A good ol' three (meditation on Tarot)
Warning - I use examples from Tarot des Ambiquetes. Some cards have gore, an image of anatomically correct heart, detached limbs. There is also frontal nudity congruent with normal nudity found in tarot.
I've a lot of problems when it comes to tarot. Remembering history. Mixing up the meanings. Worrying I've been doing it wrong.
Spreads and the actual process of reading are the worst offenders. I've little energy for rituals many do and that makes my readings short and mostly done on top of the bed. And my relationships to spreads is....
I don't get them. When you show me Celtic Cross (not Celtic by the way) I yell and collapse like a maiden in old detectives seeing a corpse. There is simply an information overload and it's such a sickening corset on the body of reading that unnaturally forces it to constrict and almost drown. There is plethora of Spreads and it kinda just becomes nothing but another layer of info I have to remember. And for what? Usually when I see some spreads I get annoyed. What does THIS position actually mean? Why was its creator so damn opaque and mysterious and didn't say it clearly? And more importantly why the hell do I need all this info?
It's not like spreads are this useless to me. Sometimes you need a specialized tool with special shape. But to me, it feels like best spreads come from a situation, after breaking the problem into specific slices. You don't re-use a plaster for the face of a statue. Sure, usually you see same problems over and over and then you may see a value of generalized spread. But even then they sometimes carry so much useless information, it just becomes an overload.
TLDR; Spreads aren't bad but they don't seem to fit my practice.
Lenormand has an easier time with this. Grand Tableau is not a spread, but it is more of a thing you apply techniques to. You have portraits, concepts of distance, mirroring, knighting etc. All of it are methods you utilize when you are in a bind or seeking to confirm your overall impression. Technique over drawn cards, over strict rigid positions, watching the card interactions. It's more fluid and something I myself am drawn to.
Marseille and Historical tarot readers focus on simple lines and facing of the cards, movement of the numerical values almost akin to graphs. Some are more graphic and willing to look into the minors like abstract art pieces (I may be too artless for this though.) This category of readers influenced me the most, even if reading them is sheer torture (Except for Yoav Ben-Dov, he's alright, he doesn't rant about these modern evil readers he made up in his head. Or inventing idealized romanticized past to justify his reading method.)
And all of that kind of... collapses for me. I am tired. Doing Reads fast. I doubt myself on 3x3 boxes. I'm not going to be stunlocked into looking for a proper spread for the situation. And so, the basic core of my reading is -> question and 3 card answer. That's it.
The base is breaking down questions into steps, with every step answerable with three cards. This permits us to quickly chain these readings as much as we need - I enjoy bringing two or three decks for different type of details, just to have some neat visual interaction. These chains also have a distinct advantage of then creating whole tables where you can notice other connections.
Short example reading. I started with the question of, what does Character A see in Character B? Nothing else. The fiction and imagination flows from there.
Differentiation of different types of cards is not something that is rigid for me. I think fluidly. For me, the Courts simply have directions and I borrow some thoughts on Thoth for their personality. Three of them could signify, in this context (everything in Tarot arises from context!) the rather complex configuration of the personality in question. We asked for a view of a person - so we don't see interactions of people, but forces of personality.
The passionate QoW and KnOC stare at each other. She is passionate and wild and all consuming - KnOfC is a romantic offering their heart to this passion. Suffice to say this is a person who is romantic and not afraid to share their opinion - perhaps too wildly and perhaps too naively. Like those wild arisoctocrat sons suddenly allowed to roam cities while studying, with some pensions from their parents (perhaps I am sexist in this... I get the idea of young man from novels I read. But it can be person of any gender.). And off to the side looks KoC. Holding head of himself, or his old self, or his father, he seems to only care about future, or profit. Ironically, this whole image, of a passionate youth with oldman looking aside to me shows someone ignored or not watched by their parent. But again, it could be just me chasing ghosts. The equestrian rides a half-fish, creature existing in two lands - the queen with her wild hair entwining with her symbol of power. There is strenght in this person and they are absolutely able to build upon their teaching and inheritance.
In another fun twist, while writing this, I came across the idea of cheating and miserable marriage, and being tricked by someone who uses their sexuality as a weapon. Which would make this character a bastard, literally. Some fun ideas always come up and in both fiction writing and real reading it's worth to write them down, and confirming or expanding on them with another 3 card reading.
This may not be who the character B is. It is how they are seen by A. A wild brat (who may be a bastard, and so undeserving of their inheritance) with flashes of brilliance and promise. A good and proper side question would be "What is the contrast with the imagined and the real?" Here I would use a different decks to permit doubled cards. But we have no time for that.
How about the other way around? What does character B think of character A?
All minors. This isn't bad - complex ideas can arise from simpler ones. But Pips do need to be treated as wide ideas, rather than something with direction and movement of force. With minors I sometimes tend to cluster them with the closest Majors and see how that affects them, like little moons orbiting a planet. Suffice to say, this view is simple and there may not be complexity to it. Ironically a feature of brash mind which we got a flash of in the previous reading (which may surmise that it is correct to a point).
When we look at this, there are lacking Coins. Lack of physicality? Tools? Rememeber Character B has KoC. They seem to hold the power here. Someone dependent or powerless? 5oS is discord or conflict of the worst kinds, mutually destructive. 6oW does seem to indicate someone who works well or harmoniously and 8oC someone family minded, or someone with tight control of their emotional life and careful consideration of new acquitances. That is if we look at cards distinctively. If we use Lenormand rules Description - Subject - Action. Well, pip cards dont have wide meanings but we can use one of many methods to reach some. Here are mine, from left to right.
Conflict-causing cooperator seperates emotionally.
We can also look at the cards visually and numerologically. Curiously, 6 is usually number of marriage and ... kissing and 6oW is tangle of legs with flowers in gasps between. Let's say. Together with the vitriol of 5, one can perhaps see ex-partners growing apart by circumstances. But this is just one interpretation. It could also be contractor, a servant that character B doesn't think much about. The sword is frustratingly wedged. The 8th of Cups has all the cups seperated by decor. The distance is clear. Still, we get the idea of cooperation despite difficulties to connect. A simple view of rather sticks up the ass person, but an useful one.
Here is when we build up a question - from initial reading, these characters seems to not like each other. But what could be something forcing them together? Why not do another 3 cards to answer that? After all we have characters. We have vague overview of their personalities (as warped by their personal vision as they are). So why not get a bare overview of what forces them together?
Finally a Major. Remember, we can try to intepret the minors in gravity of the Major card. 10oC is listening to someone wiser, someone you trust, mayhaps a parent, a family member, a mentor. It surely is a head of some sort, a massive cup from which all drink. Something larger than ourselves. But Hermit is abandonment of conenctions to seek wisdom. Is it folly here? 4oS is rather peaceful card, where the fighting entered equilibrium and flower blooms in the middle of the conflict, like in a garden.
Hermit holds his head like the KoC of character B. There is ancestral pattern, an ancient inheritance you cannot escape from. Is it wisdom? A right path? Perhaps you need a vision from outside of all this entangled mess to know better.
Overall, they are together because they are seeking something out, hidden in the dangerous house of ancestry. There is protection involved (four swords protecting the flower), which can also come from a dictate of someone seeking freedom and to forever sever this connection. And let's remember, character A seems bitter and full of conflict. Is this duty imposed on them, the logical thing that later grew into their 5oS?
If they share the ancestry, as 10oC could indicate, then we reconteptualize 6oW - someone who couldn't hide their intimacies and could have been thrown out of the family. Siblinghood seems a fun topic to explore, especially if we imagine a proper heir, vs bastard who got it all, both under different pressure. Here is where another 3 draw would narrow our options.
Using this simple method let me make up a whole story and I could have easily continued. With my energy and focus problems, it becomes very convenient to simply have a way to get some reading out. And it can be a lot of fun - one of my reading chaining manias covered whole double bed in cards.
You don't neeed fancy spreads or methods. You can just have something fun and dirty that speaks to you and to the level of skill and energy you have.