W immediately at hand or no more distant than one month from the date of the reading, the four cards for your layout come directly off the top of the deck. This is called the Present Spread.
After preparing the cards with the shuffle, turn the present card (top card) over first and the following three cards consecutively, placing each directly below the card previously turned.
Present card
nd card from the top of the deck
rd card from the top of the deck
th card from the top of the deck
Taken together, these four cards provide a “snapshot” of the time at hand as well as the four weeks to come. Interpretation will be covered after we look at the other -card variation.
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T C S
T - in cats as beings who are sensitive to subtle energies. Have you ever seen a black cat appear from almost nowhere and scamper across the road in front of you? In times past, this would have been considered an omen, a message from worlds unseen. In the same way, this card spread singles out a moment in time, a time that is significant for the questioner. It reveals the cat’s crossing place in our own lives.
After your deck has been prepared by the shuffle, ask the questioner to cut it once, forming two piles. Turn the card that is on top of the pile that was the bottom portion of the deck, the card that became exposed by the cut. This marks a spot within the -card calendar, the Cat’s crossing place. Now mend the deck by returning the two piles to their former positions. The deck should be as it was before the cut, with one card turned somewhere within it.
Next, count four cards off the top and lay them face down in a stack.
Repeat this, laying each new set of four down separately as you move across the table from right to left (see figure below). When you reach the turned card, stop. Commonly there will be one to three leftover cards between the last pile of four and the turned card. Just lay these face down in their own short stack. Now lay the turned card (the “Cat” card) face up on the table. At this point, your spread will look something like this, with less or more piles of four:
116 T P C O: B O
Leftover
Card →
Cat Card →
3rd pile 2nd pile 1st four cards of 4 cards of 4 cards off top of deck
Because this is a -card spread, continue by turning over the three cards directly following the Cat card to complete your four card column (see the previous section, The Present Spread). Cards remaining in your hand are simply set aside.
By arranging the cards in this way, you have actually formed a sim-ple calendar leading up to the time specified by the questioner when they cut the deck. Each card is a week, right? Four cards makes four weeks, or approximately one month. Each card left over between your last pile of four and the Cat card adds one more week.
In the example pictured above, three months from the date of the reading is auspicious for the question asked (recall that each four-card reading begins with a question). Because each pile of four is slightly less than a calendar month (twenty-eight days as compared to twenty-eight, thirty, and thirty-one day cycles) and the extra week indicated by the leftover card adds a little more time, you have very close to three calen-dar months. Due to the irregularities in our currently used Gregorian Calendar Fun and the Four Card Spread: The Cat Spread 117
calendar, adjustments must inevitably be made6. Let’s look at one more example:
In this layout, approximately six months remain before the time specified by the Cat card. The cards came out evenly divided by four so there are no additional weeks to tack on. Again, because four weeks is twenty-eight days, the time indicated here is closer to five-and-a-half regular calendar months or six lunar months from the date of the reading.
If the question asked is directed at a specific known time in the future, the need for a random cut is eliminated. Say, for example, the inquiry is about an upcoming trip, i.e., the reading is taking place in the middle of April and the trip is scheduled for the first of June. The time in question is one and a half months or six weeks from the present. Turn your card clock ahead by taking the first six cards off the top of the deck 118 T P C O: B O
6For those of you interested in aligning your lives more closely with the cycles of the moon, you will be happy to know that the card calendar is a near-perfect representa-tion of the lunar calendar. The deck comprises thirteen piles of four cards each, sym-bolic of the thirteen - day lunar cycles of the year. (From new moon to new moon averages twenty-nine-and-a-half days and is known as a synodic lunar month. A side-real lunar month averages twenty-seven-and-a-half days and is the true period of the moon’s revolution around the earth.)
1st four cards off top of deck 2nd pile,
etc.
(face down) and expose the following four cards. Abracadabra, you’re looking at June.
When intuition directs, I will turn over the card on the very top of the deck because it represents the present moment and has importance for this reason. This card is separate from the -card column and does not figure into the geomancy. All other cards within the piles remain face down.
T S C P
T within the -card spread are directly related to the meanings of the four -card suits.
Accordingly, as you develop your understanding of this layout, you will also develop a more intimate understanding of the suits themselves and the ways in which they interact with one another.
Once again, let us draw from the wisdom of the Elements as we con-sider suit placement in this spread. Fire, Air, Water, and Earth each have their own unique properties and functions. When determining which card position is governed by which suit, we look to the density of the Elements and the body parts with which they are energetically linked.
FIRE: The Head
AIR: The Throat
WATER: The Torso
EARTH: The Feet
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♦
♣
♥
♠
Fire is the least dense of the Elements. It is expansive, ascending. As such, it takes its place at the top of the -card column. Its body part is the Head. Air is the next most rarified of the Elements. It rules the Throat and governs the card position directly beneath Fire. Water is heavier still and resonates at the level of the Torso. Earth is strictly bound to the laws of gravity and is represented by the Feet.
When looking at a -card spread, imagine you are looking at a per-son standing, a little perper-son made out of cards. This gives you a work-ing model of the person you are readwork-ing, allowwork-ing you to see which energies are operating at which level. It is a picture of the person in time, the time specified by the cut of the cards. Using only four cards, you will be able to give a detailed, multi-dimensional response to the question at hand. The following provides an outline for interpreting each of the positions.