Here’s a spread I ran across when thumbing through Llewellyn’s 2007 Tarot Reader last night. It’s called “Secrets, Lies, and Promises.”

It seemed to lend itself to “big” messages, so I pulled out my Harmony Angel Cards to try out this spread. I like them, for that kind of guidance reading. They did not disappoint!

It’s a four-position spread, with the first at the top, and a row of three positions below it. The positions are:

1. The situation/topic at hand
2. The Secret: something you don’t know
3. The Lie: something you think you know, but it’s not true
4. The Promise: the universe’s promise to you

Neat, huh? I like the progression in the bottom row, from knowing nothing, to knowing something impure, to knowing something pure. Anyway, here are the cards I got last night, when trying it out:

So, position one is Camael, the angel for those who have been bruised and battered by circumstances. This angel helps people who have been treated unfairly find the strength to face it with compassion and forgiveness. I think this could represent specific stuff like the way I felt after dissolving my marriage, or even general stuff like the inadequacies I perceive in my own self-image. We’ll see how it goes as we look at the other cards!

Position two (lower row on the left) is Pistis Sophia, the mother of the zodiac. She is all about helping people become fully integrated and realize their life’s potential. This position is the secret… the thing I do not know. Ok, I’ll buy that. I am not aware of how to fully reach my potential as a person… especially in the face of unfairness. This angel counsels to review your life in light of wisdom and self-belief, so that you can overcome your past and get re-aligned. Hmm… sounds pretty good… to bad this is the thing I don’t know!

Position three (lower row middle) is Sachluph and Zuphlas. This is the card of cultivating and building. The tree imagery represents one-ness with nature and renewal. These angels remind you to keep yourself grounded, even as you let your spirit soar. This is what I think I know, but don’t. And it’s true, I do think of myself as grounded. Maybe I need to look at that again, or at least pile more dirt on my roots. Actually, this reminds me that, lately, I have not been meditating or taking as many nature walks. I should get back to that… I’ve just let life get in the way.

Position four (lower row right) is Raduerel, angel of creative and artistic expression. This is the universe’s promise to me: that I can reach inside myself to a place of pure love and beauty, and express it in a joyful and creative way. Interesting!

Putting It All Together

Looking back over these cards as a whole, I see this as the message of the reading:

You’ve had your share of bumps and bruises growing up, and then in your early adult life. That, plus your natural Gemini lack of focus, has left you a bit frazzled inside. You don’t yet know how to get fully integrated and aligned with your purpose. You need to get grounded, and closer to nature, and you imagine you have done that. But in reality, you have been neglecting your focus on grounding, lately. People always tell you that you have a lot to share and teach, but your inner turmoil and insecurities keep you from reaching your potential. The universe promises that as you heal, you will be able to express yourself in a beautiful and creative manner.

I think that went pretty well! On a practical level, it looks like the advice here was to start with more grounding activities, like nature walks and meditation (at least those were the two things that popped into my head when I saw the tree). I will do my best to fit more of that in…

I’ve talked before about a method to generate Planet + Sign + House astrological readings. That method requires that you separate the deck into three sets of cards before dealing, though. So, unless I have a pre-sorted deck, I’m just not patient enough to prepare for that reading. I’ve been investigating other methods to use.

I have never really liked the typical 12-houses spread, where there’s one or more cards dealt per house. Or per zodiac sign, or whatever. In a real astrological chart, there’s often lots of energies at work in one area of the zodiac, and none in other places. So, a card per house seems artificial. Some of you may recall from my recent talk that I want my spreads to match up with real life, at least symbolically….

So, here’s one way to generate a divinatory astrological chart:

1. Shuffle the cards while thinking of the issue at hand. Intend to get useful information via this spread.
2. Deal around a circle so that you get twelve piles of cards. So, you’ll deal around the circle six and a half times, putting the cards face down.
3. Now, go through the piles, one by one. You want to get rid of everything except the planetary majors, the Emperor, and the Ace of Wands. If a pile would be empty, leave one card face down as a placeholder for that position.
4. Interpret the Emperor’s position as Aries. Then, as you go anti-clockwise around the spread, consider the positions to be Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, and so on around the zodiac.
5. Interpret the Ace of Wand’s position to be the Ascendant (1st house). Then, as you go around the spread anti-clockwise, you’d consider those positions to be the 2nd house, 3rd house, etc.
6. Interpret the planetary majors as the planets, which now have both a sign and a house to live in.

If pictures help, here is the initial dealing (using my Lo Scarabeo Deck):

… and here is the completed spread:

The Emperor and the Ace of Wands were in the upper left, marking Aries and the 1st House, respectively. They had no planets in those positions, so I also left a face-down placeholder there. Then, we had Mercury and the Sun in the 3rd house, which in this case is also Taurus. We had Jupiter and the Moon in the 4th house, which is Gemini. We had Mars in the 5th house, which is Cancer here. We had venus and Pluto in the 6th house, Leo. We had Saturn in the 7th house, Virgo. We had Neptune in the 9th House, Scorpio. We had Uranus in the 11th house, Capricorn.

Now, you can interpret the situation using whatever astrological tools you have at your disposal.

Variants

One variant is to use your actual natal chart to guide the sign/house alignment. So, still use the Emperor card to locate Aries in your spread. But forget about the Ace of Wands. Once the zodiac signs are determined, use your actual natal ascendant as the position of your first house. Then you can read whatever planets you spread as transits of your birth chart, if you like.

A second variant is to interpret planets in houses, without regard for the zodiac signs. In this case, forget about the Emperor card, and just locate the 1st house via the Ace of Wands.

[Edit 2008/06/19]: A third variant, suggested by Dawn in the comments, is to use your natal chart as a map. You would place cards around the zodiac where your planets are, and read them in terms of how those planets are affecting you. This is nice because you’d just spread 10 cards in the right places, and read whatever cards you get. Simpler than dealing them all and searching for the planetary majors.

FAQs

• Why use a marker for Aries? Why not just fix it at the top or something?
  
  Because there are 12 positions and 78 cards, some positions will have more cards in them after you’ve dealt them all out. You want the signs/houses with extra cards to be selected at random.
• Are the astrological charts resulting from this spread 100% realistic?
  
  Not quite. For instance, in a real chart, Mercury can’t stray too far from the Sun, but here it could land in opposition to the Sun. But, it’s pretty realistic, anyway.
• Why did you pick the Ace of Wands for the ascendant marker?
  
  It just felt like an appropriate choice, as it starts off the houses, and in the natural zodiac the 1st house is on a fire sign.
• This spread sounds like an excellent way to learn the meanings of the signs, planets, and houses. Do you agree?
  
  Yep! I do.

Since this is a new blog, today’s reading was about: “How can I make this blog successful?” Before the reading itself, I’m going to introduce the spread I used, which I think is rather fun.

The Spread

This is a spread I do sometimes when I want to know what someone (in this case, me) will do, or should do, or did do, etc. I lay out 6 cards in the shape of a stick figure (if it’s unclear what I mean, check the graphic for the actual reading I did below). Here is how I interpret the positions:

1. head Conscious/intent/foreground
2. body Unconscious/impulse/background
3. arms Action(s) taken/WHAT they will do
4. legs Support of the actions taken/underpinnings/HOW they will do it

I lay out the cards in the order given above, and sometimes add further cards as needed. Be creative! You can give them fingers or toes, or you can add a second stick figure if two people are in your question. You can make them taller or fatter. Your imagination is the only limit.

The Reading

Though the pictures here are from the Universal Waite Tarot Deck, for this reading I used my Rider-Waite Tarot Deck. Since I’m using the pictures I thought I’d point out that both decks come from US Games.

Anyhow, here’s how the cards fell:

So that’s: head=5 Swords, body=Strength, arms=8 Pent + 2 Pent, legs=Star + 3 Swords.

The advice here is to put some conscious effort into coming up with something thought provoking, or even controversial (5 Swords). Perhaps this would incite active comments or (hopefully friendly) arguments. The Leo energy of Strength tells me that, deep down, I want to put my personal stamp on this tiny bit of internet property, and make it my own, and get noticed.

At the same time, a very important aspect of a successful blog is regular updates. I know from my other websites that readership drops dramatically if you take time off from posting. So, what am I going to do? I’m going to get into a groove churning out material (8 Pent), and do it in such a way that it doesn’t disrupt my life (2 Pent).

How on earth (no pun intended) will I make this 8 Pent+2 Pent thing happen? Looks to me like I should call on ye olde Aquarian spirit (The Star) and stay focused on the future, and be an individual among the other tarot voices. The Star also implies a certain amount of spiritual development and insight, which could be applied to the kind of depressing perceived lack (3 Swords) that plagues me and many others. These kinds of issues could be the source of my blog postings, perhaps in the form of readings, or perhaps in the form of articles about using tarot for spiritual growth. There’s certainly plenty of material in that area… maybe I can find a unique voice to cover it with.

From an elemental standpoint, the cards point out that this is difficult advice to follow. The conscious effort and the “legwork” involved are all air cards. Meanwhile, the recommended action of frequent and regular blog updates comes from earth cards. It’s hard to pin down intellectual work and force it into a rigid schedule. I can already say (after just a few days!) that I’ve had trouble coming up with readings that I’m comfortable sharing on a daily basis. Either I’ll have to post things that are a little more personal, or find another source of daily posts besides readings… The hope is that my fiery will (unconscious/Strength) can push me through this difficulty.

We shall see!

In my last post on 3-Position Spreads, I talked about two ways I’m playing with adding support cards to fun little 3-card spreads. I used this technique several times last night at a Tarot Talk of Dallas meeting, with some real success. It was a lot of fun, too!

Today, I want to talk about a second kind of 3-position expansion I’m working on. It has an astrological bent to it, and so far has been working pretty well for me.

The Idea

When I interpret an astrological chart (like a birth chart), I primarily work along the lines I read about in Astrology: A Cosmic Science. Essentially, I interpret the chart in terms of triples: a planet, in a sign, in a house:

• The planet tells WHAT energy is operating.
• The sign tells HOW the energy is expressed.
• The house tells WHERE the energy is expressed.

I wanted to try applying this framework to my tarot readings, but the cards by themselves weren’t helping me do that. There are some Golden Dawn astrological attributions to the cards, but they are pretty limited. For instance, it has always bothered me that (1) you only get three planets per sign, and (2) you only get the 7 “classical” planets. There are far more than 36 planet/sign combinations! And that’s before you even bring the houses into the picture. So, I decided to make a spread that would open up the full depth of planet+sign+house. Before long, though, I realized I could make a system that one could apply to any 3-card spread. How exciting!

The System

This is one of those systems where you have to segregate your deck. I picked a deck to designate as my astrological deck, so I don’t have to keep separating my cards over and over. You need 3 sets of cards, which correspond to the astrological triplet I described above:

1. The Planetary Majors. These will represent which planetary energy is at work at this position.
2. The Minor Cards. These will represent the sign that the planet operates in. You can further use individual decans if you like, for more subtle nuances. The Aces and Princesses/Knaves will represent the pure element, and the remaining court cards will represent their dominant sign.
3. The Zodiac Sign Majors. These will represent the house, as it falls in the natural zodiac (Aries = 1st house, etc.).

Now, pick any 3-position spread you like. Say, Past/Present/Future, or Problem/Advice/Outcome. Whatever you like. Simply deal a planet, sign, and house from the sets above into each of the three positions. For a 3-position spread, this will give you a total of 9 cards dealt, and a full astrological picture of the energy at work. The example reading below should make this clear, if it’s not.

Example Reading

Here is an example from a reading I did last night. My question was about whether I should take a business trip to Las Vegas next month. The spread I used was one of my favorites for yes/no questions… the “Yes If/No If/Maybe If” spread. The first position describes the conditions leading to a Yes, the second position identifies conditions leading to a No, and the third for a Maybe. I dealt the following cards:

The first column is the “yes, if…” position. The second column is the “no, if…” position. The third column is the “maybe, if…” position.

You can see for the “YES, if…” position, we got Moon in Taurus in the 2nd House. That’s from High Priestess (moon), 7 Pent (Taurus), and Hierophant (2nd house of natural zodiac). To me, this indicated that I would take the trip if I developed strong feelings about expanding my business and wealth. One thing holding me back is the expense of the trip. But you need to spend money to make money, and the Moon in Taurus could provide the kind of mood change that would open me up to push through that issue in this 2nd house of finance. Also, in terms of decans, this is Taurus-III, which has a tinge of Capricorn in it… helping me to put my nose to the grindstone and get some serious work done.

For the “NO, if…” position, we look at the second column of cards. Here we have Uranus in Scorpio in the 1st house. That’s from the Fool (Uranus), 5 Cups (Scorpio), and Emperor (1st house of natural zodiac). I took this to mean that I would choose not to go if I wanted to be my own person… more of a unique individual that doesn’t fit into a crowd… not much of a follower. Also maybe if I wanted to keep my feelings/secrets to myself a bit, rather than being out with people and sharing. This is important because I have been in a bit of a reclusive mode lately, and the trip would be to meet with a bunch of business associates, and we would be following their agenda. Not mine.

For the “MAYBE, if…” case, we got Mars in Cancer in the 5th house. That’s from the Tower (Mars), 2 Cups (Cancer), and Strength (5th house). Now, Mars is in its fall in Cancer, so this is not a clean and happy energy… it’s more about being a bit over-emotional and over-sensitive. In the 5th house of self-expression, this could mean that I might go if I don’t want my absence to reflect badly on my work (the trip is to market a product I have created for sale), or that I don’t want my associates to take it badly or get the wrong idea about me if I turn them down. In other words, they might guilt me into going, even if I don’t really want to.

Card Reference

Of course, you can use any set of astrological associations with the cards that you like (some decks are very different!). For what it’s worth, this is what I use:

Planets: Sun (sun), High Priestess (moon), Magician (mercury), Empress (venus), Tower (mars), Wheel of Fortune (jupiter), World (saturn), Fool (uranus), Hanged Man (neptune), Judgement (pluto)

Signs: I use the following system, which I think is pretty common:
(2,3,4,Queen = cardinal)
(5,6,7,King/Prince=fixed)
(8,9,10,Knight=mutable)
(Wands=fire)
(Cups=water)
(Swords=air)
(Pentacles=earth)
So for examlpe, 8 Swords is mutable air, which is Gemini. Aces and Princesses/Knaves are not sign-specific but more of a pure version of the element. So, you can either handle that nuance, or simply deal another card, if those come up.

Houses: These correspond to the houses of the natural zodiac. Emperor (Aries/1st), Hierophant (Taurus/2nd), Lovers (Gemini/3rd), Chariot (Cancer/4th), Strength (Leo/5th), Hermit (Virgo/6th), Justice (Libra/7th), Death (Scorpio/8th), Temperance (Sag/9th), Devil (Capricorn/10th), Star (Aquarius/11th), Moon (Pisces/12th)

I’ve just finished reading Tarot Tells The Tale: Explore Three Card Readings Through Familiar Stories. It was a fun little book, where the author performs readings for everyone from the Ugly Duckling to Joan of Arc. And, almost all of them get a 3-card reading. That made me realize that I haven’t been doing many 3-card readings recently.

When I was getting started with tarot, on the other hand, I stuck to three card spreads almost exclusively.  I liked that it was easy to make up a 3-position layout on the spot, tailored to the question. Plus, having so few cards in play made it less likely that I’d hit upon an unfamiliar card that would give me trouble.  Before too long, though, fear of troublesome cards gave way to the joy of detailed answers… and so these fun, simple spreads got left behind.

Now I miss them! What to do? Well, I’ve been playing recently with a few ways to bring the essence of 3-card spreads back into my daily readings, without going back to just three cards.

Idea 1: “Roots”

So, probably the most obvious way to expand a 3-card reading is to just add more cards! Simply deal the 3-card spread, then add 3 more cards under each position. I think of these extra cards as “roots” of the primary answer. For example:

So, the top three cards are your Past/Present/Future, or your Problem/Advice/Outcome, or whatever you have chosen. Then, each top card has its own sub-reading, fleshing it out. For extra credit, note ways in which the main card is dignified (or not!) in terms of its roots, and vice-versa. For instance, that 2 of swords is sure to be challenged by such earthy roots! That type of analysis can add all kinds of subtle shades to a reading.

Idea 2: “Tangled Roots”

So, I was liking the first idea, and using it. But, sometimes it bothered me that I was basically just making three composite “super-cards” and reading them as three independent units. Divisions in real life are rarely so clean! So, I thought, what if I expanded a 3-card spread like this, instead:

As you can see, there are now only 5 total additional cards beneath the main 3. The idea is still to have 3 root cards per main card, except now we will use some of them multiple times. I find this adds some fun challenges for the interpretation, because you are forced to really focus on reading the roots in terms of the main card… giving a lazy pat response to a card won’t cut it when you need to see it in two contexts during the same reading!

So to make it clear how the overlap works, the three groups to interpret are shown below. Card 1 group:

Card 2 group:

Card 3 group:

In future posts, I’ll give more ways I’m augmenting 3-position spreads.