Barley's Timing Spread

Barleywine

Well I've done three readings for three different questions, and now to wait and see how they pan out! Thanks for the spread!

I'm about to do one for my daughter, who has hit a temporary setback and needs to reboot her life. We can compare notes on how well this works.
 

Barleywine

Alrighty just to make sure I've got it right ...
I have Queen Pents as my significant card.
I decided my unit of time will be Months
Deal out my cards, 12 piles of six cards for 12 months.
I find my Queen in the 2nd pile - So my answer is within 2 months.
Now I know that my line of 6 covers 2 months. For math ease I changed this to 60 days. So each card in the line stands for 10 days.
I shuffled the 2nd pile (the one with the Queen) and dealt them out on the line of 6. The Queen landed on the first card. So, its now narrowed down to within 10 days.
She landed on the 2 of Swords, meaning she'll have to deal with that situation. The other surrounding cards just simply tell me more about the context of the situation.

Did I miss anything?

I had another thought on this. I think the system is flexible enough to be extended a certain amount. If 10 days turns to be too soon, you could shift the time scale up one notch to quarters without redoing the layout. Just assume that each of the original 12 piles represented one quarter (approximately 90 days) instead of one month; then the six-card line in your "Pile #2" example would cover 180 days, each one representing a 30-day window. So your outcome would then be "within 30 days" instead of 10 days. It provides a little "breathing room" for events to work out. (I know I'm trying to eliminate "slop," but this seems like a reasonable adjustment.)
 

Barleywine

If your significator card shows up in the final 6 card row does that mean its too far outside of the scope of the spread? Ie. if you determined your unit of time is Weeks, would that suggest resolution is beyond 12 weeks?

I had another idea on this. I developed a third option that treats the last 6 cards as the 13th unit of time when the significator falls there, with Card #78 becoming what I now call the "Insight" card. Pile #1 is then used to form a new line for "fine-tuning." What struck my fancy is that this 13th period could have a special affinity for the 13th Trump, Death. The thought is that the magnitude of any changes involved in the turn of events could be profound and sweeping.

I atteached an updated version of the text to my previous post.
 

freyapax08

I'm about to do one for my daughter, who has hit a temporary setback and needs to reboot her life. We can compare notes on how well this works.

Okay I can already tell there is going to be an issue here with selecting the appropriate time unit.

The first reading I did was about when I would next see a guy face to face. It's been over 2 months since I saw him last, when I did the reading there was no sign that I'd be seeing him again soon. The answer I got from the spread was that I'd see him face to face in 6.5 weeks. Then this morning he made a date with me to see him on Thursday at lunch time. Which makes it pretty much exactly 6.5 DAYS. LOL!

So now I'm wondering if there is a way to, ahead of time, have the cards tell me what unit of measurement would best be used.
 

Barleywine

Okay I can already tell there is going to be an issue here with selecting the appropriate time unit.

The first reading I did was about when I would next see a guy face to face. It's been over 2 months since I saw him last, when I did the reading there was no sign that I'd be seeing him again soon. The answer I got from the spread was that I'd see him face to face in 6.5 weeks. Then this morning he made a date with me to see him on Thursday at lunch time. Which makes it pretty much exactly 6.5 DAYS. LOL!

So now I'm wondering if there is a way to, ahead of time, have the cards tell me what unit of measurement would best be used.

I set this up for each of the 12 positions to show a range from zero to "X" units of time. So your first answer must have "within X weeks." I know it's a hedge, but I wanted an elastic perspective that shows the "outside" estimate as the starting point. The 6-card line is intended to get more specific within that range.

One way I can think of to pre-select your initial time-frame, as I mentioned in the original post, is to do a normal spread first and then take the outcome card as the significator for the timing spread. The element of the card (and all of the cards have an elemental association, whether through decan, planet or zociacal sign) would give you a first cut at a time-frame: Wands as days, Swords as weeks, Cups as months and Pentacles as years. (This is my own take on it based on elemental "humours:" choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic and melancholic.)

The main problem I always had with the conventional approach is that for most matters, Pentacles as "years" might as well mean "never" (although in fact that's sometimes the truth). I was stuck "backing down" to a rational time-frame anyway, just to have the timing make some kind of sense, so I thought it would be good idea to try "building up" instead.

Although I still think "intuition + reason" is as good a way as any to settle on an initial time-frame, there are other more random ways I can think of. If you include "hours" in the mix, you could roll one six-sided die so that 1 spot = hours, 2 spots = days, 3 spots = weeks, 4 spots = months, 5 spots = quarters, and 6 spots = years. You could then give that the "giggle test" to decide whether you should adjust. Or you could get one of those special RPG 5-sided dice and eliminate hours.

My initial suspicion was that this method would routinely "under-shoot" the target, pointing to "days" when "weeks" would be more reasonable, but it looks like your case went the other way. But it's only one data point.
 

freyapax08

I set this up for each of the 12 positions to show a range from zero to "X" units of time. So your first answer must have "within X weeks." I know it's a hedge, but I wanted an elastic perspective that shows the "outside" estimate as the starting point. The 6-card line is intended to get more specific within that range.

One way I can think of to pre-select your initial time-frame, as I mentioned in the original post, is to do a normal spread first and then take the outcome card as the significator for the timing spread. The element of the card (and all of the cards have an elemental association, whether through decan, planet or zociacal sign) would give you a first cut at a time-frame: Wands as days, Swords as weeks, Cups as months and Pentacles as years. (This is my own take on it based on elemental "humours:" choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic and melancholic.)

The main problem I always had with the conventional approach is that for most matters, Pentacles as "years" might as well mean "never" (although in fact that's sometimes the truth). I was stuck "backing down" to a rational time-frame anyway, just to have the timing make some kind of sense, so I thought it would be good idea to try "building up" instead.

Although I still think "intuition + reason" is as good a way as any to settle on an initial time-frame, there are other more random ways I can think of. If you include "hours" in the mix, you could roll one six-sided die so that 1 spot = hours, 2 spots = days, 3 spots = weeks, 4 spots = months, 5 spots = quarters, and 6 spots = years. You could then give that the "giggle test" to decide whether you should adjust. Or you could get one of those special RPG 5-sided dice.

My initial suspicion was that this method would routinely "under-shoot" the target, pointing to "days" when "weeks" would be more reasonable, but it looks like your case went the other way. But it's only one data point.

I regularly break things.

Granted 6.5 days IS within 6.5 months, right? :D
 

Barleywine

I regularly break things.

Granted 6.5 days IS within 6.5 months, right? :D

Yeah, it worked perfectly! :laugh:

For research purposes, it might be useful to see all of the steps you took to arrive at 6.5 weeks. Only if you have time, of course.
 

freyapax08

Yeah, it worked perfectly! :laugh:

For research purposes, it might be useful to see all of the steps you took to arrive at 6.5 weeks. Only if you have time, of course.

I did do a pre-timing-spread spread, and wound up with the King of Cups signifying my guy. Due to his life circumstances, and keeping in mind the options given by the spread (seeing him within the next day was insanely unlikely but so was not seeing him for the next 12 months) I chose weeks as my time unit. 1 to 12 weeks seemed quite feasible.

King of Cups showed up in my 8th pile. So, within 8 weeks. When I shuffled and dealt the King of Cups index pile, he landed on the 5th card.

8 weeks divided by 6 cards = 1.3 weeks per card times 5 = 6.5 weeks

Interestingly to me, now that you mention elemental timing, he landed on a Wands card.
 

Barleywine

I did do a pre-timing-spread spread, and wound up with the King of Cups signifying my guy. Due to his life circumstances, and keeping in mind the options given by the spread (seeing him within the next day was insanely unlikely but so was not seeing him for the next 12 months) I chose weeks as my time unit. 1 to 12 weeks seemed quite feasible.

King of Cups showed up in my 8th pile. So, within 8 weeks. When I shuffled and dealt the King of Cups index pile, he landed on the 5th card.

8 weeks divided by 6 cards = 1.3 weeks per card times 5 = 6.5 weeks

Interestingly to me, now that you mention elemental timing, he landed on a Wands card.

Thanks for the input.

Aleister Crowley gave the King of Cups "October 13 to November 12" which is in line with the "8 weeks" idea. Having a Wands card as the modifier might accelerate that a little, but not down to 6.5 days. The way I'm working it, the 5th position in an 8-week range I would read as 5.2-to-6.5 weeks to provide a little latitude. Still not down to "days," though. Was there anything in the first spread showing a speed-up in contact? I think there may be some wrinkle or nuance I need to work into the pre-selection methodolgy, other than just saying "roll the dice."
 

freyapax08

Thanks for the input.

Aleister Crowley gave the King of Cups "October 13 to November 12" which is in line with the "8 weeks" idea. Having a Wands card as the modifier might accelerate that a little, but not down to 6.5 days. The way I'm working it, the 5th position in an 8-week range I would read as 5.2-to-6.5 weeks to provide a little latitude. Still not down to "days," though. Was there anything in the first spread showing a speed-up in contact? I think there may be some wrinkle or nuance I need to work into the pre-selection methodolgy, other than just saying "roll the dice."

Not that I can remember. I made notes on the timing spread but not lead up to it. And I'm looking at my notes for the other timing spreads I did and am also missing that information as well, in the other spreads, as the cards in the line. Darn it.