Since I’ve got the Major Arcana on the brain the last few days, here is another spread designed to be used with the Majors only.
Normal people call it the Pyramid Spread, but my version is The Pyramid Spread With A Twist. The twist comes in because my reading table at home is too small to lay the cards out in a Pyramid shape, so I lay them out in three rows of seven instead. As shown in the photo above. While this reading table, on my porch in Puerto Vallarta, is large enough for the Pyramid, I guess I’m just a creature of habit.
Each card position is numbered, 1 through 21, with one card left over. 1 is at your lower left, 21 at your upper right.
To do the spread:
-Shuffle the cards normally.
-Lay them out, face down, in three rows of seven.
-The remaining card set off to the side, face up.
-Begin reading with this card, and continue as each new card is turned up.
-Whatever the number of that first card is, the next card turned up is the card in the position matching that number. (For example: In the photo above, our first card was The Moon No. 18, so we then went to the 18th spread position and turned up The Sun No. 19, which led us to The Emperor No. 4 and so on until the spread was complete.)
-The spread ends when The Fool is reached.
-Then the upturned cards are read, as a whole, including the first card off to the side.
I find that this is a wonderful spread for answering what I consider to be ‘big questions.’ I imagine that you will too.
I do not read The Fool in this spread. Simply seeing it as the end point. You might do things differently.
I first encountered this spread through the writings of Mary K. Greer, and she offers a unique perspective on it where each card turned asks a question of the next card to be turned. You can find her instructions for it at:
The Cadillac of Readings: The Pyramid Spread
As I close this post, I’d just like to point out, as a gentle reminder, the Tarot spreads can, and should be changed, reader to reader, circumstance to circumstance. My own table at home isn’t large enough to hold the Pyramid as designed, so I changed it to rows that fit on my rectangular table. That’s OK. Individuality is important in Tarot, what works for one person will not work for another, and we must use what works for us.