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  6 of Wands |
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Hidden Influences  9 of Cups |
External Influences  9 of Swords |
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The Present  6 of Swords |
Suggestion  Knight of Swords |
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The Past  8 of Wands |
The Outcome  Ace of Wands |
The Past Card represents past events that are affecting the question.
8 of Wands
The card represents motion through the immovable – a flight of wands through an open country; but they draw to the term of their course. That which they signify is at hand; it may be even on the threshold.
Upright Meaning:
Activity in undertakings, the path of such activity, swiftness, a messenger; great haste, great hope, speed towards an end which promises assured felicity; generally, that which is on the move; the arrows of love.
6 of Swords
A ferryman delivering passengers to the further shore. The course is smooth, and seeing that the freight is light, as the workload is not beyond his ability.
Upright Meaning:
Journey by water, route, way, envoy, commissionary, expedient, travelling, a short trip.
9 of Cups
A goodly personage has feasted to his heart's content, and abundant refreshment of wine is on the arched counter behind him, seeming to indicate that the future is also assured. The picture offers the material side only, but there are other aspects.
Upright Meaning:
Concord, contentment, physical ,; also, victory, success, advantage; satisfaction for the Querent or person for whom the consultation is made.
6 of Wands
A laurelled horseman bears one staff adorned with a laurel crown; footmen with staves are at his side.
Upright Meaning:
A victor triumphing, but it is also great news, such as might be carried in state by the King's courier; it is expectation crowned with its own desire, the crown of hope, and so forth.
9 of Swords
One seated on her couch in lamentation, with the swords over her. She is as one who knows no sorrow which is like unto hers. It is a card of utter desolation.
Upright Meaning:
Death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair, nightmares, worry, tension, extreme anxiety, obsession.
Knight of Swords
He is riding in full course, as if scattering his enemies. In the design he is really a prototypical hero of romantic chivalry. He might even be Galahad, whose sword is swift and sure because he is clean of heart.
Upright Meaning:
Skill, bravery, capacity, defence, address, enmity, wrath, war, destruction, opposition, resistance.
Ace of Wands
A hand reaching out from a cloud grasps a stout wand or club.
Upright Meaning:
Creation, invention, enterprise, the powers which result in these; principle, beginning, source; birth, family, origin, and in a sense the virility which is behind them; the starting point of enterprises; according to another account, money, fortune, inheritance.