As you probably know, I'm not a fan of the one-card daily draw because it's so static; you're stuck with its singular influence since there is little sense of movement or development in it unless you "intuit" such from free-association or your prior experience with the card. (In a previous post I called it the … Continue reading Days Like This
Tarot Spreads
The “Trump-Card Interrogation” Spread
This spread is based on the work I did with Alejandro Jodorowsky's list of trump-card questions that I posted yesterday. It is one step above a general life-reading in level of detail and is intended for use when the sitter doesn't have a more personal question to ask of the cards. The spread begins with … Continue reading The “Trump-Card Interrogation” Spread
“Breaking the Chain” Cause-and-Effect Spread
This is the spread I promised yesterday; it is built on the assumption that the sitter can best decide (based on the subconscious "hunches" that most of us harbor) which time-frame should be explored first in determining why present circumstances are the way they are and what might be done about them. Since our behavior … Continue reading “Breaking the Chain” Cause-and-Effect Spread
Spread Fatigue
I've been thinking lately that, in the creation of new layouts, I seem to have exhausted the range of geometric spread patterns commonly used in the performance of tarot readings. So far - and often more than once - I've tried circles, squares both small and large, rectangles, crosses, "X"-es, spirals, horizontal lines, vertical lines, … Continue reading Spread Fatigue
The “Envelope of the Year” Life-Reading Spread
The new year is almost upon us, so I created another "annual look-ahead" spread that can be taken in 3-card monthly bites or in one giant 36-card, 12-month gulp. The spread uses an "envelope" concept in which each monthly three-card column has a "steady-state" card and two transitory scenarios, one "best-case" and the other "worst-case." … Continue reading The “Envelope of the Year” Life-Reading Spread
The “Tetractys” Decision-Making Spread
With this spread I believe I've found a satisfactory alternative to my long-standing use of the venerable and reliable Celtic Cross. I want to acknowledge that this isn't entirely original work; I found a suggested interpretive model on Wikipedia that was presented as one possibility among many. I tweaked most of the position descriptions to … Continue reading The “Tetractys” Decision-Making Spread
Daily-Draw Tones and Overtones: Variations On a Theme
I've found over many years of working with them that single-card daily draws are more useful for showing the background "tone" of the upcoming day than for trying to pinpoint specific activities or events. They are too limited in scope to effectively convey all of the ramifying "overtones" that can accompany the main theme, which … Continue reading Daily-Draw Tones and Overtones: Variations On a Theme
The “Squaring the Circle” Relationship Development Spread
This spread takes its inspiration from the "Squaring the Circle" exercise I posted yesterday. In working with it, I found that there may be repetition of cards between the main spread and its "mirrored" counterpart, as well as among the various quintessence cards, so use of a second deck for those auxiliary operations is strongly … Continue reading The “Squaring the Circle” Relationship Development Spread
The “Gambler’s Cross” Spread
Although I understand why we do it, I've never been entirely satisfied with the fact that most methods of dealing the cards draw them from the top of the deck after the shuffle and cut similar to the way playing cards are dealt for games. Some readers circumvent this by pulling the cards from a … Continue reading The “Gambler’s Cross” Spread
An Astro-Tarot Location Method
When dealing with lost items or missing persons, I often default to horary astrology because of its proven effectiveness. But I'm always looking for ways to augment that approach with tarot. I made a previous attempt to blend the location principles of horary astrology from John Frawley's book The Horary Textbook with a tarot layout … Continue reading An Astro-Tarot Location Method
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 