Relationship Spread #1

Difficulty: Easy

This spread is easy to read, like a convenient chart. In this spread, court cards generally indicate actual people with the same characteristics. Knights (or corresponding Princes, but not Kings) and Queens are meant to represent actual men and women in this tarot spread. Look for patterns in the cards as always.

Card #1 is the overall significator of the relationship. The 2 columns on either side of the significator characterize each individual’s role in the relationship. The relationship does not have to be romantic. In fact it could be a relationship between a person and a group, or even how 2 groups relate.

The top row, cards #7 & 2, shows the conscious thoughts of each person, or what they think about the relationship and likewise how they view their partner.

The middle row, cards #6 & 3, shows the way each individual feels about the other. Emotional awareness corresponds to a person’s unconscious thoughts that run deep, effecting a person in ways he or she is not fully aware of.

The bottom row, cards #5 & 4, represents the way each person behaves, in other words the stance taken regarding the relationship. The way a person acts may be genuine, but sometimes people are phony and manipulative, so it is best to weigh this card against your partner’s other cards to determine if they match up.

Your Relationship #1 Reading

	You		Other Person
Thought	Adjustment		4 of Swords
Emotion	3 of Swords	The Significator Princess of Swords	8 of Disks
External Stance	2 of Disks		6 of Wands

The Princess of Swords represents the earthy part of Air, the fixation of the volatile. She brings about the materialization of Idea. She represents the influence of Heaven upon Earth. She represents to some extent the anger of the Gods, and she appears helmed, with serpent-haired Medusa for her crest. She stands in front of a barren altar as if to avenge its profanation, and she stabs downward with her sword. The heaven and the clouds, which are her home, seem angry.

The character of the Princess is stern and revengeful. Her logic is destructive. She is firm and aggressive, with great practical wisdom and subtlety in material things. She shews great cleverness and dexterity in the management of practical affairs, especially where they are of a controversial nature. She is very adroit in the settlement of controversies.

Libra

Balance against each thought its exact opposite. For the Marriage of these is the Annihilation of Illusion.

Justice, or rather justesse, the act of adjustment, suspension of all action pending decision; in material matters, may refer to law suits or prosecutions. Socially, marriage or marriage agreements; politically, treaties.

Jupiter in Libra - Truce

Chesed refers to Jupiter who rules in Libra in this decanate. The sum of these symbols is therefore without opposition; hence the card proclaims the idea of authority in the intellectual world. It is the establishment of dogma, and law concerning it. It represents a refuge from mental chaos, chosen in an arbitrary manner. It argues for convention.

The hilts of the four Swords are at the corner of a St. Andrew's cross. Their shape suggests fixation and rigidity. Their points are sheathed -- in a rather large rose of forty-nine petals representing social harmony. Here, too, is compromise.

Minds too indolent or too cowardly to think out their own problems hail joyfully this policy of appeasement. As always, the Four is the term; as in this case there is no true justification for repose, its disturbance by the Five holds no promise of advance; its static shams go pell-mell into the melting-pot; the issue is mere mess, usually signalized by foetid stench. But it has to be done!

Saturn in Libra - Sorrow

This card is dark and heavy; it is, so to speak, the womb of Chaos. There is an intense lurking passion to create, but its children are monsters. This may mean the supreme transcendence of the natural order. Secrecy is here, and Perversion.

The symbol represents the great Sword of the Magician, point uppermost; it cuts the junction of two short curved swords. The impact has destroyed the rose. In the background, storm broods under implacable night.

Sun in Virgo - Prudence

The number Eight, Hod, is very helpful in this card, because it represents Mercury in his most spiritual aspect, and he both rules and is exalted in the sign of Virgo, which belongs to the Decan, and is governed by the Sun. It signifies intelligence lovingly applied to material matters, especially those of the agriculturalist, the artificer and the engineer.

One might suggest that this card marks the turn of the tide. The seven of Disks is in one sense the fullest possible establishment of Matter - compare Atu XV - the lowest fallen and therefore the highest exalted. These last three cards seem to prepare the explosion which will renew the whole Cycle. Note that Virgo is Yod, the secret seed of Life, and also the Virgin Earth awaiting the Phallic Plough.

The interest of this card is the interest of the common people. The rulership of the Sun in Virgo suggests also birth. The disks are arranged in the form of the geomantic figure Populus. These disks may be represented as the flowers or fruits of a great tree, its solid roots in fertile land.

Jupiter in Capricorn - Change

The number Two, Chokmah, here rules in the suit pertaining to Earth. It shows the type of Energy appropriate to Two, in its most fixed form. According to the doctrine that Change is the support of stability, the card is called Change.

The card represents two Pantacles, one above the other; they are the Chinese symbols of the Yang and Yin duplicated as in the Hsiang. One wheel is dextro- and the other laevo-rotatory. They thus represent the harmonious interplay of the Four Elements in constant movement. One may in fact consider the card as the picture of the complete manifested Universe, in respect of its dynamics.

Jupiter in Leo - Victory

This card represents Tiphareth of the suit of Fire. This shows Energy in completely balanced manifestation. The Five has broken up the closed forces of the Four with revolutionary ardour, but a marriage has taken place between them; and the result is the Son, and the Sun.

The reference is also to Jupiter and Leo, which seems to imply a benediction on the harmony and beauty of this arrangement. It Will be seen that the Three Wands of the Three Adepts are now orderly arranged; and the flames themselves, instead of shooting out in all directions, burn steadily as in lamps. They are nine in number, in reference to Yesod and the Moon. This shows the stabiliza tion of the Energy, and its reception and reflection by the Feminine.

There is no circle to enclose the system. It is self-supporting, like the Sun.