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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

King of Swords

The Outcome

The Hanged Man


Hopes and Fears

6 of Swords


External Forces

8 of Wands


The Querent

Judgement

The Recent Past

Temperance

The Crossing Card

The Wheel of Fortune


The Significator

3 of Pentacles

The Future

2 of Wands


Foundation card


Knight of Cups

 

 

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

 

 

3 of Pentacles

A sculptor at his work in a monastery. Compare the design which illustrates the Eight of Pentacles. The apprentice or amateur therein has received his reward and is now at work in earnest.

Reversed Meaning:

Mediocrity, puerility, pettiness, weakness, pathetic-ness, lameness, a quack.

 

 

 

 

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

 

The Wheel of Fortune

The Sphinx sits atop a wheel in the sky, symbolic of the wisdom of fate. Other Egyptian characters ride the wheel as it turns, which is surrounded by four cherubs who serve as the guardians of Heaven.

Reversed Meaning:

Increase, abundance, superfluity, comfort, gain, eminence, convenience, luxury, extravagance, benefit.

 

 

 

 

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

 

King of Swords

He sits in judgement, holding the unsheathed sword. He recalls the conventional symbol of justice in the Major Arcana, and he may represent this virtue, but he is rather the power of life and death.

Reversed Meaning:

Cruelty, perversity, barbarity, perfidy, bad intentions, a sharp tongue, insulting, insecurity, arrogance.

 

 

 

 

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

 

Knight of Cups

Graceful, and not warlike; riding quietly, wearing a winged helmet, referring to those higher graces of the imagination which sometimes characterise this card. He too is a dreamer, but the images of the side of sense haunt him in his vision.

Upright Meaning:

Arrival, approach – sometimes that of a messenger; advances, proposition, demeanour, invitation, incitement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Recent Past represents past events and concerns.

 

Temperance

An androgenous angel mixes fire and water in the act of performing spiritual alchemy. Her left foot is on land, as her right dips into the sea.

Upright Meaning:

Moderation, frugality, management, accommodation, accomplishment, etiquette, ritual, formulate, develop, heighten, perfection.

 

 

 

 

The Future depicts that which lies ahead.

 

2 of Wands

A tall man looks from a battlemented roof over sea and shore; he holds a globe in his right hand, while a staff in his left rests on the battlement; another is fixed in a ring. The Rose and Cross and Lilly should be noticed on the left side.

Reversed Meaning:

Trouble, fear, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification, trivial disappointments.

 

 

 

 

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

 

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.

 

 

 

 

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

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

6 of Swords

A ferryman delivering passengers to the further shore. The course is smooth, and seeing that the freight is light, as the workload is not beyond his ability.

Upright Meaning:

Journey by water, route, way, envoy, commissionary, expedient, travelling, a short trip.

 

 

 

 

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.

 

The Hanged Man

A man hangs upside down from the Tau cross. This is a card of self-sacrifice and enlightenment.

Upright Meaning:

Wisdom, circumspection, discernment, trials, sacrifice, augury, prophecy, pause, reflection, ideas, imagination, meditation.