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Celtic Cross Spread

 

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.

Spread Positions

  1. This is it (what you asked about)
  2. This crosses it (strengthens or opposes)
  3. This crowns it (higher influences)
  4. It rests upon this (lower influences)
  5. This came before
  6. This comes next
  7. This is you
  8. The external world around you
  9. Your hopes, fears, and secret desires
  10. The result or outcome

 

 

 

Celtic Cross

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Celtic Cross Reading

The Crown

2 of Cups

The Outcome

Judgement


Hopes and Fears

Ace of Swords


External Forces

Knight of Wands


The Querent

The Empress

The Recent Past

2 of Pentacles

The Crossing Card

Ace of Pentacles


The Significator

King of Cups

The Future

10 of Wands


Foundation card


9 of Wands

 

 

The Significator represents what the main theme of the reading deals with, the initial situation.

 

 

King of Cups

He holds a short sceptre in his left hand and a great cup in his right; his throne is set upon the sea; on one side a ship is riding and on the other a dolphin is leaping.

Upright Meaning:

Fair man, man of business, law, or divinity; responsible, disposed to oblige the Querent; also equity, art and science, including those who profess science, law and art; creative intelligence.

 

 

 

 

The Crossing Card denotes an added impulse that compounds the initial card, whether complimentary or contradictory.

 

Ace of Pentacles

A hand reaching out from a cloud holds up a pentacle.

Upright Meaning:

Perfect contentment, felicity, ecstasy, sharpness, intelligence, a quick wit, gold.

 

 

 

 

The Crown stands for what the asker is aware of consciously.

 

2 of Cups

A youth and maiden are pledging the love of one another, and above their cups rises the Caduceus of Hermes, between the great wings of which there appears a lion's head. It is a variant of a sign which is found in a few old examples of this card.

Reversed Meaning:

Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy, the interrelation of the sexes, and – as a suggestion apart from all offices of divination – that desire by which Nature is sanctified.

 

 

 

 

Foundation card reveals unconscious driving forces that the querent may not be aware of.

 

9 of Wands

The figure leans upon his staff and has an expectant look, as if awaiting an enemy. Behind are eight other staves – erect, in orderly disposition, like a palisade.

Reversed Meaning:

Obstacles, adversity, calamity, troubles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Recent Past represents past events and concerns.

 

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.

 

 

 

 

The Future depicts that which lies ahead.

 

10 of Wands

A man oppressed by the weight of the ten staves which he is carrying.

Upright Meaning:

Fortune, gain, success, false-seeming, disguise, perfidy. The rods that he carries may be bad news to the place he brings them. Success is stultified if the Nine of Swords follows.

 

 

 

 

The Querent represents the asker and their attitude towards the subject of the reading.

 

The Empress

Seated on her throne, the Empress holds up the golden sceptre. She represents the archetypal female.

Upright Meaning:

Fertility, pregnancy, motherly instincts, fruitfulness, compassion, diplomacy, public rejoicings, jubilation.

 

 

 

 

External Forces represents the influence of others in your life as well as trends in your relationships with others.

 

Knight of Wands

A man on a journey, armed with a short wand, and although armoured it is not on an errand of war. He is passing mounds or pyramids. The motion of the horse is a key to the character of its rider, suggesting his mission.

Reversed Meaning:

Rupture, division, interruption, discord.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hopes and Fears shows the expectations you have concerning the outcome of your question.

 

Ace of Swords

A hand reaches out from a cloud, grasping a sword, the point of which is encircled by a crown.

Reversed Meaning:

Conception, childbirth, augmentation, multiplicity, creativity.

 

 

 

 

The Outcome of your question. Interpret this card in the context of the entire reading and as an indicator of the path you are currently on, but not necessarily bound to.

 

Judgement

An angel in the heavens blows a trumpet, calling the dead to rise from their graves.

Reversed Meaning:

Weakness, simplicity, deliberation, decision, sentence, lawsuit, loss, condemnation.