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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

The Emperor

The Outcome

The Hanged Man


Hopes and Fears

9 of Wands


External Forces

Queen of Pentacles


The Querent

2 of Pentacles

The Recent Past

Knight of Cups

The Crossing Card

3 of Wands


The Significator

6 of Pentacles

The Future

10 of Cups


Foundation card


7 of Swords

 

 

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

 

 

6 of Pentacles

A person in the guise of a merchant weighs money in a pair of scales and distributes it to the needy and distressed. It is a testimony to his own success in life, as well as to his goodness of heart.

Reversed Meaning:

Desire, cupidity, envy, jealousy, illusion, resentment, rivalry, grudge.

 

 

 

 

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

 

3 of Wands

A calm, stately personage, with his back turned, looking from a cliff's edge at ships passing over the sea. Three staves are planted in the ground, and he leans slightly on one of them.

Reversed Meaning:

The end of troubles, suspension or cessation of adversity, toil and disappointment.

 

 

 

 

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

 

The Emperor

The Emperor sits on his throne holding his sceptre. He represents a male figure of power and authority.

Upright Meaning:

Authority, stability, power, protection, benevolence, realisation a greatness, aid, reason, conviction, willpower.

 

 

 

 

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

 

7 of Swords

A man in the act of carrying away five swords hastily; missing two which remain stuck in the ground. A camp is close at hand. He is a thief.

Upright Meaning:

Good advice, counsel, instruction, attempt, wish, hope, confidence, bravery, a dirty job that needs to get done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Recent Past represents past events and concerns.

 

Knight of Cups

Graceful, but 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.

Reversed Meaning:

Trickery, artifice, subtlety, swindling, duplicity, fraud.

 

 

 

 

The Future depicts that which lies ahead.

 

10 of Cups

Appearance of Cups in a rainbow; it is contemplated in wonder and ecstasy by a man and woman below, evidently husband and wife. His right arm is about her; his left is raised upward; she raises her right arm. The two children dancing near them have not observed the prodigy but are happy after their own manner. There is a home-scene beyond.

Upright Meaning:

Contentment, repose of the entire heart; the perfection of that state; also, perfection of human love and friendship; also, the town, village or country you live in.

 

 

 

 

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

 

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.

 

 

 

 

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

 

Queen of Pentacles

The face suggests that of a dark, intelligent woman, who has the quality of greatness. She contemplates her pentacle, using it as a tool of skrying and divination.

Upright Meaning:

Opulence, generosity, magnificence, liberty, meditation, divination, intelligence, dignity, potence, grand, important, majestic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

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 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.

Reversed Meaning:

Selfishness, the crowd, politics, corruption, self-deception, misunderstanding, ignorance, denseness, blindness.