This easy-to-read four-card layout is one of the most useful of all the spreads. The first card is the significator, and the last shows the outcome, provided that the advice given is followed. The advice is broken down into two cards which can easily be compared and contrasted. Card #2 suggests what to avoid, while #3 shows the path to take.
This spread can also be used to ask about the meaning of a card from a previously executed spread that may have been unclear. In this usage, Card #2 shows what it did not mean, while #3 clarifies the meaning.
DO This 4 of Wands |
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It Deals with This Page of Swords |
Do NOT Do This 3 of Pentacles |
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It Leads to This Ace of Cups |
It Deals with This
A lithe, active figure holds a sword upright in both hands, while in the act of power walking. He is passing over rugged land, and about his way the clouds are collocated wildly. He is alert and aware, looking this way and that, as if an expected enemy might appear at any moment.
Upright Meaning:
Authority, overseeing, secret service, vigilance, spying, examination.
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.
From the four great staves planted in the foreground there is a great garland suspended; two female figures uplift nosegays; at their side is a bridge over a moat, leading to an old manorial house.
Reversed Meaning:
Prosperity, increase, felicity, beauty, embellishment.
Atop the waters are water-lilies; the hand reaches out from the cloud, holding in its palm the cup, from which four streams are pouring; a dove, bearing in its bill a cross-marked Host, descends to place the Wafer in the Cup; the dew of water is falling on all sides.
Upright Meaning:
House of the true heart, joy, content, abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility; Holy Table, felicity hereof.