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  Queen of Pentacles |
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Hidden Influences  The World |
External Influences  7 of Swords |
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The Present  Queen of Swords |
Suggestion  The Hermit |
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The Past  9 of Pentacles |
The Outcome  The Tower |
The Past Card represents past events that are affecting the question.
9 of Pentacles
A woman with a bird upon her wrist, stands amidst a great abundance of grapevines in the garden of a luxurious manorial house. Possibly it is her own possession and testifies to material well-being.
Reversed Meaning:
Roguery, deception, voided project, bad faith, insecurity, egotism, immodesty, self-centeredness, vanity, narcissism.
Queen of Swords
Her right hand raises the weapon vertically and the hilt rests on an arm of her royal chair the left hand is extended, the arm raised her countenance is severe but chastened; it suggests familiarity with sorrow. She is a bitter, unmerciful oppressor of those who fall under her reign.
Reversed Meaning:
Malice, bigotry, artifice, prudery, bale, deceit, infidelity, cheating, lack of moral values.
The World
A nude, dancing female holding two batons, symbolic of Mother Earth and Mother Nature. She is encircled by a wreath and surrounded by the cherubs who are the guardians of Heaven and Earth.
Reversed Meaning:
fixity, stagnation, absence, nullification, dullness, discouragement, false visions, non-existence, lack-lustre, nullity.
Queen of Pentacles
The face suggests that of a dark, intelligent woman, who has the quality of greatness. She contemplates her pentacle, using it as a tool of skrying and divination.
Upright Meaning:
Opulence, generosity, magnificence, liberty, meditation, divination, intelligence, dignity, potence, grand, important, majestic.
7 of Swords
A man in the act of carrying away five swords hastily; missing two which remain stuck in the ground. A camp is close at hand. He is a thief.
Upright Meaning:
Good advice, counsel, instruction, attempt, wish, hope, confidence, bravery, a dirty job that needs to get done.
The Hermit
An old man with a walking stick holds up a lantern to enlighten his path.
Reversed Meaning:
Concealment, disguise, policy, fear, phobia, treason, dissimulation, roguery, corruption, betrayal.
The Tower
Lightning strikes the top of a Tower, knocking the crown off the top. Reminiscent of the Tower of Babel, two figures fall from grace.
Reversed Meaning:
Oppression, imprisonment, trap, tyranny, hardship, torment, persecution, coercion.