Continuing the discussion from What Are Your Favorite Tarot Spreads?:
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Have you done a Grand Tableau with Majors only? It is normally used with Lenormand cards but I have found this a useful tool to be used with tarot cards. Labyrinthos has an excellent breakdown in reading the GT for Lenormand.
The only modification I make for my Majors-only-for-TdM comes at the end, “Predictive Timing in the Grand Tableau,” where you will find the four cards at the bottom. In my version you will find my layout has two cards trailing off at the beginning and end:
Nicolas Conver Majors, Pocket Size - Artisan Tarot
XVIIII. Sun and XIII. Death will be substituted for those four cards that would normally be those four cards that are known as “the cards of fate.” I use these in place of these four cards.
In this all of the other cards are read as usual.
My significator, based on my birth number, is IV. Emperor. The question is concerning my current romantic involvement.
Reading horizontally, XVII. Star + XVI. Tower to the left of my significator represents my past relationship. It adequately sums up my inability to open myself up to a new relationship for the last ten years. It has only been recently that I have been willing to come back to the dating scene since I lost my last partner. It was the perfect (Star) relationship that was all but torn asunder (Tower) by a terminal cancer diagnosis. Lovers to the right of my significator shows promise that my current relationship is on good standing. This is important information.
Vertically and above we have conscious thoughts about the relationship (V. Pope + VII. Chariot + Fool). I want a traditional relationship (Pope) that I have more control over (Chariot). We are in the first stages of it and it is new (Fool). We have only just decided that we want to take it to the next level and to begin being more serious. Unconsciously (below the significator) I worry about being judged unfairly, as we are an interracial couple and we live in a very conservative area in the American South.
Diagonally, we read conscious and unconscious influences. To the right we have possibilities (futures) and to the left we have influences (pasts). My two possibilities are VIII. Justice and XII. Hanged Man. This relationship can bring either balance or a long wait. It will mean that I need to be patient. Good things come to those who wait seems to be the advice here. I am also taking the meaning of the Fate Cards, Sun + Death, in context. “Ideal Change.” Taking things slowly is precisely what we should be doing right now. The unconscious influences of II. Papesse + IX. Hermit are lessons learned from the past. I have been isolated and lived a private life long enough. The other card, XI. Strength shows that I have grown as a person in this isolation.
The “Frame Cards” are X. Wheel of Fortune + XVIII. Moon + XII. Hanged Man + XXI. World. This gives me a better idea of the surrounding situation of the reading. Our by-chance (Wheel) flowered into a romantic relationship (Moon) that is slowly (Hanged Man) becoming something more than either of us imagined (World).
This is quite the versatile spread. There are ways you can take this even further, according to your taste. For example, if I wanted to look at my love life further, I could look at the Lovers card “in attendance” (how close it is to my significator–it’s right next to it). If I wanted to look at my financial situation I might look at the Hanged Man (a change for the better, coupled with Sun + Death, the Fate Cards). Some readers use “knighting” to discover unknown factors that effect the situation. Just like in chess, one moves along two spaces and over one diagonally.
The Knights in my GT (and I’ll close with this) are as follows: XV. Devil + III. Empress + XXI. World + I. Magician. Their significator is the III. Empress (birth card). The other cards speak to me about “good sex.” Although we connect on many other levels, this is how we met. Interestingly, I shouldn’t delude myself that this is the foundation of our relationship. It would be important now to start building other commonalities for our relationship “once the thrill is gone.”
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