Spreads
Draw random cardsA spread is a set of positions, and the position does most of the work: the same card means one thing as the ground of a situation and another as what it is asking of you.
One Card · 1 card
One card. The shortest reading, and often the one that is easiest to actually use.
Three Card · 3 cards
Three cards read together as one answer, rather than as three separate roles.
Celtic Cross · 10 cards
Ten cards, the oldest spread in the Rider–Waite tradition and still the most demanding. Two cards crossed at the centre for the question itself, four around them for what surrounds it, and a staff of four for you, your circumstances, what you hope and fear, and where it is all tending.
The positions
- 1The heart of itWhere the question actually sits right now.
- 2The crossWhat runs against it. Read this one together with the first, not after it.
- 3AboveWhat you are consciously aiming at, or telling yourself you are.
- 4BelowWhat the situation is rooted in, underneath the part you can see.
- 5BehindWhat is passing out of the situation.
- 6AheadWhat is moving into it.
- 7YourselfHow you are standing in this.
- 8Around youThe part other people and circumstance are holding.
- 9Hopes and fearsOften the same thing wearing two faces.
- 10Where it tendsNot a verdict — the direction of travel if nothing changes.