long spread vs. short spread

I read the readings for the latest fairy circle in awe. It seemed like such a complex reading, and yet all of you made sense of it. I'd have trouble with such an extensive spread. Apart from the effort it takes, the individual faeries seem to make less sense when there's more then 5 of them flying around, their individual message seems to lose impact to me.

In contrast, to me tarot readings can easily consist of 21 cards or even all 78 cards without getting muddled. I'm not sure where the difference lies, but in general I find my most meaningful readings with the oracle to constist of 1 to 3 cards. Since I saw some awesome readings with more cards than that, I'm assuming that this is not true for most of you. I was wondering: What, if any, is the difference between a faery oracle spread and a tarot spread to you?

Regards, Rosesred

rosesred,

You're right - it was complex and I really struggled at the start. It was just too much especially for someone unused to reading with the faeries.
The way I coped with it was to turn all my cards face down except one and just take it one at a time , letting each faerie speak for itself......then at the end I tried to tie it all together.

There is definitely a difference between the faeries and tarot....usually with tarot I can get an overall picture right from the start....with the faeries I can't.
But then I'm only a faerie beginner so others may see it differently.

It has been an awesome exercise but I do think you need more time and patience to see the whole.

I agree that more cards = more confusion with the faeries, but sometimes they really compliment each other and echo each other in agreement which is what happened with this last circle reading I did. I have used the faeries to clarify a Celtic Cross tarot spread and that was incredibly illuminating and there were 10 faeries in that case. But in most cases since the faeries tend to be a talkative bunch, for the most part, too many of them in the same spread can get quite "noisy."

~Mercy

Any reading -- Tarot or oracle deck -- over ten cards usually zaps me for the next two days or so. I'm with you. If you can't say it in five cards or less, it's probably not worth saying!

Seriously, I think the danger of the bigger spreads is that the essence of the message gets lost in all the noise. You can't see the forest for the trees. When I did the last Faeries Circle reading, I noticed that the center column seemed to tell the central story; the rest was just commentary. The center column consisted of only four cards.

If you're going to use a big spread, it takes a lot of time to figure out all the relationships, all the groupings. If you're reading live, it's hard to do all that synthesis in just a 15-minute reading. In live readings, I like to keep it small. But the thing is, the client (at least, this is my perception) feels cheated by small readings. I think it's crucial that you convey a lot of information if you use a smaller spread, and I don't think that's really hard to do, if you're using a good deck.

Am I rambling? Yes, I think I am. Later, gators.

Kim

Any reading -- Tarot or oracle deck -- over ten cards usually zaps me for the next two days or so.

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Jep, know the feeling. I'm glad with that, though. What's the point of putting al that energy into a reading if you do not even get enough info to occupy you for a day or two?

I wanted to make it clear that I thought the charka spread was wonderful. It's just not something I would have used on my own with the faeries. Therein lays of course the challenge of this seeker exercise; to stretch yourself, to reach further, to do things you never thought of doing.

What I sometimes do with tarot cards is lay a 3 card spread, followed up by a multi card spread designed to tell me how to resolve the issue of the 3 cards. On the other hand, sometimes I draw a faery card to summarize a complex tarot reading that has me flabbergasted. Usually I laugh my *rs* off when I see the faery card, it often tells me in no uncertain terms what I've been trying to avoid to see.

I do think the faeries are a noisy bunch, as mercyme puts it They're yammering in your ear, and I can handle only so much yammering at a time. In contrast, tarot cards to me are more like a book. They politely wait to be read, instead of climbing over each other to get to you first

Rose

rosesred said:

What I sometimes do with tarot cards is lay a 3 card spread, followed up by a multi card spread designed to tell me how to resolve the issue of the 3 cards. On the other hand, sometimes I draw a faery card to summarize a complex tarot reading that has me flabbergasted. Usually I laugh my *rs* off when I see the faery card, it often tells me in no uncertain terms what I've been trying to avoid to see.

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This seems so true for me, too! Using faerie cards as clarifyers should come with a warning: Use at your own risk!

~Mercy