Recently my daily three-card spread has been very much giving me the same message, so today I thought I'd break out and upwards into a more detailed spread to give me a lot more information about my situation. I opted for my "Counsel Spread", which is a seven-card horseshoe spread, and a variant on the traditional three-card PPF spread. 

Like the three-card PPF, you have the "Present" card in the bottom centre, officially position #4, but it's always the first card I lay. Next comes the "Past" card in the top left, position #1, but the second card I lay. I then lay, in counter-clockwise order:

• Position 2: Hidden Influences
• Position 3: External Influences
• Position 5: Obstacles
• Position 6: The Counsel
• Position 7: The Outcome from following the Counsel (The "Future" part of the traditional PPF three-carder)

The elemental dignities in this spread are of course potentially much more involved than in the three-card spread, so I tend to indicate them all visually. Today's spread was very Pentacles-heavy, which led to the following dignities:

• The 5 of Pentacles, Material Trouble, in position #2 is strengthened because it's flanked by two Pentacles, so I give it a one-quarter turn to the right to help me remember. 
• The 2 of Wands, Dominion, in position #4 is strengthened because it's flanked by two Pentacles (Fire and Pentacles are friendly, not inimical), so again it gets one-quarter turn to the right. 
• The 3 of Pentacles, Material Work, in position #5, is flanked by a Wands card and a Cups card. This is a judgement call; Fire and Water are inimical to one another, and my intuition told me they would interfere with the 3 of Pentacles, blocking its influence somewhat. Technically speaking, I could have ignored this, but in this case I gave the 3 of Pentacles a quarter-turn to the left to indicate it has a somewhat weakened influence. 
• The elemental dignities didn't indicate any full reversals in this spread. 

Personally this was a very meaningful spread, dealing with our current increasingly effective efforts to sort out our material situation, and the need to let go of some lingering projects which I'm still fond of but which are ailing and holding me back. This Counsel spread was very useful for embellishing and expanding upon the substance of previous three-card dailies and really clarifying some of the concrete steps to take. 

I like horseshoe spreads, and this one in particular is a really good "step up" from the three-card PPF. 

Blessed be,

Sarah