The Approach

You: how you are meeting all of this.

What this position asks

How are you holding yourself in this?

This is the first card of the staff, the column of four to the right of the cross, and it sits at the bottom. Waite wrote that the seventh card "signifies himself", and that it "shews its position or attitude in the circumstances."

Position or attitude. The rest of the spread describes what is happening. Card 7 describes the way you are standing while it happens.

I think of hands on a steering wheel. Two hands at ten and two, white knuckles, one finger resting lazily on the top. Same car, same road, and each grip gives you a different drive.

How cards behave here

A Major Arcana card in the Approach says your attitude comes from somewhere deep in your character. This is how you tend to meet big things, and it is worth knowing about beyond this one question.

A Minor card describes your stance in this particular matter. Cups here mean you are leading with your feelings. Wands mean you are leading with drive, and perhaps some impatience. Swords mean you are leading with your head, thinking it through, possibly overthinking it. Pentacles mean you are being practical, careful, maybe a little slow to move.

Court cards are most at home in this position. A Queen here shows the mature, receptive side of how you are acting. A King shows you taking charge. A Knight shows you in pursuit of it, perhaps further than you meant to go. A Page shows you as the learner, new to all of this and finding your feet.

A reversed card in the Approach is often turned inward. Your attitude is something you are keeping to yourself, and the people around you may be reading you quite wrongly. It can also be too much or too little of the card: too much caution, too little confidence.

Its partner: the Environment

Card 7 is you and card 8 is the world around you. Read them side by side and you can see whether you and your surroundings are pulling the same way.

Take the Magician in the Approach, every tool of the four suits laid out on the table in front of him. You are capable and ready. With the Six of Wands in the Environment, a rider wearing a wreath with the crowd around him, the people around you are ready to back you. With the Seven of Wands in the Environment, one figure holding off six staves from below, you will have to defend your ground to get anywhere.

A few examples

Strength in the Approach: a woman with her hands resting gently on a lion's jaws. You are meeting this with patience and quiet courage, and that is working.

The Knight of Swords in the Approach: charging in at full speed. You are sharp and quick, and there is a risk of running over people on the way.

The Four of Cups in the Approach: a figure sitting under a tree, arms folded, not noticing the cup held out to him from a cloud. You may be too bored or too tired to see what is on offer.

When this position speaks

Card 7 is the card in the spread most within your reach today. The situation may be fixed for now, and your stance is still yours to shift.

How are you holding this, and would you hold it the same way if nobody were watching?

If you would like the Celtic Cross read against your own chart, my readings are here.