Tarot Spreads

You shuffle, you lay the cards out in a pattern, and the place where each card lands tells you what it is answering. The Ten of Cups in a past position is the happy home you remember. The same card in an advice position is a nudge to make time for the people you love.

Why the position matters

A card on its own is a picture with a whole range of meanings. The position gives the card its question, and the question narrows that range down to the part that matters for this reading.

That is also what makes a spread more than a handful of single cards. Several cards answer several questions about the same matter, and then you get to read the answers against each other. The past against the future. What is underneath against what could grow. Most of the reading happens in that second step, where the cards start talking to each other.

Choosing a spread

Match the size of the spread to the size of the question.

1. A quick focus, or a card for the day: one card.
2. A story with a beginning, a middle and an end: three cards.
3. A question with roots and room to grow: the Five Card Cross.
4. A broad look at a situation, without the full ten cards: the Horseshoe.
5. You and another person: the Relationship Spread.
6. Every area of life at once, or the year ahead: the Astrological Spread.
7. A long, slow look at yourself: the Tree of Life.
8. The full picture of one matter: the Celtic Cross.

A bigger spread gives you more to read, and more to get lost in. A small question asked of ten cards tends to come back with ten small answers. When you are unsure, start smaller than you think you need. You can always lay more cards.

The spreads

The One Card Draw

The smallest spread there is. One card for the day, for a question, or to keep beside you for a week. Its page also covers the yes or no method some readers use.

The Three Card Spread

Three cards, left to right, most often as past, present and future. The cards are read as one sentence, and the page gives the common variations, from situation, action, outcome to mind, body, spirit.

The Five Card Cross

Five cards in a plus sign, with the present in the middle. The line across is time and the line up and down is depth: the cause beneath the matter and the potential above it.

The Horseshoe Spread

Seven cards laid in a U or an arc. The positions are usually the past, the present, hidden influences, obstacles, the people around you, advice and the likely outcome. It covers much of the same ground as the Celtic Cross with a lighter touch.

The Relationship Spread

There is no single standard version, and the page says so. The one given there uses seven cards: one card for you, one for the other person, and five shared cards down the middle between them. It shows your side of the connection and your picture of them, and it is read with that in mind.

The Astrological Spread

Twelve cards in a circle, one for each house, laid out the way a birth chart is drawn, with an optional thirteenth card in the centre for the overall theme. There is also a year ahead version with one card for each month. This is the spread where the cards and the chart sit closest together.

The Tree of Life Spread

Ten cards on the ten sephiroth of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, laid in three pillars, from Kether, the Crown, at the top to Malkuth, the Kingdom, at the bottom. It is a slow, deep spread, better suited to a question about yourself than a question about next week.

The Celtic Cross

Ten cards in a cross and a staff, and the most widely used spread there is. Every Tarot Reading I write is laid on it. It has its own page, with all ten positions and a worked sample.

Before you shuffle

These apply to every spread on these pages.

1. Choose the spread first. Know how many cards you are laying and what each place means before a single card moves.

2. Decide whether you are reading reversals. Make that choice before you shuffle and hold to it until the spread is finished. The Reversed Cards page explains why.

3. Shuffle with the question in mind. Keep it simple and keep it in one sentence. If you cannot say the question in one breath, it is probably two questions.

4. Lay the cards in order. Card one goes in place one, card two in place two.

5. Read each card in its place first. Then read the cards together. Look for repeated suits, a cluster of Majors, figures facing towards or away from each other, and the pairs the spread is built around.

Write it down as you go.

Make your own

Every spread on these pages started as somebody deciding what they wanted to ask.

You can do the same. Write down the questions you want answered, in order, one per card. Give each one a place on the table that makes sense to you: the past to the left, the future to the right, roots underneath, hopes above. Three to five positions is plenty for a first attempt.

Then test it on a question you already understand well. If the positions give you answers you can use, keep it. If two positions keep saying the same thing, merge them. Your spread will settle into shape after a few readings.

The exercise

Choose one question you care about. Read it three times over a single sitting: once with one card, once with three, and once with the Five Card Cross, reshuffling in between.

Write a single sentence after each reading. Then put the three sentences side by side and notice what the larger spreads added and what the single card already knew. Most people find the single card had the heart of it, and the bigger spreads filled in the how and the why.

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

Related pages
How to Cast a Hexagram · How to Cast the Runes

The seven spreads