The Celtic Cross is the most well-known tarot spread and also the largest available here, involving ten cards. This spread begins with a pair of crossing cards at the center of the issue, essentially being two significators. When two significators are involved, they may strengthen or oppose each other, which speaks of the nature of the situation. Above and below the initial cross, we have two cards which are symbolic of the intellectual (top) and emotional (bottom) basis of the issue. The Before and After cards show the past and immediate future.
At the right, four cards are laid out, going upward. At the bottom you have a card representing yourself, and the next card shows how others may affect the situation. Card #9 indicates what you may be hoping for, or possibly, what you hope will not happen. Finally at the top is the outcome, meaning the distant or ultimate future.
The Crown |
The Outcome  9 of Cups
External Forces  9 of Pentacles
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The Recent Past  8 of Cups |
The Crossing Card
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The Future  9 of Swords |
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2 of Pentacles
A young man, in the act of dancing, has a pentacle in either hand, and they are joined by the lemniscate, the sign of eternity.
Upright Meaning:
On the one hand it is represented as a card of gaiety, recreation and its connections, which is the subject of the design; but it is read also as news and messages in writing, as obstacles, agitation, trouble, embroilment.
4 of Swords
The effigy of a knight in the attitude of prayer, at full length upon his tomb.
Upright Meaning:
Vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit's repose, exile, tomb and coffin. It is these last that have suggested the design.
8 of Wands
The card represents motion through the immovable – a flight of wands through an open country; but they draw to the term of their course. That which they signify is at hand; it may be even on the threshold.
Upright Meaning:
Activity in undertakings, the path of such activity, swiftness, a messenger; great haste, great hope, speed towards an end which promises assured felicity; generally, that which is on the move; the arrows of love.
7 of Cups
Strange chalices of vision, but the images are more especially those of the fantastic spirit.
Reversed Meaning:
Desire, will, determination, project, ambition.
8 of Cups
A man of dejected aspect is deserting the cups of his felicity, enterprise, undertaking or previous concern.
Upright Meaning:
Giving joy, mildness, timidity, honour, modesty; the decline of a matter, or that a matter which has been thought to be important is really of slight consequence.
9 of Swords
One seated on her couch in lamentation, with the swords over her. She is as one who knows no sorrow which is like unto hers. It is a card of utter desolation.
Reversed Meaning:
Imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame, bad vibes, negativity, evil thoughts, despair.
Queen of Cups
Beautiful, fair, dreamy – as one who sees visions in a cup. This is, however, only one of her aspects; she sees, but she also acts, and her activity feeds her dream.
Upright Meaning:
Good, fair woman; honest, devoted woman, who will do service to the Querent; loving intelligence, and hence the gift of vision; success, happiness, pleasure; also, wisdom, virtue; a perfect spouse and a good mother.
9 of Pentacles
A woman with a bird upon her wrist, stands amidst a great abundance of grapevines in the garden of a luxurious manorial house. Possibly it is her own possession and testifies to material well-being.
Reversed Meaning:
Roguery, deception, voided project, bad faith, insecurity, egotism, immodesty, self-centeredness, vanity, narcissism.
The World
A nude, dancing female holding two batons, symbolic of Mother Earth and Mother Nature. She is encircled by a wreath and surrounded by the cherubs who are the guardians of Heaven and Earth.
Reversed Meaning:
fixity, stagnation, absence, nullification, dullness, discouragement, false visions, non-existence, lack-lustre, nullity.
9 of Cups
A goodly personage has feasted to his heart's content, and abundant refreshment of wine is on the arched counter behind him, seeming to indicate that the future is also assured. The picture offers the material side only, but there are other aspects.
Reversed Meaning:
Truth, loyalty, liberty; but with some mistakes, imperfections, or miscalculations.
