Celtic Cross Spread
Difficulty: Average
This is probably the most well-known tarot spread. A good, basic spread for beginners to practise with, the Celtic Cross is useful for questions of all types. In this spread, it can be helpful to notice the relationships between the pairings of cards #5 & #9, #1 & #2, #3 & #4, and #6 & #10.
- The significator epitomizes what the reading deals with, the initial situation.
- An added impulse that compounds the significator, which may be either complimentary or contradictory.
- This is what is consciously known (thoughts).
- Unconscious driving forces that may not be known fully (emotions).
- The immediate past regarding the current situation.
- The first future card indicates the immediate future.
- This card represents the reader and their attitude towards cards #1 and #2.
- The external influences, the places and people which influence the topic.
- This tarot card suggests expectations; what is secretly hoped for or feared.
- The second future card reveals the long-term outcome.
Your Celtic Cross Reading
The Crown |
The Outcome 8 of Pentacles
External Forces  The Devils
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The Recent Past The Sorcerer |
This Crosses the Significator
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The Future 8 of Wands |
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The Significator represents what the main theme of the reading deals with, the initial situation.
Knight of Pentacles
Stone is hard and sand is soft, yet one can erode the other in time and fundamentally, both are the exact same thing. Odd that the smaller of the two can destroy the larger and make it more like itself. Also note the Wolfs angle rune.
This Crosses the Significator denotes an added impulse that compounds the initial card, whether complimentary or contradictory.
The Beast
3:00 – Card 7
AKA Judgement or The Angel in traditional Tarot. Female, Air, Aries.
Birth, gain and success. To eat the apple and learn mastery of life and death. To nurse and grow strong. To win. These are all steps toward the goal but not the goal itself, to mistake the method for the achievement will leave one halfway there.
The Crown stands for what the asker is aware of consciously.
Queen of Wands
An homage to H.R. Giger's Alien Hieroglyphs and an insult to perspective. A wand that does nothing more than sap the life from you and squirt it down the drain.
The Foundation reveals unconscious driving forces that the querent may not be aware of.
9 of Swords
Drawn on July 4th to the sound of fireworks. Weapons and explosives are now components of ritual as often as components of battle. I suppose they always were.
The Recent Past represents past events and concerns.
The Sorcerer
AKA The Magician in traditional Tarot.
The sort of guy who knows, wills, dares and keeps his mouth shut.
The Future depicts that which lies ahead.
The Beast
3:00 – Card 7
AKA Judgement or The Angel in traditional Tarot. Female, Air, Aries.
Birth, gain and success. To eat the apple and learn mastery of life and death. To nurse and grow strong. To win. These are all steps toward the goal but not the goal itself, to mistake the method for the achievement will leave one halfway there.
The Querent represents the asker and their attitude towards the subject of the reading.
The Tower
10:00 – Card 4
Male, Earth, Libra.
Failure and Loss. Defeat and ruin. The higher it's built, the harder it falls and the more it crushes when it does. That doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't worth building. Defeat can be accepted and the ruins left behind in favour of greener pastures, or one can start to rebuild. The latter is more difficult, but often more rewarding.
External Forces represents the influence of others in your life as well as trends in your relationships with others.
The Devils
11:00 – Card 9
AKA The Devil in traditional Tarot. Female, Fire, Capricorn.
Predators, perpetrators, the strong over the weak. They are movers and manipulators of fate, but always at each other’s throats. Time devours its own children and this is the card of that act, for time itself is only a continuum, it's really time's children that devour each other.
Hopes and Fears shows the expectations you have concerning the outcome of your question.
Page of Wands
If you're going to use a pool stick, first be sure that you aren't one of the balls.
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.
8 of Pentacles
Things grow from other dead things. Don't overlook them for their dark origins, and don't dismiss the dead as a total erasure of what was.
