A Spread for Cards that are Hard to Read
Do you have any of those cards that when they turn up they make you really uncomfortable and you never feel like you can properly describe their meaning to someone youāre reading for? I know I do ā The Lovers, The Queen of Wands, and The Emperor have haunted me since I started reading. Cards that are difficult to read can teach us a lot about ourselves and can help guide our shadow work.
Iāve been toying with this spread a little and I wanted to put it out there for others to try out. The idea is that you let the deck speak to whatās blocking your understanding of a given card ā which if youāre interested in shadow work, often highlights areas of ourselves that need to be given attention.
The spread is laid out as follows.
Shuffle the deck and find your chosen card. Place it in the first position. Take the cards immediately following it or proceeding it depending on which will have enough cards to fill every position in the spread. An alternative is to draw the card, put it in first position, shuffle how you choose, and draw the top cards to fill the remaining spots.
The first card is pretty straight forward. Choose a card thatās giving you trouble, that makes you uncomfortable every time it comes up. I think people tend to pick major arcana cards here but donāt be afraid to pick a minor card. All blocks have something to teach us
The second card is how your past influences how you read this card. It could be an event, a belief, an unresolved fear ā anything really. Our past often dictates our expectations of the future. So when a card is difficult to read it often points to an expectation weāve picked up from our past and it either challenges that expectation or confirms something uncomfortable.
The third card is how your perception of yourself is influencing how you read the first card. Similar to the second card, when a card is difficult to read it often challenges our image of ourselves. It may make us feel like bad people when we think highly of ourselves or vice versa, highlight an area weāve struggled with, or make us question the narrative we tell ourselves.
The fourth card is how others in your life inform your reading of the first card. Often we see other people in the cards, ones we like and ones we donāt. Our feelings for or about that person will often undermine how we read this card in relation to ourselves and to other people.
The fifth, sixth, and seventh card are all what those influences can teach us about ourselves. The lessons they highlight can also offer clues as how to unblock your reading of the main card.
I hope folks find this spread helpful. Iām still tweaking it and toying with it. If you use it to create something new or come up with a different way to do a similar task, please reblog and/or let me know! Iād love to boost more materials on this.
As always, take the best and leave the rest and if you have any questions let me know!
prguitarman
tangentwithtanner
