This is a specified relationship spread that uses nine cards to analyse where a romantic relationship is at and where it is headed. The first card shows where it is at now, and can be considered the significator. The second and third cards determine where your partner stands and how it relates to where you are at personally.
Above the stem, the three-card base of the layout, a cup forms. Cards #4 and #5 show each person's desires, meaning what they want to get out of this coupling. Above this, Cards #6 and #7 show the challenge that this pairing presents to each individual. The final two cards at the top form the rim of the cup, symbolic of the taste of the relationship to each person, which shows how things will turn out on each side.
The Future Outcome (To be read in tandem with the card to the right) 10 of Cups |
|
The Future Outcome (To be read in tandem with the card to the left) The Star |
|
Challenges Which May Arise for You Page of Wands |
Challenges Which May Arise for Your Lover The High Priestess |
||
Desires in Relation to Your Question King of Swords |
Your Lover's Desires 2 of Wands |
||
Nature of Your Issue Temperance |
|||
Your Lover's Current Position The Hierophant |
|||
The Current State of Things 3 of Cups |
|||
The Current State of Things
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.
Seated on his throne, the Pope symbolises the male understanding of the spiritual workings of the world and traditional values. Two monks flank him on either side.
Reversed Meaning:
Society, concord, overkindness, weakness, doormat, misinterpretation, misunderstanding.
An androgenous angel mixes fire and water in the act of performing spiritual alchemy. Her left foot is on land, as her right dips into the sea.
Reversed Meaning:
Religions, the priesthood, disunion, unfortunate combinations, competing interests, intoxication, disillusion.
He sits in judgement, holding the unsheathed sword. He recalls the conventional symbol of justice in the Major Arcana, and he may represent this virtue, but he is rather the power of life and death.
Reversed Meaning:
Cruelty, perversity, barbarity, perfidy, bad intentions, a sharp tongue, insulting, insecurity, arrogance.
A tall man looks from a battlemented roof over sea and shore; he holds a globe in his right hand, while a staff in his left rests on the battlement; another is fixed in a ring. The Rose and Cross and Lilly should be noticed on the left side.
Reversed Meaning:
Trouble, fear, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification, trivial disappointments.
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.
Crowned by the moon, the High Priestess is seated between two pillars, one black and the other white. She holds the Tora scroll and the secret wisdom of the world's creation.
Upright Meaning:
Secrets, mystery, silence, tenacity, wisdom, woman's intuition, emotional awareness, empathy, hidden truth.
Appearance of Cups in a rainbow; it is contemplated in wonder and ecstasy by a man and woman below, evidently husband and wife. His right arm is about her; his left is raised upward; she raises her right arm. The two children dancing near them have not observed the prodigy but are happy after their own manner. There is a home-scene beyond.
Upright Meaning:
Contentment, repose of the entire heart; the perfection of that state; also, perfection of human love and friendship; also, the town, village or country you live in.
Under the stars, a nude woman pours out two vials of water, one onto the land, the other into a pond. Opposite the angel of Temperance, her left foot is on the land, her right on the water.
Upright Meaning:
Youth, beauty, gifts, hope, bright prospects, ingenuity, genius, adept, mastery, gratitude, support, thanks, savvy.