The seven-card Horse Shoe is a convenient, basic layout that can be used to answer different types of questions, especially concerning questions where insight would be helpful. Like several other spreads, it has cards representing the past, present, and future.
The pinnacle of the Horse Shoe, looking like the top of the mountain, shows the obstacle or challenge that needs to be addressed and overcome. Card #6 suggests a course of action to meet this challenge. The final card shows the outcome or future, should this advice be followed.
Other clues are provided in Cards #3 and #5, which indicate hidden or outside influences that come into play, affecting the journey to your goal.
Obstacle  The Hermit |
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Hidden Influences  5 of Pentacles |
External Influences  The Chariot |
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The Present  6 of Wands |
Suggestion  2 of Swords |
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The Past  2 of Cups |
The Outcome  Knight of Swords |
The Past Card represents past events that are affecting the question.
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.
6 of Wands
A laurelled horseman bears one staff adorned with a laurel crown; footmen with staves are at his side.
Reversed Meaning:
Apprehension, fear, as of a victorious enemy at the gate; treachery, disloyalty, gates being opened to the enemy, indefinite delay.
5 of Pentacles
Two injured people in a snow storm pass a well-lit church.
Upright Meaning:
Material trouble, poverty, destitution, abjection, love without money, debt, famine, hardship, concordance, affinities, distress, bankruptcy.
The Hermit
An old man with a walking stick holds up a lantern to enlighten his path.
Upright Meaning:
Prudence, circumspection, insight, self-awareness, retreat, solitude, detachment, isolation, peace, withdrawal.
The Chariot
A stately figure drives a chariot pulled by a black and a white Sphinx. The canopy of his chariot is the night sky, emblazoned with stars.
Upright Meaning:
Traveling, journey, fun times, victory, battle, voyage, route, emigration, flight, change of place, challenges met boldly, triumph.
2 of Swords
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.
Knight of Swords
He is riding in full course, as if scattering his enemies. In the design he is really a prototypical hero of romantic chivalry. He might even be Galahad, whose sword is swift and sure because he is clean of heart.
Upright Meaning:
Skill, bravery, capacity, defence, address, enmity, wrath, war, destruction, opposition, resistance.