This is my spread-of-preference in the TdM exchanges as some of you know, but until today, I'd never quite dared to use it on a face-to-face client.
I mean, how do you explain to a stranger who's paying good money, that you're going to do a spread which might take up all the time they've paid for, or much more or much less, that might have many cards on the table or only two (or none!)?
But I've wanted for *ages* to do it face-to-face. So today I did.
I was reading Tarot in the local new-age shop, and the proprietor is friendly with me. I'd suggested to her previously that I might try out the spread on her (whom I've never read for), and today I had a deck with suitably unillustrated pip cards even if it is a bit modern, Monica Klimpton's Tarot of the Dead.
So we separated it into Majors and Minors, she shuffled both piles, and I did the counting-and-pulling-out-pairs thing. Contrary to my last exchange, where I pulled out only the one pair, we drew quite a lot of cards.
Now I know this woman fairly well, and although she doesn't bring her problems to work, I've had a shrewd suspicion that her home life has been - er - less than ideally perfect for some time. As well as a husband she also has two kids, a teenager and a very much younger child, which immediately complicates any changes she might want to make.
I looked at the pairs.
It was a rough reading.
I got a bit coy, basically because I knew her. Endings everywhere. Broken hearts everywhere (except hers). The need for tact, justice, fairness.
All that came out of it was that everything I'd suspected about her personal life was true, and she had already been contemplating leaving for longer than I would have thought. It was kinda tricky - I do readings in her shop, and her clients have the right to expect $XX.xx worth of time and attention. Yet with her reading I skimmed across some parts of it, telling her frankly that there were some things I was uncomfortable saying to someone I knew, which I wouldn't have a problem with had she been a stranger. I also did the whole "The decisions are all in your hands" thing.
Wow.
I am really impressed with this spread.
It's good in an exchange.
It's great face-to-face. Even if it made me squirm. Especially as it made me squirm.