The seven-card Horse Shoe is a convenient, basic layout that can be used to answer different types of questions, especially concerning questions where insight would be helpful. Like several other spreads, it has cards representing the past, present, and future.
The pinnacle of the Horse Shoe, looking like the top of the mountain, shows the obstacle or challenge that needs to be addressed and overcome. Card #6 suggests a course of action to meet this challenge. The final card shows the outcome or future, should this advice be followed.
Other clues are provided in Cards #3 and #5, which indicate hidden or outside influences that come into play, affecting the journey to your goal.
Obstacle  8 of Wands |
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Hidden Influences  5 of Wands |
External Influences  Ace of Swords |
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The Present  Ace of Cups |
Suggestion  4 of Cups |
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The Past  8 of Swords |
The Outcome  The Moon |
The Past Card represents past events that are affecting the question.
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.
Ace of Cups
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.
5 of Wands
A posse of youths, who are brandishing staves, as if in sport or strife. It is mimic warfare.
Upright Meaning:
Imitation, as, for example, sham fight, strenuous competition, struggle, the search for fame and fortune, gold, gain, opulence.
8 of Wands
The card represents motion through the immovable – a flight of wands through an open country; but they draw to the term of their course. That which they signify is at hand; it may be even on the threshold.
Upright Meaning:
Activity in undertakings, the path of such activity, swiftness, a messenger; great haste, great hope, speed towards an end which promises assured felicity; generally, that which is on the move; the arrows of love.
Ace of Swords
A hand reaches out from a cloud, grasping a sword, the point of which is encircled by a crown.
Upright Meaning:
Triumph, the excessive degree in everything, conquest, triumph of force. It is a card of great force, in love as well as in hatred. The crown may carry a much higher significance than comes usually within the sphere of fortune telling.
4 of Cups
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.
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.