The deck is spread.
The sky is listening.
Draw your cards.
Or .
Shuffle, cut, draw
Choose a spread.
Three of the twenty-four to start with. Or ask a question above and the right one is laid for it instead.
Take one.
The reading.
Celtic Cross: the classic ten, the cross and the staff.
Ten cards, in the order most readers use, for a question with a lot in it. The cross is the situation and the staff is you inside it. This is the longest reading on the site, and it is written as one reading rather than ten paragraphs about ten cards.
- 1The present
- 2What crosses it
- 3The past
- 4The near future
- 5What you are aware of
- 6What is underneath
- 7You, as you see yourself
- 8The people around you
- 9What you hope, and fear
- 10Where it is going
The positions, and how to read a card in each
- 1The present
- The heart of the matter, the card the other nine are read around. If it does not look like the question you asked, the deck has heard a different question, and it is usually the right one.
- 2What crosses it
- The card laid across the first: what helps, what hinders, and it is often both at once. Read it as the pressure on the present, not as an enemy.
- 3The past
- What led here, the part still in play. A finished-looking card here says the past is not where the trouble is.
- 4The near future
- The next thing, close. Not the outcome; the immediate move of the situation, which the tenth card is read from.
- 5What you are aware of
- The card above: your conscious aim, what you are telling yourself this is about. Read it together with the card below it.
- 6What is underneath
- The card below: what is actually driving it. The gap between this card and the fifth is where most Celtic Cross readings turn.
- 7You, as you see yourself
- Your own position and attitude, from the inside. Often flattering; read it against the eighth, which is the view from outside.
- 8The people around you
- The others, the room, what they are doing to the situation. Not their intentions, which no card can read; their weight.
- 9What you hope, and fear
- One card for both, because in most questions they are the same thing looked at twice. Say which it is before you read it.
- 10Where it is going
- The outcome if nothing changes, which is the clause that makes it usable: a direction, not a sentence. The nine cards before it are where to change it.
Already laid this one on your own table? Read the cards you pulled, in these positions, with the same engine.
The cards are Pamela Colman Smith's, drawn in 1909. The draw is sealed before you touch the deck, so it can be recomputed by anyone, and nobody including the engine sees a card before you do. Readings here never give dates except the sky's, and never give medical, legal or financial specifics.
How a reading goes · How one is written · Past, present, future · Mind, body, spirit
Twenty-four spreads.
The classics, and a few built for one kind of question. Tap one to lay it.One card, twenty seconds. The habit.
1 cardYes or noOne card, cut first so it can fall either way. Upright leans yes.
1 cardPast, present, futureThe classic three, in a line. Where it came from, where it is, where it goes.
3 cardsThe two of youYou, them, and what is between you.
3 cardsShould I buy itNever about the thing. Always about the hesitation.
3 cardsThis or thatTwo roads, and the thing you are not weighing.
3 cardsIs now the timeTwo cards, and the sky answers the third position itself.
2 cardsWhat am I missingOne card you can see. One tucked behind it.
2 cardsPick one of threeThree options in a row, and the card that decides.
4 cardsMind, body, spiritThree cards for the state you are in, not the thing you are deciding.
3 cardsThe horseshoeSeven cards in an arc. A whole situation without the weight of the ten.
7 cardsThe jobTake it, leave it, or stay where you are. Three cards about the work, not the offer.
3 cardsThe one who leftWhat was there, where they stand now, and what you would be going back to.
3 cardsHow they feel about youHow they see you, what they want from this, and what holds them back. A card cannot read a mind, and this one says so.
3 cardsStay or goThe life if you stay, the life if you go, and the fear under both.
3 cardsWhat to do about itThe oldest three: what is happening, what to do, and where that goes.
3 cardsShadow workWhat you show, what you keep back, why, what that costs, and how to meet it.
5 cardsA dreamWhat the dream shows, what it is asking, and what to carry out of it.
3 cardsThe week aheadSeven cards, one for each day, starting today.
7 cardsThe year aheadTwelve cards, one for each month, laid as the year itself.
12 cardsCeltic CrossThe classic ten, the cross and the staff. For a question with a lot in it.
10 cardsThe housesTwelve cards on the twelve houses, the whole of a life laid as a wheel. For when the question is everything at once.
12 cardsTree of LifeTen cards on the ten sephiroth, from the aim at the top to how it lands. Book T's own map, laid as a spread.
10 cardsThis moonWaxing tonight. What to begin, what is in the way, and the Moon itself.
2 cards