Barleywine
The idea of merging hopes and fears in one position of the Celtic Cross has never set well with me, since I first learned Eden Gray's method of separating them out. But since it seems to be more common to lump them together, I thought I would ease my malaise by creating a whole spread to look at nothing but "hopes and fears" (or more properly, "hopes vs. fears"). It has echoes of the Tree of Life spread, but I mix things up a bit. It's basically a dual-train spread with a "best-case" side and a "worst-case" side, each read separately and then compared to see whether "hopes" or "fears" have more likelihood of dominating the outcome of a situation. It has many subtleties and will take some thought to get the most out of it.
I'm thinking it might be used as an offshoot of the CC "hopes and fears" deliberation when the situation is serious enough to warrant this much work. It could certainly be used independently as well.
ETA: Before anyone asks, I have no problem separating the astrological trump cards from the deck before laying out the spread, since the energies (planets/signs) are already "out there" and all this spread does is match the situation to that reality. The energies are already "at work" in the matter.
I'm thinking it might be used as an offshoot of the CC "hopes and fears" deliberation when the situation is serious enough to warrant this much work. It could certainly be used independently as well.
ETA: Before anyone asks, I have no problem separating the astrological trump cards from the deck before laying out the spread, since the energies (planets/signs) are already "out there" and all this spread does is match the situation to that reality. The energies are already "at work" in the matter.