I am Ahonu, and my lovely Aingeal Rose and I are in delight at the receipt of her new book, Advanced Tarot Spreads. If anybody knows Aingeal Rose, they’ll know she has been reading the Tarot for years and years, and this book has been a work in progress that she has asked me, for as long as we know each other, to publish it for her. We just received it from the printers and it is a beautiful, colored book. Although small in terms of the numbers of pages, what’s contained in it is very comprehensive.
I’m asking Aingeal Rose to explain some spreads just to give you an idea of what’s in the book. It starts with the traditional Celtic Cross Spread, and then we also have the 3-Card Spread, these just to get you into the feel of things. Then we find an intuitive exercise with color, number and symbol. Aingeal Rose, tell us, why did you put this in the beginning, and what is it about the color, number and symbol? What is the purpose of this exercise?
Aingeal Rose: Well, that teaches people how to use their intuition. It’s an exercise in looking at cards and not using a book to interpret what they mean. You’ll go through each card and I ask certain questions about colors, numbers and symbols on the card and then your own intuition discovers the meaning. So I put that spread first because, if you get this exercise up front, you’ll be able to use this technique with the rest of the spreads.
Ahonu: This exercise builds your intuition. So, without opening another book, you could use this exercise on its own to do a Tarot reading. You ask questions like, what does this color mean to me? What does this number mean to me? And what does this symbol mean to me? In that way, you’re using your intuition to build a reading for yourself or for your clients.
Aingeal Rose: That’s right. We all have associations with everything in our consciousness. So what things mean to us might not be the same for two people. You & I could use that spread and pull some cards, and we might not come up with the same bit of information because we’re two different people, but they’ll be appropriate to who you’re reading in front of you and what the circumstances were in that moment?
Ahonu: The Manifestation Spread is one I like. It is used to manifest a desire of your own or for a client. Aingeal Rose, tell us a bit about the manifestation spread.
Aingeal Rose: Yeah. This was one that Spirit gave me many years ago, and it was how to manifest a desire you have. You imagine your desire, then you go through the deck and pick the card that matches it and you put it in the center. This cards position in the center of the star is deliberate and represents your desire. Then every other question that’s asked about your desire is in the periphery. Look at the star as a symbol of yourself - man in the universe. Each of the ten cards is its own inquiry about different aspects of your desire and how you create it.
Ahonu: It will show you the emotional change needed, the mental change needed, and what of the past to leave behind, what of the future to allow, what to give up, and what to receive, what is needed to fertilize that seed card, what to put into your own fields, and the gift from your higher self. So, there're interesting aspects to that spread.
Aingeal Rose: Yes. In any spread, it’s important to remember what the position of the card is asking. I beat this home in my first the “Tarot For Beginners” (https://links.ahonu.com/tarot).
Regarding the question, what emotion do you need to adjust, if you pull a positive card there, you might say, well, nothing, but if you look deeper with the question in mind, it will reveal to you what kind of emotional change do you need to make for your desire to come true, and so on with each card. Like I said, with any spread, remember the card’s position is most important.
Ahonu: Next is the Prosperity Spread. It’s like the Manifesting, but this time we’re zoning in on money. It represents your attitude and feelings about money, and your soul contract with money.
Aingeal Rose: That’s an important point for people, too, because even though this isn’t a long spread, there’s only three key cards and two additional cards. Most people don’t realize they may have a soul contract with money. Looking into that can reveal why you have it or don’t have it. It can be a pretty important factor in terms of what you need to change, or what you need to work through in order to manifest money for yourself.
Ahonu: The next one is a 15-card spread, and that gives you multiple ways to examine a question or a situation. We can read the cards horizontal and vertical. With 15 cards, it looks quite complex, but in fact, when you break it down the way Aingeal Rose shows you how to break it down, it’s very easy because there’s just six points to it.
Aingeal Rose: Well, this spread was fun. I discovered it one day, and instead of the Celtic Cross, I was just laying out 15 cards, five in each row and looking at it from left to right. But then I looked at what it meant if I look at each column and I found I got so much additional information doing it that way that I included it here. It’s fun because you see how all the cards interrelate.
Ahonu: The next spread is the Chakra Spread. I remember when Aingeal Rose told me about this one first, I thought, how can you use the cards to answer anything about the chakras? And sure enough, this is a healing spread. It deals with the Root Chakra, the Sacral, the Solar Plexus, the Heart, the Throat, the Third Eye and the Crown Chakra. Just explain Aingeal Rose, how this spread works.
Aingeal Rose: Well, first you do a layout where you examine the condition of each of your chakras. Whatever card you pull will reveal that to you. But then there’s a healing exercise, which is Part Two. With that, you either take the card in your hand yourself and bring it close to your body, or, the better way to do it is to have someone else take the card, that’s a healing card and stand back from you about 6ft and hold the card in front of them facing you, and walk toward you.
Because once that happens, your body reacts to the image on the card and you’ll feel it. If you did it for each chakra, it might be too intense all at once. Okay, but that is what this one is talking about in the spread, how to have somebody else hold the card and bring it towards you.
Ahonu: When Aingeal Rose did that to me, I thought to myself, this will not make any difference. But the closer she got to me with the card, the more I felt under pressure or intimidated somewhat by it, because the card was dealing with some issues I was having, and it was bringing them up for me.
The next one is a Seven Card Week Projection. This one deals with each of the days of the week, starting on Monday through to the following Sunday. What does this spread do, Aingeal Rose?
Aingeal Rose: It will show a person what their week ahead is looking like, based on their current consciousness, and what it can manifest. You look at your week by the day, and if it shows something you don’t want to happen, you can go in and try to shift it around by visualizing something different, making affirmations about it, or seeing what the card is talking about, so you might avoid it altogether. It can be very revealing in terms of what you’re setting up for yourself in the coming week.
Ahonu: This book assumes you are a Tarot professional, or at least familiar enough with the cards that you understand the difference in the suits. But just as a reminder, Aingeal Rose points out the Pentacles are all about business and finance, the Cups are about relationships and emotional issues, Wands are career and creativity, and the Swords are about thoughts, ideas, perceptions and opinions. Could a beginner use these, or are they for practicing professional readers?
Aingeal Rose: Beginners can use this book if they want, of course, it just requires they examine each card more deeply. But more than that, this book takes people into their emotions, makes them examine thoughts and feelings in relation to their world. But yes, anybody can do it, especially with that intuitive exercise in the beginning. The only reason we’re saying it is more for professionals is because their intuition may be more developed than a beginner.
Ahonu: Right, and also, you don’t have to go through explaining each card.
Aingeal Rose: There’s none of that in here. Yes, all the explanations are in my Tarot For Beginners book (https://links.ahonu.com/tarot).
Ahonu: Meditation with the Major Arcana, and you choose The Sun as a sample card. What’s the idea of this meditation with the Major Arcana?
Aingeal Rose: Well, this is another one Spirit gave to me too, when I was a reader, because it said the Major Arcana were an entire spiritual path on their own. So, it asked me to meditate with one Major Arcana card every night. You shuffle the deck, pick out one Major Arcana card, and study it. For me, I fell into the cards as if they were a living presence. Then they would reveal many things to me about myself and principles of the universe. So, that’s what this spread does.
Ahonu: This one intrigued me when I first heard about it - it’s called Uniting Both Hemispheres Of The Brain. I didn’t think it was possible, but Aingeal Rose spells it out here. It’s designed to bring you into a state of coherence and harmony by balancing your brain hemispheres. Where did this spread come from?
Aingeal Rose: Yes, this is one of a whole series of healing spreads spirit gave me. In this one, you pick a Major Arcana upright, and you’re asking the card to show you what’s needed to unite both hemispheres of your brain. Whichever card you pick, take it in your right hand, and hold it close to your head. As you move it around your head, you’ll find there’s a spot where it sticks, or the card seems to want to stop - that’s the spot that might be the trouble area in your brain, or there might be something that needs to be activated. In that case, just hold the card on the spot until the energy of the card neutralizes.
People have many reactions to this exercise. Some have past life memories turn up, others have old trauma come to the surface - anything can turn up, but that’s what you do. You hold the card at the spot, and you wait till it does its energizing process, which it will do, until it’s neutral, or you feel peaceful, and you know your brain has received the energy, that’s all. It’s simple, but powerful.
Ahonu: Next up, we have Finding Your Optimal Career. It’s a five card spread in two parts (you pull one extra card for part two). So what’s going on with Finding Your Optimal Career Spread?
Aingeal Rose: In this spread, you’re examining your gifts. You’re asking to find your highest gifts, your highest contributions to the world? After you come up with all of that information, you pick a card from the deck that, to you, represents the manifesting of your highest career. This is your visualization card. This is a card to focus on and visualize as coming into manifestation. That’s the card that reflects your highest career.
Ahonu: Next, Understanding Situations In Your Life spread. This is a four card spread that goes into mental energy, emotional energy, physical actions and spiritual understanding. Does this spread help with understanding any situation, no matter what is going on?
Aingeal Rose: Yes, you’ll understand the underlying factors involved in a situation, what made it come into being, how you feel about it, how you think about it and any kind of physical action that you might need to take to improve the situation.
Ahonu: Right. After that is an actual Physical Health spread. So, you have a spread here that looks at your physical health?
Aingeal Rose: Believe it or not, this spread examines your physical health. It doesn’t offer how to heal conditions you may go through. It goes into the current condition of the body, the specific area of concern, the cause of the current condition, changes to make to heal the body, and visualization card for further healing.
Ahonu: Information About The Heart spread. I will read the introductory paragraph because it helps to explain about the Heart Spread. According to the HeartMath Institute at www.HeartMath.Org, the heart is the most powerful generator of electromagnetic energy in the body. It produces the largest rhythmic electromagnetic field of the body’s organs. Its electrical field is 60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity generated by the brain. A person’s heart rhythm is connected to the base pulse rhythm of the Earth, known as the Schumann Resonance. In this spread, we explore the condition of your client’s heart on various levels. So tell us about that one, Aingeal Rose.
Aingeal Rose: Well, it explores the condition of the heart. We’re looking for any areas that need healing, or improvement, and then we’re taking care of it. But more than that, it’s asking you to listen to your heart as if it was a friend, right? Do not go to another book to interpret this card. Your intention is to communicate with your own heart via the card.
Ahonu: All right. Thought, Emotion and Feeling spread. What’s going on with this ten card spread?
Aingeal Rose: Well, you’re picking a situation in your life, and you’re looking at it from the perspective of the thoughts, emotions and feelings that are going on behind the scenes. This helps you look at the positive and the negative, any of which could be very revealing because you may not know certain things about yourself. I designed it to get to the underlying factors of what’s going on.
Ahonu: Right. One of the nice things I like about this spread is that the card ten, the last card, represents the lesson to be learned and even points to the areas of forgiveness that’s needed. In the next two-part spread, the elements give you insight into why things manifest a certain way in your life. So what’s happening with this spread, Aingeal Rose?
Aingeal Rose: Well, we’re looking at the fire, water, earth, and air elements, understanding that we all carry them within ourselves, and whether they’re in balance or they’re imbalanced. Looking at it from that perspective and examining what each element is doing helps you see if there’s change needed, if there’s too much, or too little of any. It helps you come into a state of balance with the nature within you, which is what you’re made of. Cups represent the Water element, Wands for Fire, Swords for Air and pentacles for the Earth element.
Ahonu: It’s helpful to have that background information. Okay. Inner Child spread.
Aingeal Rose: This spread looks at any trauma you may still carry from your childhood. Anything, any old patterns that need to be dealt with, and questions to ask are, what way does my inner child feel about this, and so on.
Ahonu: Creating Your Own Spread. I have to say, Aingeal Rose, it was quite daring to put that in, teaching people how to create your own spread, just like you’ve done in this book. How did you come up with that?
Aingeal Rose: It was another spirit-guided one. It frustrated me not finding the kinds of spreads I wanted and it said to me, why don’t you just make up your own? And I went, duh! Never thought of that. So I just sat down and said okay, what kind of spread do I want, and what positions would I like, and what would give me the information I needed? That’s how that came about.
Ahonu: The next one, Earth Change Spread, is intriguing because we all know we’re in climate change. It’s a 13 card spread. The first card represents the state of the Earth when you’re reading it, and then each following card represents a month, January, February, March, etc. In that way, you can see what’s going on with the Earth for the entire year.
Next is The Money Spread. Aingeal Rose’s introduction to this layout says, I received this spread from spirit one day when I was inquiring about my money situation. It’s simple but powerful.
Aingeal Rose: This is more of a visualization spread, not like the other money spread where you’re asking what your consciousness is doing. This is using particular cards from the deck to visualize the manifesting of your prosperity.
Ahonu: There is something here that is worthwhile mentioning. You have a big statement at the end of this chapter that says you are made of money! You said, realize you are Stardust, which is from an exploding supernova. Your body comprises gold, silver, copper, mercury, iron, and many other elements. Reflect on this because these are some of the wealthiest minerals in our world, and we’re carrying them around as our physical body.
Aingeal Rose: Isn’t that a fun thing to realize?
Ahonu: Just to wrap your head around that, it’s marvelous. Okay, we’re getting close to the end of these Advanced Tarot Spreads. Next we’ve got Exploring Grief. We won’t go into detail on that one, but that’s a ten card spread all about uncovering the grief in your body. And we also have the bonus spread, the Dimensional Split, and that one is quite comprehensive. You should tell people about the dimensional split, Aingeal Rose.
Aingeal Rose: This is exploring ourselves in relation to the fact that our world is changing, and the old paradigm is dying. This spread has you explore what part of the old paradigm you are still hanging on to, or is still affecting you. Consider the old paradigm, the egos world. So we’re looking at where are we still embedded within that system, and what it looks like if something did not embed us in that system, and what do we have to do to shift over into the new paradigm?
Ahonu: That’s very useful. We get asked a lot by people saying, I know we’re in changes, but what do I do? These spreads help answer that question.
Aingeal Rose: Yeah, it involves our willingness to give up the ego. This points out where your ego is still focused.
Ahonu: Aingeal Rose has put in the back a powerful DNA meditation. It’s written out here, so the ideal thing to do is for you to read it out and record it as you’re reading it, and in that way, you can play it back to yourself using your own voice. But if you wanted to have Aingeal Rose’s voice on it, at the back of the book is a link to where you can download this DNA meditation.
Okay, that brings us to the end of the book. There’s also a gift at the back, but you have to buy the book to find the link to the free download for yourself. Aingeal Rose is proud and delighted to be the author of this book. I’m proud and delighted to have published it for her.
Get a copy on Amazon. Search for Advanced Tarot Spreads by Aingeal Rose or visit: https://links.ahonu.com/ats. Thanks for reading. Until the next time, blessings for myself, Ahonu and from Aingeal Rose.
