What sits underneath the whole situation.
What this position asks
What are you standing on?
This card goes directly below the Present and the Crossing. Waite numbered it fourth and put the Crown third, so older books may show it in a different order. When he laid it he said "This is beneath him", and wrote that "It shews the foundation or basis of the matter, that which has already passed into actuality and which the Significator has made his own."
Made his own. That phrase is the key to this position. Whatever turns up in the Foundation already belongs to you, whether you chose it or picked it up along the way.
I think of the footings under a house. Nobody looks at them once the walls are up. Every crack in the plaster starts there all the same.
How cards behave here
A Major Arcana card in the Foundation points to a root that goes back a long way. Family, childhood, a belief about yourself that you took on before you were old enough to question it.
A Minor card points to something more recent and easier to reach. Cups underneath mean an old emotional pattern, often the way love was shown at home. Wands mean the fire that first got you moving, and whether it is still burning. Swords mean a belief or an old hurt that shaped your thinking. Pentacles mean habits around money, security, work and the body.
A court card here is most often an earlier version of yourself, the person you were when this pattern began. It can also be someone who formed you: a parent, a teacher, a first boss.
A reversed card in the Foundation is most often turned inward. The root is buried, or has never been looked at. It can also be blocked, something that should be feeding you and is not getting through. I rarely read it as the opposite here, because what is underneath does not simply vanish.
Its partner: the Crown
The Foundation sits below the Present and the Crown sits above it, so the two make the upright line of the cross. One is what you are standing on. The other is what you are reaching for. You can only reach as high as your footing lets you.
Put the Ace of Pentacles in the Foundation, a solid and practical start. With the Star in the Crown, you are hoping for something big, and there is real ground under that hope. With the Ten of Pentacles in the Crown, the aim is lasting security for the family, and the first brick is already laid.
A few examples
The Six of Cups in the Foundation: two children in an old stone courtyard, one handing the other a cup of flowers. The matter has its roots in your early years, or in a longing for how things used to be.
The Hierophant in the Foundation: tradition, rules, the way you were raised to do things. Ask whether those rules are still yours or only inherited.
The Ten of Wands reversed in the Foundation: a load carried so long you stopped noticing its weight. Too much, for too many years, and it is shaping everything above it.
When this position speaks
When the same situation keeps coming back in different clothes, look at card 3. The people and places change, and they are all standing on the same footings.
What have you made your own that you never actually chose?
If you would like the Celtic Cross read against your own chart, my readings are here.
The Celtic Cross
The other nine positions, and the spread they belong to.
See every page and post in the Contents.
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