A Spread for Exams?

Draconian Angel

My cousin has asked me for a reading down the phone, and she wants to know if I can tell her how well/bad she has done on her exams. However, I'm wondering if this sort of "question" somehow limits the interpretation for the answer - it's basically a "Yes or No" question, isn't it?

Should I use the Horseshoe for this? What do you recommend?

Trogon

Howdy Draconian Angel,

The first thing I thought when I read your post was that I would probably approach the problem from a slightly different perspective. Your cousin wants to know how well or badly she's done on her exams... I thought I would probably do a reading on why she was so concerned about how she's done on her exams. I would most likely use a 5-card Past-Present-Future spread for this, or if it appeared that there were deeper concerns, I might do a Celtic Cross or some other more in-depth spread. I would explain that I was doing a reading in regards to her concerns over her exams.

However, if you get a feeling that there may not be any serious underlying problems which need to be addressed, you could try a simple 3-card Past-Present-Future or one of the other variants which you feel might apply.

I hope this has been of some assistance...

Draconian Angel

Trogon said:
Howdy Draconian Angel,

The first thing I thought when I read your post was that I would probably approach the problem from a slightly different perspective. Your cousin wants to know how well or badly she's done on her exams... I thought I would probably do a reading on why she was so concerned about how she's done on her exams. I would most likely use a 5-card Past-Present-Future spread for this, or if it appeared that there were deeper concerns, I might do a Celtic Cross or some other more in-depth spread. I would explain that I was doing a reading in regards to her concerns over her exams.

However, if you get a feeling that there may not be any serious underlying problems which need to be addressed, you could try a simple 3-card Past-Present-Future or one of the other variants which you feel might apply.

I hope this has been of some assistance...

Thank you for your post, Trogon.

I've went forward with the Horseshoe Spread last night as I needed a spread that quickly overviews in a similiar manner as the 3-card Pats, Present, Future, yet it allows me to study deeper into the situation like the Celtic Cross spread.
The Celtic Cross itself would consume too much time on the phone, and I felt my cousin wouldn't wanted to go in too deep into the problem, whereas the 3-card Past, Present, Future would be too general, and I wanted to re-assure her if the news is good or try to advise by hat the cards had indicated if the outlooked seemed bad...

However, you've mentioned of a 5-card Past, Present Future spread - how are the cards arranged?

?

Trogon

Draconian Angel said:
However, you've mentioned of a 5-card Past, Present Future spread - how are the cards arranged? ?

Sorry it took me a few days to get back to you on this Draconian Angel... I'm still trying to get all caught up on the forums after being absent for a while due to illness. There are sooooo many posts to get caught up on - especially in the "What card am I" thread! (65 pages so far!!!

) Anyway... returning from that tangent...

The 5-card Past-Present-Future is one which I got from the Tarot FAQ, though it is also available at TarotSpreads.com. I made one slight change to it though, both of these sources lay the cards out in the order; Future - Present - Past (from left to right). For my use, I have always placed the Past cards to the left and the Future cards to the right. So, my 5-card spread looks like this;

...1...2...3...4...5

1 = Past (usually within the past couple of months)

2 = More recent past (last few weeks)

3 = Present

4 = Near future (next few weeks)

5 = Future (next couple of months)

As I kind of indicate above, this spread usually covers a period of a few months. However, I have had a few readings where the time span was expanded or reduced. One which stands out in my mind is one which was very skewed towards the past - in fact, as we started getting into the reading I quickly discovered that the Past card was showing a traumatic event in the person's childhood. But, on the whole, this layout seems to stick to the "few months" time line for me.

I hope this has helped...