Umbrae
The 7 Card Horseshoe is perhaps too little understood. It may be however, the ultimate spread for paid readings when face to face with strangers. It’s simple in appearance, and complex in execution. I believe it demands a more in depth examination and discussion in order to fully realize why the professional reader needs to have this tool in reserve.
The Seven-Position Horseshoe
Position 1: Recent Past
Position 2: Present
Position 3: Hopes and Fears
Position 4: The Unknown
Position 5: The Gate
Position 6: Near Future
Position 7: Far Future
(I use the term position, because you may choose to use two cards in each position making it a 14-card spread – however…).
I usually deal the cards face down (you’ll grok why later). I always turn over position two, first. Why? Cuz it’s like “You are here.” It’s where you start in a not-so-Celtic Cross, so hey I start at the beginning, card deux.
Now let’s think about the past for a bit. My spouse left me, my dog died, my pick-me-up-truck quit running, they let me out of prison where I did time for a crime I did not commit, my lover left…all in past tense. And all have an emotional component.
Do we feel about the future? Sure we get excited about the future, anxious (which does denote fear – and fear is an emotion)…can you be dismayed about the future? Baffled about something that has not yet happened? Dissatisfied? Unhappy? How about Seething? Emotions have a past component.
Emotional issues of the past are carefully packed into steamer trunks and then shackled to our legs, and then we spend the rest of our lives dragging them around. If we didn’t, there’d be no reason for psychologists, psychiatrists, Prozac, Zoloft, Tarot readers... Why do ghosts rattle chains? They’re trying to shake off that steamer trunk of pain. Woe is me! If we could stop doing this, self-help sections of bookstores would vanish, drug companies would manufacture chocolates…think about music…if love was so good – how come we have so many songs about how bad it made us feel?
We love to drag yesterday’s hurts around with us. We dust them off to show people…like surgery scars. And if we didn’t, there’d be no such thing as the blues. And that would be sad (a sentence expressing an intellectualized supposition of emotion expressed at a later date). But like the man said, “You gotta suffer, if you wanna sing the blues.” Past tense.
Only in the movies do you get jailed for something you will do in the future.
You can anticipate being sad in the future – but that’s a thought process. And I’m getting ahead of myself…
Conversely we don’t plan for the past. “Yes, I have some time around noon yesterday, let’s have lunch then…”
So where were we (or dub dub dub)…we were at the ‘You Are Here’ card. The present.
The next card is Card One. The Past. You got to where you are now because of what you drag around with you. Cards one and two are linked. It’s a mini-spread.
Card Three. Hopes and Fears. It’s the intellectual component. It’s our plans. It’s really what we intellectualize for tomorrow. Are hopes emotions? Are fears emotions? Well it is true you can fear the past. Are hopes and fears part of our plans? Do we plan to see our hopes fruit and avoid our fears. Yes.
So ‘You Are Here’ is bordered by what we drag forward with us (emotional) and what we ‘intellectually’ goad ourselves towards.
I always tell folks to get at least 6-months of reading 3-card spreads before they expand. Now perhaps you can understand why. PPF is not PPF. It’s the balance of emotional past and intellectual future balancing on the precarious fulcrum of now.
The Unknown and The Gate are real close to ‘fortune telling’.
The Unknown represents outside influences. Things occurring behind the sitters back, the weather report on their surrounding climate. This card is like the eighth card of a not-so-Celtic Cross.
The Gate is similar to a ‘lesson’, it’s what must be passed through, what must be dealt with, or perhaps even someone they must meet or come to terms with, something that must be resolved.
Taken together, these last two cards (The Unknown and The Gate) form another mini-spread.
The first three cards are read individually, and as a unit. Cards four and five are read individually, and as a unit.
And now the fun begins.
Keep reading the last two cards without turning them over. I’ve mentioned this before and was chided, but when Abigail Turner discussed this at the Melbourne Conference, nobody laughed.
Seriously, don’t try to guess what the cards mean, don’t try to ‘intuit’ (I hate that word) what they are, don’t even try to figure out what they mean! Don’t attempt to use ‘psychic perception’ (or psychotic deception) to determine anything about the cards.
You’ve got the reading in front of you! You’ve got 2 spreads. One three-card and one two—card spread. You’re a Tarot reader! Read the cards.
Extrapolation Exercise:
When you first try this, use a deck you can read with but don’t really like too much. Do the reading for a friend. Do not turn over the last two cards. Make sure copious notes are taken. Carefully gather up the cards, place them in an envelope (assuring that nobody sees the cards), seal the envelope, hand it to your friend, and agree you’ll open the envelope together in a month’s time. Then read the last two cards.
Practice with this. It’ll take a while to get that part of your brain that’s trying to play ‘Guess the cards’ to shut-up and leave you free to simply read the 5-cards and two spreads and ‘move them forward’.
Are you trying to be psychic? No. You’re simply learning to focus on the 5 and 2 and allow them to tell you what the future holds.
Later, when you’re with a paying client, you can do the reading with the cards face down, then continue turning them face up and consolidating the last two cards into the reading.
Accuracy is a misnomer, and highly misunderstood. Accuracy means that you are able to provide the client with useful information that they understand, it does not mean that you can predict the winner of the 2005 World Series or the winning lotto numbers.
This exercise forces you to focus on the beginning of the spread, and thus increase accuracy, and that’s what a paying client seeks. They don’t want hokum, they want useful insights. Most clients don’t care about art history within the cards, they don’t care about what Papus said, or the astrological implications of the Emperor. They are interested in what pertains to them. They are interested in the horological implications.
Reading with the cards face down helps maintain focus on both your part and the part of the sitter. If card six is La Muerte, they are not going to be listening to you tell them about the wonderful things in store for them – they are staring at the scythe. You may be distracted too.
Further notes: Part of the reason for the ‘not looking at the cards’ is multi-fold. Did you ‘predict’ the future? Or did they create it? Did your reading become a self-fulfilled prophecy or were the cards descriptive of events yet to unfold?
Only one way to find out. Deal and seal the cards. If you find yourself sorting the deck to find out what cards are sealed – you’re cheating. Stop it.
Enjoy…
Further notes: A Celtic Cross has 10 cards. 10 cards in 30 minutes = 3 minutes per card. The 7 position Horseshoe has gives you 4.5 minutes per position…you won’t be hurried. It gives you lots of time.
The Seven-Position Horseshoe
Position 1: Recent Past
Position 2: Present
Position 3: Hopes and Fears
Position 4: The Unknown
Position 5: The Gate
Position 6: Near Future
Position 7: Far Future
(I use the term position, because you may choose to use two cards in each position making it a 14-card spread – however…).
I usually deal the cards face down (you’ll grok why later). I always turn over position two, first. Why? Cuz it’s like “You are here.” It’s where you start in a not-so-Celtic Cross, so hey I start at the beginning, card deux.
Now let’s think about the past for a bit. My spouse left me, my dog died, my pick-me-up-truck quit running, they let me out of prison where I did time for a crime I did not commit, my lover left…all in past tense. And all have an emotional component.
Do we feel about the future? Sure we get excited about the future, anxious (which does denote fear – and fear is an emotion)…can you be dismayed about the future? Baffled about something that has not yet happened? Dissatisfied? Unhappy? How about Seething? Emotions have a past component.
Emotional issues of the past are carefully packed into steamer trunks and then shackled to our legs, and then we spend the rest of our lives dragging them around. If we didn’t, there’d be no reason for psychologists, psychiatrists, Prozac, Zoloft, Tarot readers... Why do ghosts rattle chains? They’re trying to shake off that steamer trunk of pain. Woe is me! If we could stop doing this, self-help sections of bookstores would vanish, drug companies would manufacture chocolates…think about music…if love was so good – how come we have so many songs about how bad it made us feel?
We love to drag yesterday’s hurts around with us. We dust them off to show people…like surgery scars. And if we didn’t, there’d be no such thing as the blues. And that would be sad (a sentence expressing an intellectualized supposition of emotion expressed at a later date). But like the man said, “You gotta suffer, if you wanna sing the blues.” Past tense.
Only in the movies do you get jailed for something you will do in the future.
You can anticipate being sad in the future – but that’s a thought process. And I’m getting ahead of myself…
Conversely we don’t plan for the past. “Yes, I have some time around noon yesterday, let’s have lunch then…”
So where were we (or dub dub dub)…we were at the ‘You Are Here’ card. The present.
The next card is Card One. The Past. You got to where you are now because of what you drag around with you. Cards one and two are linked. It’s a mini-spread.
Card Three. Hopes and Fears. It’s the intellectual component. It’s our plans. It’s really what we intellectualize for tomorrow. Are hopes emotions? Are fears emotions? Well it is true you can fear the past. Are hopes and fears part of our plans? Do we plan to see our hopes fruit and avoid our fears. Yes.
So ‘You Are Here’ is bordered by what we drag forward with us (emotional) and what we ‘intellectually’ goad ourselves towards.
I always tell folks to get at least 6-months of reading 3-card spreads before they expand. Now perhaps you can understand why. PPF is not PPF. It’s the balance of emotional past and intellectual future balancing on the precarious fulcrum of now.
The Unknown and The Gate are real close to ‘fortune telling’.
The Unknown represents outside influences. Things occurring behind the sitters back, the weather report on their surrounding climate. This card is like the eighth card of a not-so-Celtic Cross.
The Gate is similar to a ‘lesson’, it’s what must be passed through, what must be dealt with, or perhaps even someone they must meet or come to terms with, something that must be resolved.
Taken together, these last two cards (The Unknown and The Gate) form another mini-spread.
The first three cards are read individually, and as a unit. Cards four and five are read individually, and as a unit.
And now the fun begins.
Keep reading the last two cards without turning them over. I’ve mentioned this before and was chided, but when Abigail Turner discussed this at the Melbourne Conference, nobody laughed.
Seriously, don’t try to guess what the cards mean, don’t try to ‘intuit’ (I hate that word) what they are, don’t even try to figure out what they mean! Don’t attempt to use ‘psychic perception’ (or psychotic deception) to determine anything about the cards.
You’ve got the reading in front of you! You’ve got 2 spreads. One three-card and one two—card spread. You’re a Tarot reader! Read the cards.
Extrapolation Exercise:
When you first try this, use a deck you can read with but don’t really like too much. Do the reading for a friend. Do not turn over the last two cards. Make sure copious notes are taken. Carefully gather up the cards, place them in an envelope (assuring that nobody sees the cards), seal the envelope, hand it to your friend, and agree you’ll open the envelope together in a month’s time. Then read the last two cards.
Practice with this. It’ll take a while to get that part of your brain that’s trying to play ‘Guess the cards’ to shut-up and leave you free to simply read the 5-cards and two spreads and ‘move them forward’.
Are you trying to be psychic? No. You’re simply learning to focus on the 5 and 2 and allow them to tell you what the future holds.
Later, when you’re with a paying client, you can do the reading with the cards face down, then continue turning them face up and consolidating the last two cards into the reading.
Accuracy is a misnomer, and highly misunderstood. Accuracy means that you are able to provide the client with useful information that they understand, it does not mean that you can predict the winner of the 2005 World Series or the winning lotto numbers.
This exercise forces you to focus on the beginning of the spread, and thus increase accuracy, and that’s what a paying client seeks. They don’t want hokum, they want useful insights. Most clients don’t care about art history within the cards, they don’t care about what Papus said, or the astrological implications of the Emperor. They are interested in what pertains to them. They are interested in the horological implications.
Reading with the cards face down helps maintain focus on both your part and the part of the sitter. If card six is La Muerte, they are not going to be listening to you tell them about the wonderful things in store for them – they are staring at the scythe. You may be distracted too.
Further notes: Part of the reason for the ‘not looking at the cards’ is multi-fold. Did you ‘predict’ the future? Or did they create it? Did your reading become a self-fulfilled prophecy or were the cards descriptive of events yet to unfold?
Only one way to find out. Deal and seal the cards. If you find yourself sorting the deck to find out what cards are sealed – you’re cheating. Stop it.
Enjoy…
Further notes: A Celtic Cross has 10 cards. 10 cards in 30 minutes = 3 minutes per card. The 7 position Horseshoe has gives you 4.5 minutes per position…you won’t be hurried. It gives you lots of time.
