An Emotional “Hopes and Fears” Spread: Rising and Falling Trends
AUTHOR’S NOTE: In almost any single-chain tarot reading there will be a mix of nominally fortunate and unfortunate cards; the reader’s task is to sort them out and come up with as constructive an interpretation as possible while giving each its due. The reading frequently involves confronting the “good card/bad position” conundrum and its opposite. Some spreads (like Eden Gray’s version of the Celtic Cross with its “Hopes” and “Fears” division) build this consideration into their design.
The main focus of the following spread is on the emotional health of the situation. It dispenses with the hair-splitting (for the most part) and provides two clear trajectories, one toward the “best case” scenario and the other toward the “worst case” outlook. It is based loosely on the “five emotions” of the Chinese Book of Rites: joy; anger; sorrow; love; and hatred. I placed Love and Hate at the two ends of a five-card line, bracketing Joy and Sorrow, with the fifth card (renamed “Neutrality”) sitting at the midpoint. The image below shows a uniform distribution for purposes of illustration, but in practice the two vertical arrays will usually be off-center depending on where the “best” and “worst” cards fall in the random pull.
To begin, shuffle the deck while concentrating on the emotional nature of the matter at hand. (Reversals may be used with this spread.) Deal five cards face-up into a line in any order you choose, then set the rest of the cards aside for the moment. This series represents the emotional landscape as it exists at the time of the reading, regardless of whether it is already apparent to the seeker or only latent in pending circumstances.
Determine which of the five cards offers the most favorable prospects for emotional improvement and which presents the least encouraging projection. These cards initiate the two vertical columns comprising the split “Middle Way, the “beneficial “best case” arc above and the detrimental “worst case” arc below. (The rest of the horizontal cards are not factored into the reading.) Judgment will be required when making this call if all of the cards are of roughly identical disposition.
From the “best” card, deal four more cards face-up above the horizontal line in the pattern shown (which will only occasionally begin at the “Neutrality” position). The two vertical cards portray the “ascending” (or improving) emotional trend for which the two “side” cards act as “steering” influences that enter the matter as it evolves: pessimistic tendencies coming from the left side and optimistic tendencies emerging from the right. The middle card suggests how these competing energies might be reconciled before they become “locked into” the end of the matter described by the final card at the top.
From the “worst” card, deal four more cards face-up below the horizontal line in the pattern shown. The two vertical cards represent the “descending” (or deteriorating) emotional trend. In this case the left “side” card indicates the sympathetic cooperation of circumstances that could help “break the fall” and the right “side” card militates against a “soft landing,” while the middle card performs the same mediating function as above. The final card at the bottom implies “just how bad” it could get.
Read both sets of cards as a complete picture of the emotional state of affairs when the situation reaches maturity. In reality, one trend will generally provide more convincing testimony than the other and should be presented as dominant. Below is an example reading that was pulled randomly with no concentration on any particular subject.
The two cards of interest fell in the “Sorrow” and “Hate” positions; if these sentiments are not currently evident in the client’s circumstances, there may be a potential for them to appear unannounced in the near future, so the reading should still proceed. The Sun is obviously one of the best cards in the deck, while the 3 of Swords (Sorrow) is one of the worst, so no finely-tuned judgment was required in selecting them.
The Sun surmounted by the 9 of Cups (Happiness) and the 2 of Wands (Dominion) shows clearing skies, emotional contentment and powerful Mars-in-Aries stimulus working in the querent’s favor; they suggest “dawning jubilation” after an unpromising kickoff. The dour 8 of Cups (Indolence) tries to nibble away at this upbeat tableau with little success, while the 6 of Swords stands to one side and looks things over impartially without interfering since it has little cause for anxious hand-wringing. If there is sorrow in the forecast it will probably be short-lived, like a dark cloud passing briefly across the face of the Sun. The advice would be to “wait it out.”
The 3 of Swords suggests being the victim of animosity rather than its perpetrator. The 7 of Swords (Futility) offers little hope of overcoming what seems to be an inevitable erosion of confidence. The 7 of Wands (Valour) implies being aggressively put-upon (while still extending an opportunity to “fight back”) and the 5 of Swords (Defeat) clearly spells out the risks involved. The Knight of Cups displays a state of stoic acceptance about being “crowded into a corner” like this since there is not much that can be done other than to “tough it out.” The best that can be said is that there are no antagonistic, high-profile court or trump cards present, so the situation is likely to be fairly low-key and well within the tolerant nature of the Knight of Cups to withstand.
Of the two trajectories, the “declining” trend is the weaker one because the Knight of Cups blunts its impact, so I would say that the “ascending” path would dominate in this matter. With the Sun and the 9 of Cups leading the way, I would be looking for a rapid turnaround after a sobering start.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on August 15, 2024.
