Career and Year-Ahead Spreads
The seven-card Zeus career spread, and the approach to yearly forecasting where N cards stand for N units of time.
The Zeus career spread (seven cards)
A seven-card career spread built on the symbol of Jupiter. The idea is to take the structure of the classic Venus love spread and apply it to the theme of career. This is itself a practical path to designing your own spread: there is no need to invent a new structure from nothing; you can simply swap a new theme into a proven one. The seven positions: 1, the querent's character traits and the kind of work that suits them; 2, 3 and 4, the past, present and future of their career; 5 (above), help; 6 (below), obstacles; 7 (further out), work opportunities that may appear from outside, beyond the current goal.
Year-ahead spreads and forecasting over time
Twelve positions stand for the twelve months, or for the twelve signs of the zodiac, to give an overall view of the year ahead. This is usually done at the start of the year or around a birthday. This "N cards for N units of time" approach can be scaled as needed. To look six months ahead, draw six cards, one per month; to look a month ahead, draw four cards, one per week. When reading, pay attention to the logical continuity between neighboring units of time. What happens this month will affect next month to some degree. If the cards show a sudden reversal in one unit of time with no warning signs, you need to be able to give a reasonable explanation, or the whole forecast will feel disjointed.