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![]() Page of Cups |
Possible Future Outcome![]() King of Swords |
|
Present Actions Effecting the Question![]() 5 of Wands |
Possible Delays![]() 6 of Cups |
|
Future Results You Should Consider![]() 5 of Cups |
Feelings of Those Around You![]() 10 of Cups |
|
Actions You Should Consider![]() The Hanged Man |
||
Past Actions Effecting the Question
A fair, pleasing, somewhat effeminate page, of studious and intent aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him. It is the pictures of the mind taking form.
Reversed Meaning:
Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.
A posse of youths, who are brandishing staves, as if in sport or strife. It is mimic warfare.
Reversed Meaning:
Litigation, disputes, trickery, contradiction, hypocrisy.
A dark, cloaked figure, looking sideways at three prone cups two others stand upright behind him; a bridge is in the background, leading to a small keep or holding.
Reversed Meaning:
News, alliances, affinity, consanguinity, ancestry, return, false projects; marriage, but not without bitterness or frustration.
A man hangs upside down from the Tau cross. This is a card of self-sacrifice and enlightenment.
Upright Meaning:
Wisdom, circumspection, discernment, trials, sacrifice, augury, prophecy, pause, reflection, ideas, imagination, meditation.
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.
Reversed Meaning:
False heart, indignation, violence, deception, in-satiety.
Children in an old garden, their cups filled with flowers.
Reversed Meaning:
The future, renewal, that which will come to pass presently.
He sits in judgement, holding the unsheathed sword. He recalls the conventional symbol of justice in the Major Arcana, and he may represent this virtue, but he is rather the power of life and death.
Reversed Meaning:
Cruelty, perversity, barbarity, perfidy, bad intentions, a sharp tongue, insulting, insecurity, arrogance.