Spread maps

[Nemia]

Inspired by my Summer Solstice Reading, I had a tiny spark of what was once a big light in my life: some modest creative energy

For a long time, I have admired and wanted the Skullgarden spread cloth, so beautiful:

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It is based on the RWS Wheel of Fortune card:

In the corners, we have the winged Kerubic beasts (from Ezekiel's vision) which are the symbols of the fixed signs of the zodiac and also the symbols of the elements. Lion/Leo/Fire - Bull/Taurus/Earth - Eagle/Scorpio/Water - Winged Man (Angel)/Aquarius/Air.

The letters T A R O are written like a wheel so you can read them as the anagram sentence ROTA TORA ORAT TORA ATOR (discussed here).

The Hebrew letters of the tetragrammaton (the Shem ha Mephorash, the ineffable, implicit name) יהוה yod-he-vav-he are there, too.

And the four symbols of the basic alchemic elements: sulphur, mercury, salt and water.

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A wonderful map, very beautiful, and since it's sold out for ages, I planned to make one myself. Embroidery on black cloth... oh I made such difficult plans (where to get a transfer pencil for black cloth from?) but now I did it really simple. It turned out my less impressive than Skullgarden's original but I don't care. I can make a nicer one later but at least I know now how to do it.

And I can try to use it in readings, to see whether it works for me at all.

Not perfect, far from it - but I'm glad I made it.


And I'm in the middle of work for spreadmaps for all my Four Corners of the Year Readings. Great fun!

[velvetina]

I like it!

[Sorceress Vibes]

Very nice! What fabric did you use?

[Nemia]

No fabric at all, only a nice linen-quality cardboard

If I ever get the embroidery bug again, I'll use this spread map to transfer the pattern. Right now, I use it as it is. I want to get a feeling for the possibilities of this arrangement. Never worked with alchemical sigils before. And I love everything four-fold

[Sorceress Vibes]

Oh right, silly me I thought it was fabric! I only asked because I'm thinking of making my own spread cloth. I like to dabble in embroidery too, but it never crossed my mind to embrioder my cloth. I'll have to think about it.

And yes, I thought it suits you well with your affinity for four!

[Nemia]

I made my first set of spread maps some years ago. A friend of mine wanted a tarot-related activity for her birthday celebration and asked me to prepare it. Since nobody except for me had a tarot background, I decided to prepare maps for the easiest and most accessible spreads.

I used an old art calendar and covered each page with golden acrylic colour, leaving only spots for the cards. Looking at them now, I think I made the card spots too large; the Expressionist paintings are too busy and scream for attention. But all that gold was quite nice

I added the English card position titles later on the computer, the original maps were in Hebrew. Leter, I put English stickers on them. A mess.

The Wish spread - with the Housewives Tarot

Head, Heart, Hands spread - with the Shadowscapes

Situation spread - with the Morgan Greer

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The SWOT spread - with the Inner Child Cards

Yes or No spread


It was useful then and we had a nice activity - and the fact that nothing was perfectly done actually added to the atmosphere because there was a craft activity towards the end and nobody would have dared to touch a pencil if I had overwhelmed them with perfection before