2002AugSprd

August 2002 Tarot Spread of the Month

Ruth's Celtic Cross Spread by Ruth Vertrees

Ruth Vertrees created her own personal version of the Celtic Cross. She writes, "When I started working with tarot cards, it bugged me that every place I looked had a slightly different Celtic Cross. I decided that each place had just made up their own position meanings, so I could, too. This is what I came up with."

Lay out a card, and then put the next one to the right of it. The left card is your feminine side, and the right card is your masculine side. Then lay out four cards in a circle around those two, right, bottom, left, and top, interpreting them as air, fire, water, and earth influences.

Deal the last four cards in a column like the traffic light you see in the United States - green on the bottom for "go," yellow in the middle for "watch out/caution," and red on top for "stop." I could remember that pretty easy, so I used that as the basis for the meanings here. The 7th card is something that is starting or going, the 8th card is something to watch out for, and the 9th card is something that has ended or that I need to stop. The 10th card is the outcome or clarifying card.

Ruth notes, "When I started reading cards, oracles or tarot, I slavishly followed whatever spreads I read in books or LWBs. Once I made up my own Celtic Cross position meanings, I started feeling free to change other spreads that I wasn't comfortable with. Now when I do a reading, I'm more likely to use a spread I made myself, or make one up on the spot. It feels like running through the grass barefoot."

Ruth Vertrees has been studying tarot cards for two years. She favors decks that are pagan friendly, such as the Witch's Tarot by Ellen Cannon Reed, the Robin Wood Tarot, Celtic Dragon Tarot, and Faery Wicca Tarot, but also enjoys using standard decks such as Thoth and Universal Waite, and decks honoring the older Tarot de Marseilles style. She also uses oracle decks, especially Shaman Wisdom Cards and Jamie Sams' Medicine Cards.