This in-depth eight-card layout shows various aspects of your personal journey. It is good for exploring generalised personal questions, but can also be used to explore relationships if the couple is viewed as a whole.
This spread progresses through eight stages similar to the tarot deck's Major Arcana, beginning with birth and the realm of fertility. After birth comes the initial growth which leads to a period of adaptation, change, and re-balancing oneself. Once the process has grown enough, security comes into focus, as it is necessary to protect what has been earned. After this, once again growth is important, but concerning the mind and creativitity this time, leading to another phase of personal changes. Finally upon completion of the journey, the rewards become evident, and beyond that, one's spiritual development level will have noticeably risen.
| Matters of Completion, Rewards and Luck.  Knight of Pentacles |
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Matters of Change and Metamorphosis. 2 of Swords |
Matters of Inner Strength and Spiritual Guidance. 8 of Swords |
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Matters of Learning, Art and Creativity. Ace of Wands |
Matters of Beginnings, fertility and birth. 4 of Swords |
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Matters of Protection and Defense. Queen of Swords |
Matters of Growth, Flow and Energy. King of Pentacles |
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Matters of Changes, Polarities and Balance. The Devil |
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Matters of Beginnings, fertility and birth.
The effigy of a knight in the attitude of prayer, at full length upon his tomb.
Reversed Meaning:
Wise administration, circumspection, economy, avarice, precaution, testament.
His face is rather dark, suggesting also courage, but stubborn. The bull's head is a recurrent symbol on the throne. The sign of this suit is engraved or blazoned with the pentagram, signifying the four elements of nature and the spirit which governs them. This suit is sometimes represented as coins or disks, and is symbolic of money and material goods or services.
Upright Meaning:
Valour, intelligence, business aptitude, mathematical gifts and attainments; success, proficiency, arrival, execution.
The devil holds the lovers, Adam and Eve in chains. This card represents the fall of man.
Upright Meaning:
Vengeance, violence, disgrace, force, lust, lies, cheating, hoax, bait, snake oil, disorder, confusion, false values, compulsion.
Her right hand raises the weapon vertically and the hilt rests on an arm of her royal chair the left hand is extended, the arm raised her countenance is severe but chastened; it suggests familiarity with sorrow. She is a bitter, unmerciful oppressor of those who fall under her reign.
Upright Meaning:
Widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation, lack of empathy.
A hand reaching out from a cloud grasps a stout wand or club.
Upright Meaning:
Creation, invention, enterprise, the powers which result in these; principle, beginning, source; birth, family, origin, and in a sense the virility which is behind them; the starting point of enterprises; according to another account, money, fortune, inheritance.
A hoodwinked female figure balances two swords upon her shoulders.
Upright Meaning:
Conformity and the equipoise which it suggests, courage, friendship, concord in a state of arms; another reading gives tenderness, affection, intimacy, harmony and other favourable happenings.
He rides a slow but steady horse, which is just like him. He holds the pentacle, but does not look therein.
Upright Meaning:
Utility, service, interest, responsibility, rectitude, authority, obligation, accountability, work, trust.
A woman, blindfolded and bound, with the swords of the card around her. Yet it is rather a card of temporary endurance than of irretrievable bondage.
Upright Meaning:
Bad news, violent chagrin, crisis, censure, power in trammels, conflict, calumny, sickness, having one's hands tied, insanity.