Holly's Cross General Advice Spread (8 Cards)

CreepingCorbies

Hi everybody, this is my first time posting a spread here, and it isn't mine. My art teacher/tarot mentor taught it to me, and she calls it the Kachina Knife, but I've looked that one up and it isn't even close! It's a little related in some ways, but I'm not sure if she took it and altered it to her own tastes, or if it's an entirely different spread. Regardless, here it is, and if any of you have insight as to where it might have come from, please let me know!

-------3------
--------------
--1---4---2--
--------------
------5--------6---
-------------7---8-

This spread is very similar to the Celtic Cross, in that the first two cards can be adjusted to be signifiers or question/answer, depending on the nature of the reading. It's a very good spread for any question, and general readings.

1. Question or signifier- the main topic of the reading
2. Answer, or something related to the topic. This can be another party in a relationship, or an outcome. These first two cards are up for a fair bit of interpretation and adjustment depending on the purpose of the reading.
3. Past
4. Present
5. Future
6. Advice, or suggested course of action.
7. Clarifier for 6
8. Clarifier for both 7 and 8, and how the two relate to each other.

I've had a fair amount of success with this spread, and my teacher swears by it. It does incorporate a lot of macro thinking, however, and looking at the big picture. It's an excellent spread for practicing how to incorporate and connect cards to each other in a reading, and I really find having the clarifiers already incorporated into the reading really helps to bring in excellent and clear advice.

If any of you use this, please let me know. I've only really tried it with career and personal advice and I'd love to hear how it goes for other types of readings.
 

ribbons

Hi, I just wanted to let you know that your spread worked wonderfully well for me. The results were really interesting and basically reinforced something that had been on my mind a few hours before and has given me more to think about. I don't know, I really felt more connected to the cards with this spread and the clarifiers worked great, without being additional info, but helping to relate the previous cards, yes.
Thanks for sharing this. I will try and share my interpretation of my reading in the Your Readings sub-forum but it was a career/finances based topic. If I try it again on a different topic, which I certainly will, I'll let you know.
 

CreepingCorbies

I'm so glad it worked for you too! I've also found things a lot clearer when I use this spread, even though it's quite simple. I hope it works for your other questions too, I'm still getting used to figuring out the first two positions, since without an obvious question/answer format it's sometimes rather tricky to figure out how best to use them. Let me know how they go, I'm looking forward to hearing about them!