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The Butterfly Throne Method

Part Five: Spreads and Formal Reading

So, if you've read Article Four, you know how to read a formless spread, how to imagine the ways the cards are linked to one another and read cards in conversation with one another. You can absolutely use that technique for as many cards as you like without reading a specific spread! But, if you're interested in more formalized reading, like you can find in many tarot books and included with many tarot decks, there's one more layer to learn - reading cards in a spread.

Typically a spread looks something like this:

What this means is you set three cards down side by side, and the first one represents the past, the center one the present, and the last one the future. You'll see this one in countless tarot books: it's considered a basic spread for anyone to use!

In order to read a card, think about reading the cards in conversation, but instead of just being in conversation with one another, they are also in conversation with the concept the card's position represents. The position can change entirely how you read the card, just by adding this additional layer! Think about how different the Tower, the card of destruction, feels when it's positioned in the past compared to how it feels in the future!

But in the end, this just a new layer, like a lens you view the card through. You still read the cards in conversation with one another, and as pieces of art in their own right. A spread is just one more layer.

Spreads are easy to make, too. Just map where you want to place the cards and what you think the cards in particular positions can mean. It can be absolutely anything - you're not bound by spreads that you find in books or online! Think about what you want your reading to express, and then craft a spread that adds a layer to specifically address the things you want to express!

Let's look at an example with Leon's Tarot.

So, if your spread has a card to represent a person's current mental state, and the Moon lands there, what do you do first?

Well, first you determine what the Moon itself is saying. The card depicts a person mid-transformation, becoming strange and monstrous. You may imagine a werewolf, with the full moon behind them, which may lead you to imagine this figure as someone violent or temperamental.

Now, look at it with the knowledge that it represents someone's mental state. Does the violence of the werewolf make you imagine the person's mental state is agitated and unpredictable? Does it make you think they are changing in ways they don't like and don't understand?

As always, be prepared to look at the cards differently every time you see them. Feel them differently every time you see them!

The ability to read a card's position and a spread, combined with the ability to read the card in conversation with other cards, will let you deliver complex readings with ease and confidence!