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  The Wheel of Fortune |
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Hidden Influences  Ace of Wands |
External Influences  Page of Cups |
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The Present  Queen of Wands |
Suggestion  The World |
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The Past  3 of Cups |
The Outcome  The Tower |
The Past Card represents past events that are affecting the question.
3 of Cups
Maidens in a garden-ground with cups uplifted, as if pledging one another.
Reversed Meaning:
Expedition, dispatch, achievement, end. It signifies also the side of excess in physical enjoyment, and the pleasures of the senses.
Queen of Wands
Emotionally and otherwise, the Queen's personality corresponds to that of the King of Wands, though she is more charismatic.
Upright Meaning:
A dark woman, countrywoman, friendly, chaste, loving, honourable. If the card beside her signifies a man, she is well disposed towards him; if a woman, she is interested in you. Also indicates love of money, or a certain success in business.
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.
The Wheel of Fortune
The Sphinx sits atop a wheel in the sky, symbolic of the wisdom of fate. Other Egyptian characters ride the wheel as it turns, which is surrounded by four cherubs who serve as the guardians of Heaven.
Reversed Meaning:
Increase, abundance, superfluity, comfort, gain, eminence, convenience, luxury, extravagance, benefit.
Page of Cups
A fair, pleasing, somewhat effeminate page, of studious and intent aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him. It is the pictures of the mind taking form.
Upright Meaning:
Fair young man, one impelled to render service and with whom the Querent will be connected; a studious youth; news, message; application, reflection, meditation.
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.
Upright Meaning:
Assured success, courage, honour, glory, vitality, life, energy, vigour, zest, pep, fervour, passion, animation, existence, reality.
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.