The Seven Card Horseshoe
There are various spreads that fall in and out of favour within the collective readership psyche. A stock favourite when I was first learning the art, was the Celtic Cross, which then fell out of favour, seen as being overly complicated, fussy and filled with extraneous detail. But now, the CC is seeing a resurgence, enjoying a revisit, a review and a return to the hall of fame - given a trendy new haircut and a pair of thick-rimmed specs, it's ready to hang out with the cool kids.
Naturally, I'm going to ignore this upswing of popularity, and focus instead on another staple that hasn't yet come back into its own - the Seven Card Horseshoe. Either I'll be cheerfully ahead of the curve, or a pariah to those ten-card dealing readers to whom the Celtic Cross is the new black!
The Seven Card Horseshoe is flexible, easy to remember, gives positive input into situational questions, and can be applied to general and specific questions alike...and as you'll see as we go through it, can be as simple or as complicated as we choose to make it. It was my go-to spread for many years, where clients wanted clear and concise answers to their questions, and remains an excellent option for reading on the fly, or where spreadcrafting would just be reinventing the wheel.
As always with a well-circulated spread, there are various takes on the basic layout, but I'll share with you the way that I was taught to read it, and show you the various ways that it can be personalised to your own tastes.
The basic layout:-
1) The Past
2) The Present
3) The Future
4) The Advice of the Cards
5) The Influence of Other People
6) Blocks or Barriers to Success
7) The Final Outcome
Now the easiest block of cards to amend are the first 3, marked with a golden star on the example spread layout - the Past / Present / Future section, which can be replaced with any three-card spread of your choice - perhaps What to Leave Behind / The Now / What to Take Forwards, or a more introspective analysis Thoughts / Emotions / Actions...the choice here is your own as you personalise the spread to your requirements and to provide a fuller answer to the question that you have, and the function of any card can be replaced with another that better suits a querents circumstances.
The diagram below shows just some of the considerations, connections and influences that a skilled reader will utilise when reading a spread - it highlights some of the key links between cards and card positions, and how a card in a given position can influence another, or give clues as to its nature and the scope of its reach.
In orange, we see the P/P/F of the first three cards - Past / Present / Future, read as a linear flow, then can provide valuable information as to where the querent is on their particular journey, if things are flowing smoothly or not, and where in that flow any issues or obstacles are occurring.
In green, we see cards 2, 3, 4 and 6 - Present / Future / Advice / Blocks - and we can see from the relationship between these cards as to whether the querent is likely to accept the information given in the cards, and whether they will utilise the advice provided or resist, and whether that resistance will compound the blocks that they see in the issue.
In purple, we see cards 2 and 5 - Present / People - and this gives us an indication of the prevalence of external influences, and their impact on the querents current situation and their decision making process.
In blue, we see cards 3 and 7 - Future / Outcome - and this can show us whether the influence of the Blocking card will cause a disparity between those two cards that help us to look ahead.
Marked with a red diamond, we see cards 4 and 6 - Advice / Blocks - and this can show the reader whether advice will be utilised to overcome the block card, especially when used in conjunction with cards 3 and 7 - Future / Outcome - and whether there is any disparity between those forward looking cards and the application of the Advice / Block cards, so that lessons can be learned, pitfalls avoided and the path forward smoothed or illuminated for the querent.
The blue snowflake, cards 1 and 6 - Past / Blocks - can show us where emotional baggage might be influencing the current situation and causing issues in the now because the querent hasn't let go or learned a lesson and so is being re-presented with opportunities to learn, grow and let go of those weights.
The blue flowers, cards 6 and 7 - Blocks / Outcome - can show us how much resistance the querent will face when trying to achieve their desired outcome. Interestingly, if the outcome card shows an undesirable situation, the Block card can work in their favour, preventing that undesirable situation from coming about.
As we can see from the above handful of examples, these are just some of the associations that can trigger card relationships that need to be examined in a reading...and this is before a card has even been dealt into the spread, bringing their own set of patterns, imagery and associations that overlay onto their positions. The Seven Card Horseshoe is a beautifully simplistic and easy to remember layout for a beginner, but offers a wealth and depth of opportunities for the more experienced reader to flex the layout to the benefit of their querent, and to use spreadcrafting experience to improve the flow when examining a particular scenario or situation.
If you haven't used the Seven Card Horseshoe before, why not give it a try to see what results it brings to you, and let me know how you get on? And if you're a veteran of this spread, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on how you modify the spread, or if you read the cards in different positions!
