Relationship Spread #1
Difficulty: Easy
This tarot spread is easy to read, like a convenient chart. In this spread, court cards generally indicate actual people with the same characteristics. Knights (or corresponding princes, but not kings) and queens are meant to represent actual men and women in this tarot spread. Look for patterns in the cards as always.
Card #1 is the overall significator of the relationship. The two columns on either side of the significator characterise each individual's role in the relationship. The relationship does not have to be romantic. In fact, it could be a relationship between a person and a group, or even how two groups relate.
The top row, cards #7 & #2, is about the conscious thoughts of each person, or what they think about the relationship and likewise how they view their partner.
The middle row, cards #6 & #3, reveals the way each individual feels about the other. Emotional awareness corresponds to a person's unconscious thoughts that run deep, affecting a person in ways he or she is not fully aware of.
The bottom row, cards #5 & #4, represents the way each person behaves, in other words the stance taken regarding the relationship. The way a person acts may be genuine, but sometimes people are phony and manipulative, so it is best to weigh this card against the other person's cards to determine how they match up.
Your Relationship #1 Reading
| You | Other Person | ||
| Thought |  2 of Pentacles |
 Knight of Cups |
|
| Emotion |  Justice |
The Significator The High Priestess |
 2 of Wands |
| External Stance |  8 of Pentacles |
 Page of Cups |
The Significator
The High Priestess
She has the lunar crescent at her feet, a horned diadem on her head, with a globe in the middle place, and a large solar cross on her breast. The scroll in her hands is inscribed with the word Tora, signifying the Greater Law, the Secret Law and the second sense of the Word. It is partly covered by her mantle, to shew that some things are implied and some spoken. She is seated between the white and black pillars – J. and B. – of the mystic Temple, and the veil of the Temple is behind her: it is embroidered with palms and pomegranates. The vestments are flowing and gauzy, and the mantle suggests light – a shimmering radiance. She has been called occult Science on the threshold of the Sanctuary of Isis, but she is really the Secret Church, the House which is of God and man. She represents also the Second Marriage of the Prince who is no longer of this world; she is the spiritual Bride and Mother, the daughter of the stars and the Higher Garden of Eden. She is, in fine, the Queen of the borrowed light, but this is the light of all. She is the Moon nourished by the milk of the Supernal Mother.
In a manner, she is also the Supernal Mother herself – that is to say, she is the bright reflection. It is in this sense of reflection that her truest and highest name in bolism is Shekinah – the co-habiting glory. According to Kabalism, there is a Shekinah both above and below. In the superior world it is called Binah, the Supernal Understanding which reflects to the emanations that are beneath. In the lower world it is MaIkuth – that world being, for this purpose, understood as a blessed Kingdom that with which it is made blessed being the Indwelling Glory. Mystically speaking, the Shekinah is the Spiritual Bride of the just man, and when he reads the Law she gives the Divine meaning. There are some respects in which this card is the highest and holiest of the Greater Arcana.
Divinatory Meaning:
Secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed; the woman who interests the Querent, if male; the Querent herself, if female; silence, tenacity; mystery, wisdom, science.
The Querent's Thoughts
2 of Pentacles
A young man, in the act of dancing, has a pentacle in either hand, and they are joined by that endless cord which is like the number eight reversed.
Divinatory Meaning:
On the one hand it is represented as a card of gaiety, recreation and its connexions, which is the subject of the design; but it is read also as news and messages in writing, as obstacles, agitation, trouble, embroilment.
The Other Person's Thoughts
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.
Divinatory Meaning:
Arrival, approach – sometimes that of a messenger; advances, proposition, demeanour, invitation, incitement.
The Querent's Emotions
Justice
The figure is seated between pillars, like the High Priestess, and on this account it seems desirable to indicate that the moral principle which deals unto every man according to his works – while, of course, it is in strict analogy with higher things; – differs in its essence from the spiritual justice which is involved in the idea of election. The latter belongs to a mysterious order of Providence, in virtue of which it is possible for certain men to conceive the idea of dedication to the highest things. The operation of this is like the breathing of the Spirit where it wills, and we have no canon of criticism or ground of explanation concerning it. It is analogous to the possession of the fairy gifts and the high gifts and the gracious gifts of the poet: we have them or have not, and their presence is as much a mystery as their absence. The law of Justice is not however involved by either alternative. In conclusion, the pillars of Justice open into one world and the pillars of the High Priestess into another.
Reversed Meaning:
Law in all its departments, legal complications, bigotry, bias, excessive severity.
The Other Person's Emotions
2 of Wands
A tall man looks from a battlemented roof over sea and shore; he holds a globe in his right hand, while a staff in his left rests on the battlement; another is fixed in a ring. The Rose and Cross and Lily should be noticed on the left side.
Divinatory Meaning:
Between the alternative readings there is no marriage possible; on the one hand, riches, fortune, magnificence; on the other, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification. The design gives one suggestion; here is a lord overlooking his dominion and alternately contemplating a globe; it looks like the malady, the mortification, the sadness of Alexander amidst the grandeur of this world's wealth.
A young lady may expect trivial disappointments.
The Querent's External Stance
8 of Pentacles
An artist in stone at his work, which he exhibits in the form of trophies.
Divinatory Meaning:
Work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, skill in craft and business, perhaps in the preparatory stage.
The Other Person's External Stance
Page of Cups
A fair, pleasing, somewhat effeminate page, of studious and intent aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him. It is the pictures of the mind taking form.
Reversed Meaning:
Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.
