The seven-card Horse Shoe is a convenient, basic layout that can be used to answer different types of questions, especially concerning questions where insight would be helpful. Like several other spreads, it has cards representing the past, present, and future.
The pinnacle of the Horse Shoe, looking like the top of the mountain, shows the obstacle or challenge that needs to be addressed and overcome. Card #6 suggests a course of action to meet this challenge. The final card shows the outcome or future, should this advice be followed.
Other clues are provided in Cards #3 and #5, which indicate hidden or outside influences that come into play, affecting the journey to your goal.
Obstacle  Death |
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Hidden Influences  Page of Wands |
External Influences  5 of Wands |
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The Present  2 of Swords |
Suggestion  Ace of Swords |
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The Past  Ace of Cups |
The Outcome  The Sun |
The Past Card represents past events that are affecting the question.
Ace of Cups
Atop the waters are water-lilies; the hand reaches out from the cloud, holding in its palm the cup, from which four streams are pouring; a dove, bearing in its bill a cross-marked Host, descends to place the Wafer in the Cup; the dew of water is falling on all sides.
Reversed Meaning:
House of the false heart, mutation, instability, revolution.
2 of Swords
A hoodwinked female figure balances two swords upon her shoulders.
Upright Meaning:
Conformity and the equipoise which it suggests, courage, friendship, concord in a state of arms; another reading gives tenderness, affection, intimacy, harmony and other favourable happenings.
Page of Wands
A young man stands in the act of proclamation. He is unknown but faithful, and his tidings are strange.
Upright Meaning:
Dark young man, faithful, a lover, family intelligence, a messenger, favourable testimony. A dangerous rival, if followed by the Page of Cups.
Death
The Grim Reaper rides into town on a pale horse. The king has fallen, and the Pope greets Death with the king's family. The sun sets in the gateway on the horizon.
Reversed Meaning:
Inertia, sleep, lethargy, hope destroyed, depression, sloth, misery, undoing, ruin, subjugation.
5 of Wands
A posse of youths, who are brandishing staves, as if in sport or strife. It is mimic warfare.
Reversed Meaning:
Litigation, disputes, trickery, contradiction, hypocrisy.
Ace of Swords
A hand reaches out from a cloud, grasping a sword, the point of which is encircled by a crown.
Reversed Meaning:
Conception, childbirth, augmentation, multiplicity, creativity.
The Sun
A nude child rides a white pony in the foreground. Behind him the sun boldly enlightens the world, acting as a source of life and role model to several sun flowers.
Reversed Meaning:
Kindness, favour, gain, abundance, good tidings, windfall, praise, benediction.