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Celtic Cross Spread

 

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.

Spread Positions

  1. This is it (what you asked about)
  2. This crosses it (strengthens or opposes)
  3. This crowns it (higher influences)
  4. It rests upon this (lower influences)
  5. This came before
  6. This comes next
  7. This is you
  8. The external world around you
  9. Your hopes, fears, and secret desires
  10. The result or outcome

 

 

 

Celtic Cross

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Celtic Cross Reading

The Crown

6 of Cups

The Outcome

5 of Swords


Hopes and Fears

7 of Pentacles


External Forces

Ace of Pentacles


The Querent

7 of Swords

The Recent Past

Knight of Cups

The Crossing Card

3 of Cups


The Significator

10 of Wands

The Future

The High Priestess


Foundation card


The Tower

 

 

The Significator represents what the main theme of the reading deals with, the initial situation.

 

 

10 of Wands

A man oppressed by the weight of the ten staves which he is carrying.

Reversed Meaning:

Oppression, difficulties, intrigues, heavy-handedness, bad luck.

 

 

 

 

The Crossing Card denotes an added impulse that compounds the initial card, whether complimentary or contradictory.

 

3 of Cups

Maidens in a garden-ground with cups uplifted, as if pledging one another.

Reversed Meaning:

Expedition, dispatch, achievement, end. It signifies also the side of excess in physical enjoyment, and the pleasures of the senses.

 

 

 

 

The Crown stands for what the asker is aware of consciously.

 

6 of Cups

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.

 

 

 

 

Foundation card reveals unconscious driving forces that the querent may not be aware of.

 

The Tower

Lightning strikes the top of a Tower, knocking the crown off the top. Reminiscent of the Tower of Babel, two figures fall from grace.

Upright Meaning:

Misery, calamity, deception, ruin, catastrophe, distress, adversity, disaster, discord, falling apart, going all to pieces, injury.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Recent Past represents past events and concerns.

 

Knight of Cups

Graceful, and 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.

Upright Meaning:

Arrival, approach – sometimes that of a messenger; advances, proposition, demeanour, invitation, incitement.

 

 

 

 

The Future depicts that which lies ahead.

 

The High Priestess

Crowned by the moon, the High Priestess is seated between two pillars, one black and the other white. She holds the Tora scroll and the secret wisdom of the world's creation.

Upright Meaning:

Secrets, mystery, silence, tenacity, wisdom, woman's intuition, emotional awareness, empathy, hidden truth.

 

 

 

 

The Querent represents the asker and their attitude towards the subject of the reading.

 

7 of Swords

A man in the act of carrying away five swords hastily; missing two which remain stuck in the ground. He is a thief. A camp is close at hand.

Reversed Meaning:

A dangerous plan that may fail, quarrelling, annoyance, disturbance, thievery, crime, slander, babbling.

 

 

 

 

External Forces represents the influence of others in your life as well as trends in your relationships with others.

 

Ace of Pentacles

A hand reaching out from a cloud holds up a pentacle.

Upright Meaning:

Perfect contentment, felicity, ecstasy, sharpness, intelligence, a quick wit, gold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hopes and Fears shows the expectations you have concerning the outcome of your question.

 

7 of Pentacles

A young man, leaning on his staff, looks intently at seven pentacles attached to a clump of greenery on his right; one would say that these were his treasures and that his heart was there.

Upright Meaning:

Money, business sense, barter, ingenuity, purgation, commerce, trade, deal, transaction, good economy, industry.

 

 

 

 

The Outcome of your question. Interpret this card in the context of the entire reading and as an indicator of the path you are currently on, but not necessarily bound to.

 

5 of Swords

A disdainful man looks after two retreating and dejected figures. Their swords lie upon the ground. He carries two others on his left shoulder, and a third sword is in his right hand, point to earth. He is the master in possession of the field.

Upright Meaning:

Degradation, destruction, revocation, infamy, dishonour, loss, disdain, notoriety.