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) Queen of Cups |
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The Future Outcome (To be read in tandem with the card to the left) The Wheel of Fortune |
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Challenges Which May Arise for You Strength |
Challenges Which May Arise for Your Lover King of Pentacles |
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Desires in Relation to Your Question The High Priestess |
Your Lover's Desires 7 of Pentacles |
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Nature of Your Issue The Emperor |
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Your Lover's Current Position Queen of Pentacles |
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The Current State of Things 5 of Cups |
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The Current State of Things
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.
Upright Meaning:
It is a card of loss, but something remains over; three have been taken, but two are left; it is a card of inheritance, patrimony, transmission, but not corresponding to expectations.
The face suggests that of a dark, intelligent woman, who has the quality of greatness. She contemplates her pentacle, using it as a tool of skrying and divination.
Reversed Meaning:
Evil, suspicion, suspense, fear, mistrust, apprehension, perplexity, hesitation, uncertainty, scepticism, doubt.
The Emperor sits on his throne holding his sceptre. He represents a male figure of power and authority.
Upright Meaning:
Authority, stability, power, protection, benevolence, realisation a greatness, aid, reason, conviction, willpower.
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.
Reversed Meaning:
Passion, moral or physical ardour, conceit, surface knowledge, ego, shallowness, superficiality.
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.
Reversed Meaning:
Somebody trying to borrow money and the anxiety that this spawns; altercation, quarrels, haggle, bad deal, rip-off, pestering, entice, con, beguile, coax, bait and switch.
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.
His face is rather dark, suggesting also courage, but stubborn. The bull's head is a recurrent symbol on the throne. The sign of this suit is engraved or blazoned with the pentagram, signifying the four elements of nature and the spirit which governs them. This suit is sometimes represented as coins or disks, and is symbolic of money and material goods or services.
Upright Meaning:
Valour, intelligence, business aptitude, mathematical gifts and attainments; success, proficiency, arrival, execution.
Beautiful, fair, dreamy – as one who sees visions in a cup. This is, however, only one of her aspects; she sees, but she also acts, and her activity feeds her dream.
Reversed Meaning:
The accounts vary; good woman; otherwise, distinguished woman but one not to be trusted; perverse woman; vice, dishonour, depravity.
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.