon. This card relates to the waning influences of the situation. What occurs in the beginning stages and how they impact the situation. 4. The Full Moon. How the influences of growth impact this situation as things begin to be put into action and evolve. 5. The Waning Moon. This relates to the influences of manifestation, what can be learned or achieved as action moves the issue into reality. 6. The New Moon. Associated with death or transition, this represents the outcome of an issue, what needs to be learned in order to ensure a positive event.   The Fork In The Road Life is filled with choices that cause us to choose a path to take. When faced with a decision, this spread gives insight into the choices and where they may lead.   1. Defines where you are right now and what you need to know about the overall situation. 2. The benefits of chosen path A. 3. The challenges of chosen path A. 4. The probable outcome of chosen path A. 5. The benefits of chosen path B. 6. The challenges of chosen path B. 7. The probable outcome of chosen path B.   The Tree of Life Spread This spread is designed to give insight into the aspects of life, family, work, finances and love. It reviews the current energy patterns and how they are likely to manifest in the future. This allows an individual to work on changing the patterns they don't like and working to support the patterns they do like.   1. Family: overview of current family situations and dynamics. 2. Family patterns: current family patterns and how they are likely to manifest in the future. 3. Work: overview of current work situations and dynamics. 4. Work patterns: current work patterns and how they are likely to manifest in the future. 5. Finances: overview of current financial situations. 6. Finance patterns: current financial patterns and how they are likely to manifest in the future. 7. Love: overview of current situations and dynamics dealing with love relationships. 8. Love patterns: current love patterns and how they are likely to manifest in the future. 9. Spirit: overview of the spirit and current progression of life's mission. 10. Spirit patterns: current patterns of the soul's evolution and how they are likely to manifest in the future.   The Growing Oak Or how your dreams can grow. This spread is used to gain insight and pull energy toward your dreams to help them manifest. Whither your dream is about love, security, family, work or any goal you wish to achieve, this spread can help you work on it's manifestation.   1. The Acorn: This is where you are rooted now. 2. The Soil: What you need to get started 3. The Trunk What will help you be strong and manifest your dream/goal 4. The Tree Knot: What challenges might you face and how to overcome them 5. Your Oak: Insight into your dream or goal 6. The Water: What is needed to nurture and grow this dream or goal 7. The Sunshine: What you should know about the dream or goal to help it grow 8. The Branches: What assets/knowledge from the past can give you insight and strength to make your dream or goal become reality. 9. The Leaves: What unexpected gifts can come from the work and manifestation of our dream or goal.               The Pentagram This spread can be used to gain insight into the 5 aspects of life, Earth - the physical world, Air - the mental world, Fire -the world of intuition, Water - the emotional world and Spirit - the subconscious world. It can provide guidance in situation where you feel out of balance, or lost and need to rise up into the Divine Consciousness to gain a new perspective.   1. Spirit - What you need to learn from this situation, why it has occurred from a spiritual perspective. 2. Fire - How your inner voice and intuition can help or hinder your experience in the situation at hand. 3. Water - How your emotions are helping or hindering the situation and it's outcome. 4. Air - How your mental thinking is affecting the situation. What is real and what is imagined. 5. Earth - How your physical actions are affecting the situation, ad how the situation is affecting your physical health.   6. The Self - Some readers of this spread like to place a card in the center to represent the self. Where the spirit is the above view, the self is the below view. Others use this center card as an overall view or perspective putting everything together to gain insight to the outcome of the situation.   The 7 Aspects Spread This spread is for those who don't know what to ask. It is designed to cover the whole being of an individual, the Mind/Body and Spirit. Where you are today and what lays ahead that you may need to change or plan for.   1. The Body: the physical health of the individual. 2. Clarifying the Body: what may need to be address to maintain physical health. 3. The Mind: an overview of how the person thinks at this time. 4. Clarifying the Mind: reviews the thought patterns currently used that can support or cause harm to the individual. 5. The Spirit: the current status of the individuals spirit. 6. Clarifying the Spirit: what may need to be address to advance the soul and clear karmic issues. 7. Current Patterns: this is an overview of how current situations are forming in the individuals future. What the potential outcomes are and what may need to be addressed or planned for.     The Rose Petals Roses have long been associated with love and romance. This petal spread is used to attract love into your life. It helps you gain insight into what you need to change within or about how you think of yourself, what you may need to give up to be ready for love, what you may need to heal within yourself and how to be open for love and romance in general.   1. This is how you think of yourself. (If you don't love you, how is someone going to see what you have to love. 2. This is what you need to learn, what maybe holding you back. 3. This is how the past is affecting your path for love. 4. This is an issue you need to address, what needs healing. 5. This is what you can do mentally and emotionally to be open for love. 6. This is what you can do physically to be ready when love arrives.     The Daisy Circle The Love Me, Love Me Not spread is used to give insight into special relationships. Should you pursue your interest, or let it go for the better choice that's out there waiting for you. How does this relationship affect your future and spiritual evolution.   1. How you see this relationship 2. The best part of this relationship 3. Your hopes for this relationship 4. How the past is affecting this relationship 5. The potential aspects of this relationship 6. The challenges facing this relationship 7. Your weaknesses in this relationship 8. The potential outcome of this relationship 9. The spiritual impact to you from this relationship     The Spirit Walking the path of spirit also means taking time to look within, examining your connection with the Divine force in your life and how your past incarnations influence your path today.   Using only the Major Arcana, this reading focuses on your spiritual path. A 7 card spread designed to address how karmic deeds of past lives are being dealt with in this incarnation. What spiritual lessons are being experienced, and how these are affecting your spiritual mission for this lifetime. This reading is designed specifically for spiritual enlightenment and growth.   1. The Past Talents - What talents have you brought from past lives to this one. 2. The Past Trauma - What issues have you brought from past lives to this one. 3. The Past Karma - What karmic issues have you brought to work on. 4. The Present Talents - How your talents help your spiritual growth today 5. The Present Spiritual Lessons - What spiritual lessons are you working on today 6. The Present Mission - How are you progressing on your spiritual mission 7. The Divine Self - What does your overall higher spirit say about your path toward enlightenment    The Celtic Spirit Circle Life is a circle of events, from birth, childhood, adulthood, parentage, old age, death and spirit. These 6 phases of the circle of life are held deeply in many aspects of Celtic belief and understanding. The Celtic Circle can be used to gain insight into the phases of a persons life, or a situation that person is going through. It emphasizes the underlying spiritual perspective of each phase and how that energy is affecting the person now.   1. Defines the person's spirit at this time and place. 2. Birth: How your innocence impacts your life or this situation. Can also be what is real and what is not. 3. Childhood: How your intuition impacts your life or this situation. 4. Adulthood: How your physical actions impact your life/situation. 5. Conscious Mind: How your inner conscious thoughts impact your life/situation. (What you express to the world) 6. Parentage: How the past created and impacts this experience. 7. Sub-Conscious Mind: How your inner subconscious thoughts impact your life/situation. (What you tell yourself, but keep from the world). 8. Old Age: How you can use your talents and experiences to aid your life/situation. 9. Divine Conscious Mind: What is the spiritual mission of this life/situation. What do you need to learn. (What your soul needs to accomplish to advance your spirit). 10. Death: What is the potential transition of this situation from physical experience to spiritual evolution. 11 Spirit: What is the Divine perspective of this life/situation.   The Moonlit Path Sometimes we walk right into situations that create fear or trepidation in our lives. It can be like walking upon an unfamiliar path in the dark. We're not sure where things are, our eyes play tricks on us and we're not sure if things are really what they seem to be. This spread helps to gain insight into situations that don't make sense and give us feelings of fear and anxiety. With this knowledge we can better understand the path in the moonlight and find our way safely through the dark.   1. Where you are right now and you are approaching this situation 2. What aspects of your fear are real 3. What aspects of your fear are imagined 4. How is your past affecting your perspective of this situation 5. How are others around you impeding your ability to face this situation 6. How are others around you helping you to face and overcome this situation 7. What lessons lie on this path and how can you learn them to help future similar situations 8.What you need to heal within to overcome the fear you face in this situation The Astrological Spread There are bigger spreads that utilize more cards. The Gypsy spread for instance utilizes all the cards in a 78 card deck. The Astrological Spread is a very complex spread but it can provide a great deal of information an insight to a variety of complex situations in your life. The idea behind this spread is that the 12 houses are a matrix that flows through every aspect of the self, the personality, consciousness, relationships and ego. It is best used when a question is not asked and general insight into one's self and life are examined.   1. The Significator: the present position of the situation. 2. The Crossing: existing influences or obstacles. 3. The First house of Personality. The insights of the mind, health, physical condition and personality. 4. The essence of the personality. 5. The Second house of the Physical World. The insights of Financial issues, losses and gains, property and possessions. 6. The Third house of Self Expression and Siblings. The insights of communication and expression, verbal, writing, art etc. 7. The Fourth house of Home and Family. The insights of deep emotions, parents, home and family. 8. The essence of the Unconsciousness 9. The Fifth house of Self-consciousness and Creativity. How inner thoughts impact the souls ability to create and manifest. 10. The Sixth house of Work. The insights of fulfillment, expression, self worth and ability. 11. The Seventh house of Relationships. The insights of partnerships and detractors. How your relationships impact your overall life and spiritual mission. 12. The essence of Relationship. 13. The Eighth house of Separation and Metaphysical. The insights of how interactions with others promote or detract from the spiritual mission or path of the individual. 14. The Ninth house of Higher mind and spiritual Aspirations. The insights of how our experiences through interaction, travel, spirituality, the world and it's events impact our view of ourselves and the Divine world around us. 15. The Tenth house of Conscious Aspirations and Profession. The insights of our own inner view of ourselves impact our dreams, goals and profession. 16. The essence of Ego Consciousness. 17. The Eleventh house of Plans. The insights of how we utilize our assets to achieve goals and dreams. The communication, friendships, profession and interactions with others and the world around us are all assets that can be used to create or deter our ability to manifest. 18. The Twelfth house of Psychic knowledge and experience. How you use your inner mind, voice and talk to impact your life and carry you forward, or how you ignore your instincts and detract from your ability to create, grow and attain knowledge and enlightenment.     Additional Reading Tarot - What They Are and How To Use Them A Simple Process For Reading The Tarot Tarot Spreads

Sources: 1, o58, o59, o60, o61 Created: 08.07.2010       Updated: 05.10.2011