Catspur Posted October 14, 2019 Posted October 14, 2019 So I do a lot of Celtic Crosses. (That and Rachel Pollack's Work Cycle are my go-to spreads). I've found that more and more I'm using the traditional card-location meanings just as sort of guidelines. This is particularly true of card positions 7, 8, and 9 (the bottom three cards on the staff). But also twice recently I've done readings where somebody is asking for advice about moving or not, and both times I've had card 5 (the top of the cross/possible outcome) and card 10 (the final outcome) each be a clear representation of one of the two choices. (After the spread, one time I kept those two cards on the table and then laid down three cards under each for more specific advice about each location.) And the other day cards 7-8-9 were Strength, Ace of Wands, and 6 of Swords, which felt in the context of a question about moving to be a pretty strong indication of take the risk, take control, good things are coming, make the scary choice to move, you can do it - so long as I didn't get too bogged down in the exact meanings of those locations (as I read it, generally: self/hidden talent, opinions of others, hopes&fears). I'm curious if other people read this way. It's not like I'm ignoring position meanings, but I'm giving myself more flexibility to make intuitive connections, particularly in celtic cross spreads where somebody wants actionable advice. Actionable advice can sometimes feel like the weak spot of the CC spread.
Grizabella Posted October 14, 2019 Posted October 14, 2019 I find my way through a Celtic Cross by taking the named card positions into account but then also by seeing how the cards fall with regard to each other within that spread, if you get what I mean. You can re-name positions within a Celtic Cross, too. I can see how you could even make up several Celtic Cross spreads to suit whatever questions you usually have. What I do in a Celtic Cross is take the overview of the spread into account and it will show the right answers. There are a lot of Celtic Cross-es though, so it may depend on which one you use. For instance, when I do a Celtic Cross, I use two cards for the hopes and fears position, the first one to indicate hope and then I cross it with a second card to indicate fears. I often use a "what if I do, what if I don't? " spread in readings like you've described. I just lay three cards in each position. That shows the sitter what's most likely to happen if he/she does move or it he/she doesn't move and then the sitter can weigh those and decide what would be the best action to take in the situation. The Celtic Cross I'm looking at right now is found in Barbara Walker's book on Tarot and the positional meanings are: 7. hopes and fears 8. house and home 9. what you don't expect 10. what is sure to be So in looking at those, I think it would be quite easy to adapt it to a move a sitter is considering. In this particular version of the Celtic Cross, Barbara Walker's positions are 5. " behind you" and 6. "before you" but I know some CC spreads reverse those, so in the case of your CC, maybe position 5 is "before you". At any rate, you can read a Celtic Cross in whatever way you can get the best answers to a question. If I were to use this CC and the 5. position of what is before you and then 10. what is sure to be----those two definitely would answer the question of whether to move or not. Or if the move wasn't a matter of choice, then it would at least give the sitter an idea of what they were going to have to face.
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