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The Three-Card Tarot Spread
A situation, its momentum, and where it is heading, in three cards.
What it is for
Three cards is the workhorse spread: more context than a single draw, less to untangle than a full layout. It suits a situation you want to see in motion, with a beginning, a middle, and a direction.
The layout
Lay three cards left to right and read them in order.
- Card one: the situation, or what is behind you.
- Card two: the present, the action, or the heart of it.
- Card three: the direction, the outcome, or what is ahead.
Common framings
The same three positions take several familiar shapes. Choose one before you draw.
- Past, Present, Future.
- Situation, Action, Outcome.
- Mind, Body, Spirit.
Read it as one sentence
The point of three cards is that they modify each other. Read them as a single sentence rather than three separate fortunes: a difficult middle card softened by a hopeful third is a different story than either alone. The relationships between the cards carry as much as the cards themselves.
The same discipline scales. A five-card layout is three cards with two more clauses in the sentence, which is all the Mercury retrograde spread asks of you once you can read a trio together.
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