The Celtic Cross
The most classic ten-card general spread, with wide coverage, suited to big, less focused questions such as "what is going on with this situation overall."
The ten positions
The ten common positions (details vary a little between schools uncertain):
- Present situation: the core of where things stand now
- Obstacle / help: the card laid across the first one, standing for the most direct interference or help right now
- Root: the deeper, earlier cause of the matter
- Past: what is just passing or has already shaped the present
- Possible direction: the course the querent imagines or hopes for
- Near future: what is about to happen
- Self: the querent's state of mind or attitude at this moment
- Environment: the influence of the people around them and outside conditions
- Hopes and fears: what the querent really cares about inside
- Outcome: taking everything above together, the likely end result
The Celtic Cross carries a lot of information. When reading it, do not explain the ten cards independently of one another. First look at the overall information, such as the ratio of Major to Minor Arcana and the spread of elements (see Anatomy of a Tarot Deck and The Reading Process). Then read each position closely, and finally bring all ten cards back to the question behind the first card.
Positions that are easily oversimplified
Rachel Pollack gives finer definitions in Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom for several positions that are easily misread through oversimplification. They are worth noting:
- Card 5, "possible outcome," does not mean "the best outcome." It is only a fairly general tendency that the influences shown in this reading might lead toward; at this point it is still vague and may never happen at all. It can relate to card 10, "outcome," in two ways. If the two echo each other (for example the same number or suit), you can read them as a chain of cause and effect, with the "possible outcome" as the step before the "outcome." If they contradict each other, the task becomes going back over the rest of the cards (especially the "foundation" position) to find what stopped the "possible" direction from coming about. Simply ruling which of the two cards is right is not the point.
- For card 9, "hopes and fears," she prefers to keep the paired name and not simplify it to "hopes or fears." Very often the querent feels both at once about the same matter (especially with cards involving change or leaving one's comfort zone). When reading, there is no need to force a decision on which one the card is; the two are often two sides of the same thing.
- If card 6, "near future," and card 10, "outcome," are similar in nature, the near-term events will keep building and lead into the final outcome. If they are very different in nature (for example one shows conflict and the other reconciliation), the near-term events bring only a temporary disturbance and will not set the tone for long. You can tell the querent this judgment directly, to reassure them or help them prepare.
Two practical problems with large spreads
In a large spread of eight cards or more, if most of the earlier positions point in a good direction and only the closing outcome card looks bad (or the reverse), there is no need to declare at once that the overall tone has flipped. More often the course of the process itself has not changed, and some surprise or small procedural setback comes up at the closing stage. Since one reading usually covers a span of three to six months, a reading of this "small setback" kind has reasonable room in time. Only when several cards point to a reversal together is it right to judge that the overall direction really has changed.
If the meaning is still unclear once the spread is laid out, you do not have to force an answer out of the existing positions. You can turn over a few more cards outside the fixed pattern for extra information (beginners are advised to set themselves a limit, such as no more than five, or simply let the querent decide how many to add). You can also take one unclear card in the spread (such as a figure who appears in the "near future" position) as a significator on its own and do a new small reading just for that one point of doubt. This is more focused than forcing an interpretation within the original spread.