Three Card Spreads

Three card spreads are reasonably quick, but can also expand significantly to fill the time allotted. I find them to be great for standard readings where a friend has like ten to fifteen minutes and wants to get a reading. It’s just enough time to get a sense of the situation they are asking about, lay down the cards, explain them, and have time for questions and catharsis from the querent. Here’s two standbys for three card spreads:

Past, Present, and Future

Pretty self-explanatory. Lay down three cards. The first represents something from the past. The middle card represents the present. The last card represents the future. In telling the story of these cards, it is up to you where you start; sometimes it makes sense to chronologically start in the past, but sometimes a card perfectly matches something going on in the present or hoped for in the future, and it makes more sense to start there. You can also look for Major Arcana in terms of places to start, or you can start more neutrally by reading the overall energy of the cards and speaking to, for example, a very Air-driven spread of mental clarity and reason.

Situation, Action, and Outcome

Similar to “Past, Present, Future,” lay down three cards. The first is the situation the querent is experiencing. The second has to do with the action they should take. The last is the outcome.

There are a couple of ways to do this spread and a couple of ways to read it. I like to read this spread in the order it is laid, first discussing the situation and how it may relate to the card drawn there, then moving on to potential actions the person is thinking about and questions raised by the card drawn. Finally, a focus on outcomes, with the caveat that the card drawn for outcomes doens’t necessarily signify the direct outcome of the situation, but rather may simply represent something to be aware of or an undesirable outcome that the action will help you avoid.

Another way to draw this spread is to talk to the querent about their situation, and then choose a card from the deck to represent it. Explain the card’s meaning to the querent and how it relates to their situation, and place it in the Situation position. Then, shuffle your deck, let the querent cut it, and draw the action and outcome cards.