The 3-Card Spread
Learning to Read Multiple Cards
You have been doing a Daily One Card reading, or a 1-Card Spread while learning your tarot deck and the individual cards in that deck. You might have also been doing card exercises as well as a lot of reading on, and about your cards. Now you think you are ready to tackle something a little more challenging so you have decided to try a 3-Card Spread. But ....When you start looking at the different 3-card spreads you note that there seem to be dozens and dozens of 3-card spreads all with different position meanings.
A Few Examples of 3-Card Position Meanings
| Past Present Future |
The Nature of Your Problem The Cause of Your Problem The Solution to Your Problem |
What You Need to Know About the Problem You Face What You Can Do About It Who or What can Help You |
| Mind Body Soul |
What You Have What You Need to Know What You Get |
The Event What You Need to Know About This Event Its Ultimate Effect on You |
Most 3-card spreads follow this type of diagram for setting out the cards.
Card #1 ..... Card #2 ..... Card #3
Or put another way:
1 ...... 2 ...... 3
With the card meanings coming after the spread diagram.
1. Past
2. Present
3. Future
So you usually see something like this for a given 3-card spread.
The Personal Relationship Spread
1 ...... 2 ...... 3
1. Me, Myself (the seeker)
2. My Partner (the seekers partner)
3. Future of Our Relationship
After you shuffle and cut your cards you would deal out the first card for Position #1, the second card for Position #2, and the third card you would place in Position #3. You would then be ready to read the spread by reading each card that you set out.
Decisions, Decisions?
Which 3-card spread do you need to try first? Which is best? Which will give you the most information? Chances are you're as confused as hell!The answers to the questions in the paragraph above are ...
"It doesn't matter."
When you're ready to test the waters of a 3-card spread forget the name of the 3-card spread if it has one, forget the position meanings, for now you just want to 'CONCENTRATE' on the cards!
Let me repeat that:
"You just want to 'CONCENTRATE' on the cards!"
Getting Started
Go ahead and shuffle and cut your cards while asking your question and then deal the three cards out in anticipation of furthering your tarot knowledge. But ...'Oh no .. another but!!!'
Once the 3 cards are lying there in front of you ... you're stumped!
What Do I Do Now?
You pray, LOL!Seriously, to start with just look at each individual card as if they were each just one of your Daily Draw Cards. After all, in essence all you've really done is multiply a single daily draw card by three (3).
The trick, talent, ability comes in 'INTEGRATING' these three (3) cards into some type of cohesive whole ... into a 'story' that has a beginning, a middle, and a end.
Here is where most beginners and folks new to tarot get totally stumped! Integrating the cards can be a real .. ah ... bummer, at least for many new readers.
The Secret to Card Integration
The secret to card integration is .... the Special Sauce, [Big Grin].Really ... I'm not kidding. It's the special sauce, or figuring out what's in the special sauce. In order to get our special sauce we need the right ingredients. Let's say our special sauce has just three ingredients.
| 1 Teaspoon Vinegar |
| ½ Cup Mayonnaise |
| 1 Clove Garlic |
Now a lady named Miss-X comes along and tastes my Special Sauce and decides she can do better, or make her own special sauce with just a little added zing. So she runs home and tosses together her own special sauce.
| ½ Teaspoon Vinegar |
| ½ Cup Mayonnaise |
| ½ Teaspoon of Mustard with a pinch of Garlic |
Now it's not the same as my special sauce but is quite tasty and many folks just love it. In fact lots of folks like it better than my special sauce.
So there is the secret of integration. Treat the three cards in the 3-card spread as if they were ingredients. Each ingredient adds to the taste and flavor but it takes all the ingredients to make a tasty special sauce. If the end product doesn't at least turn out eatable then your special sauce isn't right and you need to go back to the drawing board (or kitchen in this case).
Is one Special Sauce better than another? Is one more right than the other? Certainly it's possible. If Miss-Y adds walnuts to her ingredients then the special sauce probably isn't going to taste all that good or be to easy to eat for folks without teeth (like me). If Miss-Z adds Oreo Cookies to her ingredients then the sauce is probably going to suck and not taste any good at all.
You have to work at finding just the right ingredients that fit your palate (the way you read the cards) - and that give you that yummy feeling all over!
Some Hard Truths About Reading the Cards
One of the things that you have to realize when you are reading tarot cards is that they often speak in generalities and not specifics. That they often speak of the inner thoughts and/or turmoils going on inside the seeker and have little to do with the question being asked. And that many times they address something other than what is being asked of them altogether!What I mean is that more often than not they won't tell you when you will meet ~Mister Right~, if at all. They won't tell you if you should take the new job offer, go out on a date with Billy Bob or Peggy Sue, when would be the best time to invest your money, or if you have lung cancer.
Reading tarot cards will normally reveal to you what I call the, 'Inner Reflections of the Seeker'. What's holding back Miss-M from taking that new job? Why is she even asking this question? What's going on in her mind? What's out of balance in her life? Is there something making her unhappy and if so what? What's causing her uncertainties? Is she suffering from low self-esteem?
To often people read the tarot cards and try to 'squeeze' meanings out of them to answer a specific question that are just not there instead of reading the cards and answering the question that the CARDS want you to have, or that the cards ARE answering.
3-Card Reading Exercise
I come to you for a reading and you ask me what my question is."What can the cards tell me about changing professions?"
Below are the 3 cards you drew. Using the Special Sauce > Recipe-Ingredient-Yummy Taste Method (not position meanings) what are the cards trying to relate to you?
...... 6 of Pentacles ............. Page of Cups .......... Knight of Swords ...
.... What you have ..... What you need to know ..... What You Get ....
Ahhhh, 2 Court Cards ... how sweet (and sour) the sauce will be.
Don S.
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