This is a specified relationship spread that uses nine cards to analyse where a romantic relationship is at and where it is headed. The first card shows where it is at now, and can be considered the significator. The second and third cards determine where your partner stands and how it relates to where you are at personally.
Above the stem, the three-card base of the layout, a cup forms. Cards #4 and #5 show each person's desires, meaning what they want to get out of this coupling. Above this, Cards #6 and #7 show the challenge that this pairing presents to each individual. The final two cards at the top form the rim of the cup, symbolic of the taste of the relationship to each person, which shows how things will turn out on each side.

The Future Outcome (To be read in tandem with the card to the right)![]() Strength |
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The Future Outcome (To be read in tandem with the card to the left)![]() 6 of Cups |
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Challenges Which May Arise for You![]() 6 of Swords |
Challenges Which May Arise for Your Lover![]() 3 of Swords |
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Desires in Relation to Your Question![]() 3 of Cups |
Your Lover's Desires![]() Queen of Swords |
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Nature of Your Issue![]() Ace of Pentacles |
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Your Lover's Current Position![]() Page of Swords |
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The Current State of Things![]() King of Wands |
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The Current State of Things
The nature to which this card is attributed is dark, ardent, lithe, animated, impassioned, noble. The King uplifts a flowering wand, and wears what is called a cap of maintenance beneath his crown. He bears the symbol of the lion, which is emblazoned on the back of his throne.
Reversed Meaning:
Good-natured, but severe; austere, yet tolerant.
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 lithe, looking this way and that, as if an expected enemy might appear at any moment.
Reversed Meaning:
Unforeseen difficulties, unprepared state, surprises, sickness.
A hand reaching out from a cloud holds up a pentacle.
Upright Meaning:
Perfect contentment, felicity, ecstasy, sharpness, intelligence, a quick wit, gold.
Maidens in a garden-ground with cups uplifted, as if pledging one another.
Upright Meaning:
The conclusion of the matter in plenty, perfection and merriment; happy issue, victory, fulfilment, solace, healing.
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 ferryman delivering passengers to the further shore. The course is smooth, and seeing that the freight is light, as the workload is not beyond his ability.
Reversed Meaning:
Declaration, confession, publicity; possibly a proposal of love.
Three swords piercing a heart; cloud and rain behind.
Upright Meaning:
Removal, absence, sorrow, emotional pain, delay, division, rupture, dispersion, dissolution, a mental breakdown.
A woman holds a young lion at bay with her female strength of grace. She is crowned by the lemniscate as the Magician is, revealing herself as his counterpart.
Reversed Meaning:
Manipulation, despotism, abuse of power, weakness, discord, disgrace, deception, trickery, lies, cheap tactics, malevolence.
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.