spreads or no spreads

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 29 Sep 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

ros	29 Sep 2004
Just a question. I read with spreads and sometimes just pull cards and read. I find it easier at times to just read the cards instead of having a specific placement for them. What do you prefer?

lunakasha	29 Sep 2004
I like to read both ways, sometimes with a specific spread and other times more "freeform", where I lay out from three to six cards and read them kind of like a sentence, in the order they were laid out. I think it depends upon the situation, the question at hand. Probably the first time I tried the "freeform" approach was with contrascarpe's Reflecting Pools reading. Although there is a spread involved, as far as laying out the five "pools", the cards within the pools do not have specific positions, so it was very interesting to figure out the message by simply interpreting the cards together. :) Luna

ihcoyc	29 Sep 2004
I seldom use formal spreads anymore, unless the simplest of line spreads count. I typically draw from three to five cards. I don't assign particular values to any position, other than generally reading them from left to right; what they mean depends on the nature of the question. For some question, especially ones of an impersonal or public issue type question, I will do a majors only cross spread. Thats about the limit, though.

Mesara	29 Sep 2004
Sometimes I use spreads, sometimes I don't. Just depends on my mood.

Pook	29 Sep 2004
I like using spreads. I think it has helped me in my learning what the cards mean to me by giving me many different ways of looking at them. Plus, I just like the way certain spreads look, so even if I am reading with no assigned values, sometimes I will lay them out in a star shape or an X. On the other hand, I have been reading straight across in a line lately and then reading it backwards (from right to left) to see how differently it would read, which has been rather interesting. Guess I'm like Mesara, depends on my mood.

kerri28	30 Sep 2004
I generally read without a spread plus I read left to right and then group cards by suit, majors, numbers and sometimes i move cards around if they feel connected. Has worked for me so far.

ihcoyc	30 Sep 2004
One other factor --- I read far fewer cards than I did when I started. I found that when I read with ten card spreads, I would tend to pick out a few of the cards whose relevance was obvious, and focus on them to the exclusion of other cards that were hard to figure. Reading three or five cards forces you to focus on what those three or five cards might mean in the situation. And since I've moved from RWS "make a story about the picture" reading to pip-card, somewhat more numerologically based styles and open style, this makes it a bit easier to figure what those cards mean in practice.

Ace	30 Sep 2004
I have always felt that anything done between a consenting person and a tarot deck is just fine, but I always use a spread. I have a good friend (and incredible reader!) who makes them up as she goes along (she says, ask the card-still face down-where it wants to go) but I can't quite get there yet. eventually, I hope! The thing is, a spread, whether you create it or use a standard (I use a celtic cross-often just the center-and a Horoscope spread) gives you some information about what the card will be about, a context, so to speak, so you can figure out what is going on easier. If you don't have a question and you don't have a spread, the oracle says, "the eagle doesn't fly at night." and you have no idea what it means and no context to fit it into.

blackroseivy	30 Sep 2004
*That* is *exactly* how I feel about spreads, Ace! I just did a far more stream-of-consciousness spread on a runaway teen in my area than I have ever done before; I *did* put them into my Horseshoe configuration (which is one of my favorite spreads), but at first, I just read them sequentially without bothering with the postions. But when I went back & checked the positions, *the layout made far more sense*! It added a new dimension of meaning to what I had already read - far from contradicting it at any point, rather it agreed & added a few points of its own! ;)

The spreads or no spreads thread was originally posted on 29 Sep 2004 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.