The Celtic Cross is the most well-known tarot spread and also the largest available here, involving ten cards. This spread begins with a pair of crossing cards at the center of the issue, essentially being two significators. When two significators are involved, they may strengthen or oppose each other, which speaks of the nature of the situation. Above and below the initial cross, we have two cards which are symbolic of the intellectual (top) and emotional (bottom) basis of the issue. The Before and After cards show the past and immediate future.
At the right, four cards are laid out, going upward. At the bottom you have a card representing yourself, and the next card shows how others may affect the situation. Card #9 indicates what you may be hoping for, or possibly, what you hope will not happen. Finally at the top is the outcome, meaning the distant or ultimate future.
The Crown |
The Outcome  Knight of Cups
External Forces  4 of Wands
|
||
The Recent Past  8 of Swords |
The Crossing Card
|
The Future  2 of Pentacles |
|
|
|||
The World
A nude, dancing female holding two batons, symbolic of Mother Earth and Mother Nature. She is encircled by a wreath and surrounded by the cherubs who are the guardians of Heaven and Earth.
Upright Meaning:
Assured success, courage, honour, glory, vitality, life, energy, vigour, zest, pep, fervour, passion, animation, existence, reality.
The Moon
A dog and a wolf join in howling at a brilliant full moon situated between two towers. A lobster emerges from the lake, ready to embark on the journey of evolution.
Reversed Meaning:
Instability, inconstancy, deception, gossip, spite, malice, depreciation, discouragement.
10 of Swords
A murder victim, pierced by ten swords showing the act of excessive force.
Reversed Meaning:
Advantage, profit, success, favour, power, authority, triumph over your enemies.
The Wheel of Fortune
The Sphinx sits atop a wheel in the sky, symbolic of the wisdom of fate. Other Egyptian characters ride the wheel as it turns, which is surrounded by four cherubs who serve as the guardians of Heaven.
Reversed Meaning:
Increase, abundance, superfluity, comfort, gain, eminence, convenience, luxury, extravagance, benefit.
8 of Swords
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.
Reversed Meaning:
Disquiet, difficulty, opposition, accident, treachery, unforeseen disaster, entrapment, bondage.
2 of Pentacles
A dancing young man has a pentacle in either hand, and they are joined by the lemniscate, the sign of eternity.
Reversed Meaning:
Enforced gaiety, simulated enjoyment, literal sense, handwriting, composition, exchanging letters.
3 of Pentacles
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.
Reversed Meaning:
Mediocrity, puerility, pettiness, weakness, pathetic-ness, lameness, a quack.
4 of Wands
From the four great staves planted in the foreground there is a great garland suspended; two female figures uplift nosegays; at their side is a bridge over a moat, leading to an old manorial house.
Reversed Meaning:
Prosperity, increase, felicity, beauty, embellishment.
Ace of Wands
A hand reaching out from a cloud grasps a stout wand or club.
Reversed Meaning:
Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish also a certain clouded joy.
A sign of birth.
Knight of Cups
Graceful, but not warlike; riding quietly, wearing a winged helmet, referring to those higher graces of the imagination which sometimes characterise this card. He too is a dreamer, but the images of the side of sense haunt him in his vision.
Reversed Meaning:
Trickery, artifice, subtlety, swindling, duplicity, fraud.
