Classic tarot spreads

A spread becomes classic not through age but through use. The Celtic Cross was described in Arthur Edward Waite's book back in 1910; the horseshoe has no known author at all — it is a folk layout. Still, every classic spread shares three traits.

The first is fixed positions. What each place means has long been settled, which makes the reading dependable: you do not have to guess what card five stands for, because that was decided long before you. The second is range. Positions like the obstacle, hidden influences or the outcome fit a question about work just as well as one about family. The third is a shape that carries meaning of its own.

In the classic spreads, shape is not decoration. Each figure hints at how to read the cards together.

A topic spread — What He Thinks of Me, say, or Should I Change Jobs — already knows your question. Its positions are written for the theme: his thoughts, what keeps you in place, what you risk. You fill in the details and the layout leads the way.

A classic spread does not suggest the question. Its positions are general, and your wording supplies every specific. That asks for a little more attention, but it gives you freedom: you can bring a move, a family conflict or a stalled project to the horseshoe, and each time its positions will speak the language of your situation.

A simple rule of thumb: if there is a spread for your topic and your question fits it, start there. If your situation does not fit any frame, or several themes are tangled together, reach for a classic layout.

Each layout has its own strength. Here is the essence of each to help you get your bearings; the full breakdown of positions lives on each spread's page.

Choosing the layout is already part of the answer. Before you draw, ask yourself three short questions, and the right spread usually picks itself.

First: is your question about events, about you, or about a couple? Events and situations point to the horseshoe or the Celtic Cross, questions about yourself to the star, questions about two people to the lovers' pyramid.

Second: do you need a picture or a plan? If you want to understand how things fit together and where they are going, you need a picture — the horseshoe, the star or the Celtic Cross. If the situation is clear and only the decision is missing, you need a plan, and the simple cross is the better fit.

Third: how many sides does the question have? One or two, and four cards are enough. If there is a past, other people, hidden motives and your own fears in the mix, you need seven or ten. A big layout on a small question does not add accuracy — it adds noise.

Since classic positions are general, the question does all the tuning. The sharper it is, the more specific the cards become.

Stick to one topic. “What about my job, my relationship and my money?” is three readings, not one: the cards will try to answer everything and end up answering nothing well. Ask about what depends on you — “What do I need to understand about moving?” works better than “Will he move with me?” And keep the question open, without the answer built in: “Why do I fail at everything?” already contains a verdict, while “What is keeping my work from moving forward?” leaves the cards room to speak.

It helps to write the question down before the reading and reread it once the cards are open. In a large spread it is easy to get absorbed in individual cards and lose track of what you asked. A written question brings you back to what matters.

The 78-card deck is shuffled on the server with a cryptographic random number generator, so the order cannot be nudged or predicted. About a third of the cards come up reversed, much as they would in a real shuffle, and their reversed meanings are part of the reading.

The cards fall into the positions of the layout you chose and turn over one by one. The reading draws on the classic meanings of the cards and on your question: Tayna reads each position and then links the cards together — like the pairs in the horseshoe's arc or the axes of the Celtic Cross.

You get three readings a day without signing in and ten once you sign in. That is enough to bring your main question to a large spread and then follow up with a quick simple cross or a single advice card.