Conflicts, life is full of conflicts. Be it work, relationships, or most things in life, when someone comes for a reading, it is almost always because of some form of conflict. Husband and wife, worker and their boss, employee and the company, … these conflicts can take many different forms.
For these kinds of questions, I like to do a spread with a double line. That allows me to see what is going on from different points of view. We can assign one line for the first party involved in the conflict, and the other line for the other party. What is also interesting after reading each line, is to combine the two lines together, that allow us to see how the two sides interact.
To illustrate that kind of spread with a practical example, a woman is asking about her relationship with her teenage daughter. As usual with teenagers, there has been some frictions with the parents.
For this reading I did a double line of 7 cards. The first 3 cards of each line represent the current situation. The middle card is what needs attention, what should be focused on. Of course, that middle card can be influenced by its neighbor, nothing is fixed 100% in their position. The last 3 cards of each line show where the relation is headed.
For the mother, I decided on the Woman card as significator, and the Child card for the daughter.
The mother’s line starts with the Anchor, a situation that is at a standstill, nothing is moving. But the Anchor is also a card of hope, so in the mood of the current situation, the best advice would be to have the father (the Gentleman) try to make things flowing better, to make the situation evolving (the ship). Of course, with the Anchor and the Ship surrounding the Man, we do not expect to see that ship to sail smoothly, there is a big weight not allowing much leeway to the father to make progress.
The advice is to emulate the Dog. With the Ship moving toward the Dog, itself followed by the Lilly, he should try to use his experience to move into a move convivial role, being more friendly in the relation with the daughter. Not an easy achievement, with the Anchor close to the Man. We can deduct that he is dead set on some positions.
Anyway, that change of attitude would allow some improvement. The Lily is foremost a card of maturity. We can see that the situation would evolve and mature into something more satisfying. A situation leading to more trust and satisfaction long term, some richness for the heart, plenty of positive feelings.
The second line, the line of the daughter, starts with the Key. She’s looking for solutions concerning the frictions with her parents. But whatever she’s looking for is complicated (the Snake). The Snake might also add conflicts with some friends, that would complicate her moods. But for her point of view, she might feel betrayed in what she wants to do. And she’s lost, she does not see a way forward (the Book). Of course, the Book could also indicate that she has a few secrets, a few things she’s hiring from the parents, that could have an impact on the relation.
The advice is to act like the Rider, trying to move on, reaching for the family and communicating, but the problem is that discussions turn quickly into arguments (whip).
With the Whip and the Tree, we cannot expect a fast resolution, we see arguments, discussions that could last for a while and become unhealthy; the Tree is a very slow card. There is some hope anyway., going from the Tree to the Bouquet shows a return of some success in the relation, even if sometimes short lived or superficial, but we see some progress.
If we read the 2 lines together, we start with the Anchor and the Key. Solutions are not moving forward, situation is blocked to start with. That might be exacerbated by the 2nd position, the Man and the Snake. The father brings more complications, his daughter might feel hurt and betrayed by him. Just a note aside, we know how hot tempered and how quickly teenagers might get hurt. With the Snake pointing to the Key, propositions expressed by the daughter are not seen as viable by the father.
Going to the middle, we move slowly from the situation to the zone of advice. Ship and book, literally tell us to close the book and move on. Whatever problems, for however long, starting from a clean slate would help.
With Dog and Rider following, that would at least allow them to move forward in a much more friendly way. Lily and Whip show that the arguments between them could be discussed in a more mature way. Over time that would bring a move loving attitude (Heard and Tree), and bring back richness and beauty to the relation (Fish and Bouquet).
We could also mirror the 2 lines around the middle pair, but information becomes quickly redundant, I’ll leave this for another day.
