The Square

Here's my take on the 'Cube of Space', a 2D layout which I call the Square (a bit boring, I know). Goes without saying the cards could be positioned in a number of different ways on a square of 11 columns in 7 rows. I've tried various ways of mapping out the majors and minors, and at some point this became the go-to.

I felt it was important to have the majors occupying the centre, likewise it felt logical the minors/elements should go to the corners. I prefer to have Wands/Fire & Swords/Air above and Cups/Water & Pentacles/Earth below, but these could be placed in a different order, too; same goes for the court cards. In my take the Aces are pointing inward, with four clouds forming the corners - this felt intuitively right. Also, if you add the numbers of the minors pairs (say Wands 2 & 9, 3 & 8 or 4 & 7), you always get 11, which is the foundation of the square.

You can also use this as a spread. After shuffling the deck lay out 77 cards according to the last pic: start from the top left (position 1) and finish at the bottom right (position 77). I normally use this for a specific theme/topic. Instead of interpreting every card I search for certain "keys" which address the issue at hand. Say if the reading is about a work related question, you might look at positions 58 (8 of Pents) and 69 (3 of Pents) and see which cards you have there. So the map works as a grid, each position "coloured" by the corresponding card. As the full deck is 78 cards, this means one card gets left out. For me that's the "Oracle", which gives additional clues to the question (also directly relates to the centre position, as that's the Fool & the World combined).

I'll include a more in-depth exploration of this layout together with a case study in the "Tarot Architect" book, which will have to find a new title... I hope to have it published next year.