This is a specified relationship spread that uses 9 cards to analyze 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 3-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 their coupling. Above this, Cards #6 and #7 show the challenge that this pairing presents to each individual. The final 2 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 of the pairing.
The Future Outcome (To be read in tandem with the card to the right) 8 of Wands |
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The Future Outcome (To be read in tandem with the card to the left) 8 of Swords |
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Challenges Which May Arise for You 2 of Cups |
Challenges Which May Arise for Your Lover The Magician |
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Desires in Relation to Your Question The Emperor |
Your Lover's Desires Knight of Pentacles |
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Nature of Your Issue The Tower |
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Your Lover's Current Position The Sun |
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The Current State of Things Page of Wands |
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The Current State of Things
A young man stands in the act of proclamation. He is unknown but faithful, and his tidings are strange.
Upright Meaning:
Dark young man, faithful, a lover, family intelligence, a messenger, favourable testimony. A dangerous rival, if followed by the Page of Cups.
A nude child rides a white pony in the foreground. Behind him the sun boldly enlightens the world, acting as a source of life and role model to several sun flowers.
Upright Meaning:
Material happiness, good marriage, contentment, blessings, lucky break, opportunity, praise, magnificence, brilliance, miracle.
Lightning strikes the top of a Tower, knocking the crown off the top. Reminiscent of the Tower of Babel, two figures fall from grace.
Reversed Meaning:
Oppression, imprisonment, trap, tyranny, hardship, torment, persecution, coercion.
The Emperor sits on his throne holding his sceptor. He represents a male figure of power and authority.
Reversed Meaning:
Creditor, borrowing, confusion to enemies, obstruction, immaturity, annoyance, irritation.
He rides a slow but steady horse, which is just like him. He holds the pentacle, but does not look therein.
Upright Meaning:
Utility, service, interest, responsibility, rectitude, authority, obligation, accountability, work, trust.
A youth and maiden are pledging the love of one another, and above their cups rises the Caduceus of Hermes, between the great wings of which there appears a lion's head. It is a variant of a sign which is found in a few old examples of this card.
Reversed Meaning:
Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy, the interrelation of the sexes, and - as a suggestion apart from all offices of divination - that desire by which Nature is sanctified.
A robed figure performs the act of ceremonial magic in order to direct his will to perform his desires.
Upright Meaning:
Skill, subtlety, clandestine, self-confidence, willpower, determination, action, initiative, talent, ability.
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.
Reversed Meaning:
Arrows of jealousy, internal dispute, stingings of conscience, quarrels, domestic disputes for married people.
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.