Similar to the Horse Shoe #1, this variant provides insight on different levels. The first two cards begin the reading with the past and present, but then the cards switch to a different focus. Card #3 warns you about possible side effects that could accompany the future outcome, #7. The base card, #4 shows desirable or undesirable actions to take concerning the issue. The external environment specifically means the people around you and how they feel about what you are up to. Things which could cause setbacks are indicated in Card #6, another more specifically focused card than what is generally labelled the obstacle or challenge card in some other layouts.
Past Actions Effecting the Question Ace of Cups |
Possible Future Outcome 4 of Cups |
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Present Actions Effecting the Question 6 of Wands |
Possible Delays Judgement |
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Future Results You Should Consider 6 of Cups |
Feelings of Those Around You 8 of Swords |
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Actions You Should Consider 3 of Pentacles |
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Past Actions Effecting the Question
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.
Reversed Meaning:
House of the false heart, mutation, instability, revolution.
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.
Children in an old garden, their cups filled with flowers.
Upright Meaning:
Remembrances, looking back, as on childhood; happiness, enjoyment, but coming rather from the past; things that have vanished. Another reading reverses this, giving new relations, new knowledge, new environment, and then the children are disporting in an unfamiliar precinct.
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.
Upright Meaning:
Artifice, trade, skilled labour; regarded as a card of nobility, aristocracy, renown, glory.
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.
An angel in the heavens blows a trumpet, calling the dead to rise from their graves.
Upright Meaning:
Change of position, renewal, finality, recompense, solution, promotion, redemption, validation, graduation, spiritual growth, final outcome.
A young man is seated under a tree and contemplates three cups set on the grass before him; an arm reaching out from a cloud offers him another cup. His expression notwithstanding is one of discontent with his environment.
Upright Meaning:
Weariness, blended pleasure, disgust, aversion, imaginary vexations, as if the wine of this world had caused satiety only; another wine, as if a fairy gift, is now offered the wastrel, but he sees no consolation therein.