Celtic Cross — “The Right Tool For The Job”
As is probably obvious from the examples I’ve posted, I’m a big fan of the well-thought-out positional tarot spread. I’m at the opposite end of the spectrum from the “I never use formal spreads!” crowd and slightly to the conservative side of those who say they make unique spreads on-the-fly to suit the question or topic. In my experience, carefully-crafted, topic-specific layouts represent the “golden mean” in most reading situations, neither too detailed nor too vague, and I’m constantly chasing that level of perfection in my spread creation.
The subject of spread selection is often raised on the tarot forums in two different ways: “What is your favorite spread for: a) specific questions; or b) general readings with no specific question or topic?” My answer is usually that the Celtic Cross is the most reliable “all-purpose” spread for any but the most narrowly-framed queries. I consider it to be the quintessential “Where am I coming from and where am I going?” spread for open-ended “life readings” as long as the distinction between the discrete parts of the spread (“cross” and “staff”) is kept in mind.
During these conversations it struck me that my methods for applying this rule are buried in my personal Celtic Cross presentation, and I thought it would be worthwhile to restate them separately. This guideline is based on an old convention for partitioning the spread during interpretation. These are my personal preferences formed while working with and tweaking the Celtic Cross since the mid-1980s; you will most likely have your own favorite way to approach it. The main point here is that after discovering Eden Gray’s version in The Tarot Revealed, I immediately discarded Waite’s Christianized “Sign of the Cross” design and began customizing my own layout.
I no longer use a Significator card in most readings since it seems superfluous to the person sitting across the table from me who has already put their “imprint” on the cards through the shuffle, so an intentionally assigned avatar is unnecessary. It never added much of value to the reading anyway.
The “cross” section of the spread speaks to the question itself; it provides an opening scenario (Positions 1 and 2) followed by a four-part, blow-by-blow analysis describing the developmental time-line for the situation (Positions 3 through 6) leading up to the more internalized phase of its evolution in the “staff.”
According to Gray’s model, I read the narrative flow of the “cross” as a clockwise rotation from the bottom (“Distant Past”) to the right-hand arm (“Near Future”) facing the “staff.” This reminds me of the diurnal path of the Sun: Midnight, Dawn, Noon and Sunset. The top-most position I read as “the Present” since it offers amplifying commentary on Card #1, the “Situation As It Stands,” which only shows pre-existing conditons. The “top-bottom-right-left” progression of Waite always seemed clumsy and non-intuitive to me; then I realized that it has a Christian connotation I find foreign to my own practice of the tarot.
Except for the unavoidable separation of the carved-in-stone “Distant Past” from the rest of the time-line, there are no firm lines of demarcation between one state and the next. The” “Recent Past” (Position 4), “Present” (Position 5) and “Near Future” (Position 6) are part of a continuum in which the boundaries can be blurred such that it is hard to tell where one leaves off and the next begins. In practice, I read this series as a process of “becoming” and often move back and forth fluidly between the three positions in my analysis.
The “cross” section has nothing to do with the querent’s psychological orientation to the matter (unconscious, subconscious or conscious). All of that occurs in the “staff” section (specifically in Positions 7, 8 and 9 that further personalize and bring into actionable focus the situational backdrop of the “cross”).
The “staff” section addresses the querent’s evolving status in relation to the sequence of events described in the “cross,” showing his or her responses to the unfolding situation from a personal and social perspective.
The point of “hand-off” between the two halves of the spread spans Positions 6 and 7, the “Near Future” and the querent’s immediate reaction to its emergence, typically in the form of resistance or “push-back.” Eden Gray called Position 7 “Fears” but I consider it to show negative (and perhaps psychologically harmful) implications arising from an inability or unwillingness to accept the changes imparted by Position 6. It suggests “digging in one’s heels” and refusing to budge, often with self-defeating consequences. Because it sits at the bottom of the “staff,” I title it the “psychic basement” where all kinds of dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors fetch up.
Positions 7, 8 and 9 represent “waypoints” in getting from the “Near Future” (Position 6) to the “End of the Matter” (Position 10). Each one serves as a “signpost” pointing to the next step in the journey. As a series they provide a running commentary on the querent’s in-process handling of the situation from its initial impact on the near-term future (Position 6) to its final expression in the long-range outcome (Position 10). They’re not separate “departments of life” so much as links in an experiential chain, some individual and some environmental.
When she “boiled down” Waite’s Pictorial Key to the Tarot in her “The Tarot Revealed,” Eden Gray split the ninth position, leaving Hopes there and moving Fears to the seventh position. This seemed appropriate because Waite really had two cards to represent the querent: the Significator and “Himself,” basically a waste of a spread position. I’ve expanded her objective to include all manner of self-limiting doubts, while the ninth position offers a self-motivational focus (the goals we’re willing to work for), and the eighth position is “transitional” between the two, bringing in the “centering” influences of home environment and social engagement that lets us surmount our irrational fears.
I think of Position 8 as mediating constructively between “Fears” (Position 7) and “Hopes” (Position 9) in a way that promotes refinement of the querent’s stance; thus, neither can deliver a distorted view of reality by encouraging exaggerated pessimism on one hand or undue optimism on the other. This moderation usually occurs through looking outside ourselves for reassurance. We are no longer “out on a limb, all by our lonesome” — unless the card pulled puts us right back there!
For many years I had been reading the “Near Future” card as a “stage-setter” for the “End of the Matter,” the first step that sets the querent’s foot on the path from one to the other. Then I read Tarot Beyond the Basics by Anthony Louis in which he proposed the “Present” card as an even earlier intimation of the final outcome. I give this some consideration in my readings, but so far it doesn’t seem as “organic” as the Card 6/Card 10 pairing.
To answer the question “How far into the future is a Celtic Cross reading valid for?” I usually respond that I project the “End of the Matter” no more than six months ahead, with three months being more typical. The “Near Future” outlook I consider to be reliable a couple of weeks to a month after the reading. These are both “ballpark” estimates and there have been exceptions, but not many.
As an expansion of Waite’s advice to attempt a second reading if one draws a court card as the outcome, when I get an inconclusive “End of the Matter” card of any kind I will take one of three recovery actions: 1) if time permits (that is, I don’t have an apprehensive querent waiting nervously for the verdict), I will just let it “simmer in my consciousness until it makes sense” as recommended by James Rickleff; 2) although I seldom use claifiers of any kind, I will sometimes pull two more cards to advance the outcome a bit further into the future; 3) although Waite says to pull an entire supplemental Celtic Cross with the previous outcome card as the Significator, I almost never do this. Instead, I have a “Rest of the Story” spread that provides a similar but more sharply-focused “second look.”
That’s all I can think of that distinguishes my Celtic Cross from the traditional version. I hope it has given you some food for thought.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on September 3, 2022.
