Relationship Spread #1
Difficulty: Easy
This spread is easy to read, like a convenient chart. In this spread, court cards generally indicate actual people with the same characteristics. Knights (or corresponding Princes, but not Kings) and Queens are meant to represent actual men and women in this tarot spread. Look for patterns in the cards as always.
Card #1 is the overall significator of the relationship. The 2 columns on either side of the significator characterize each individual’s role in the relationship. The relationship does not have to be romantic. In fact it could be a relationship between a person and a group, or even how 2 groups relate.
The top row, cards #7 & 2, shows the conscious thoughts of each person, or what they think about the relationship and likewise how they view their partner.
The middle row, cards #6 & 3, shows the way each individual feels about the other. Emotional awareness corresponds to a person’s unconscious thoughts that run deep, effecting a person in ways he or she is not fully aware of.
The bottom row, cards #5 & 4, represents the way each person behaves, in other words the stance taken regarding the relationship. The way a person acts may be genuine, but sometimes people are phony and manipulative, so it is best to weigh this card against your partner’s other cards to determine if they match up.
Your Relationship #1 Reading
You |
Other Person |
||
Thought |
 5 of Swords |
 The Lovers |
|
Emotion |
 4 of Wands |
The Significator  Ace of Wands |
 4 of Pentacles |
External Stance |
 Queen of Swords |
 10 of Swords |
The Significator
Ace of Wands
A hand issuing from a cloud grasps a stout wand or club.
Reversed Meaning:
Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish also a certain clouded joy.
A sign of birth.
The Querent's Thoughts
5 of Swords
A disdainful man looks after two retreating and dejected figures. Their swords lie upon the ground. He carries two others on his left shoulder, and a third sword is in his right hand, point to earth. He is the master in possession of the field.
Reversed Meaning:
Degradation, destruction, revocation, infamy, dishonour, loss, with the variants and analogues of these.
The Other Person's Thoughts
The Lovers
The sun shines in the zenith, and beneath is a great winged figure with arms extended, pouring down influences. In the foreground are two human figures, male and female, unveiled before each other, as if Adam and Eve when they first occupied the paradise of the earthly body. Behind the man is the Tree of Life, bearing twelve fruits, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is behind the woman; the serpent is twining round it. The figures suggest youth, virginity, innocence and love before it is contaminated by gross material desire. This is in all simplicity the card of human love, here exhibited as part of the way, the truth and the life. It replaces, by recourse to first principles, the old card of marriage, which I have described previously, and the later follies which depicted man between vice and virtue. In a very high sense, the card is a mystery of the Covenant and Sabbath.
The suggestion in respect of the woman is that she signifies that attraction towards the sensitive life which carries within it the idea of the Fall of Man, but she is rather the working of a Secret Law of Providence than a willing and conscious temptress. It is through her imputed lapse that man shall arise ultimately, and only by her can he complete himself. The card is therefore in its way another intimation concerning the great mystery of womanhood. The old meanings fall to pieces of necessity with the old pictures, but even as interpretations of the latter, some of them were of the order of commonplace and others were false in symbolism.
Divinatory Meaning:
Attraction, love, beauty, trials overcome.
The Querent's Emotions
4 of Wands
From the four great staves planted in the foreground there is a great garland suspended; two female figures uplift nosegays; at their side is a bridge over a moat, leading to an old manorial house.
Divinatory Meaning:
They are for once almost on the surface – country life, haven of refuge, a species of domestic harvest-home, repose, concord, harmony, prosperity, peace, and the perfected work of these.
The Other Person's Emotions
4 of Pentacles
A crowned figure, having a pentacle over his crown, clasps another with hands and arms; two pentacles are under his feet. He holds to that which he has.
Reversed Meaning:
Suspense, delay, opposition.
The Querent's External Stance
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. It does not represent mercy, and, her sword notwithstanding, she is scarcely a symbol of power.
Divinatory Meaning:
Widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation.
The Other Person's External Stance
10 of Swords
A prostrate figure, pierced by all the swords belonging to the card.
Divinatory Meaning:
Whatsoever is intimated by the design; also, pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation. It is not especially a card of violent death.