Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
– Albert Gyorgyi
Well, The Vitruvian Square Casting Cloth (a natural deepening of my book, The Vitruvian Square) has sparked an incredible amount of interest and lead to new creations in the way people use the system. Because of the really terrific responses, I have decided, for the first time, to periodically post guest content so that you can see how others are using both The Vitruvian Square and The Deck of Shadows. Today, then, I want to share with you The Karma Spread from Craig Rovinsky. It uses The Deck of Shadows in conjunction with The Vitruvian Square and is something I think you will truly enjoy.
THE KARMA SPREAD
(using THE VITRUVIAN SQUARE)
by Craig Rovinsky
What follows is a very easy, very interesting way to do a card reading using both The Deck of Shadows and The Vitruvian Square. I came about this approach indirectly. A friend, Sebastian Black, told me about an idea with a three card reading. Sebastian uses The Deck of Shadows and has praised it in many conversations with me.
Sebastian suggested a small addition to a three card spread . . . add another card above the three main cards. This fourth card is The Unknown. This additional unknown card easily added to the depth of the central reading. While I have known of variations of this before (looking at the bottom card of the Tarot deck after a deal) it seemed to work incredibly well with The Deck of Shadows.
Then one day I was looking at The Vitruvian Square and I noticed the spot for zero . . . above the cards . . . just like Sebastian had suggested.
One recommended meaning for the zero Place of Power is the concept of Karma – and so The Karma Spread was born. Simply, the card in the zero position is the lesson you must learn at this time in your life. The other three (or however many cards you choose) expand on this lesson.
So let me demonstrate this for you by giving an example reading using The Karma Spread. It has been mentioned that The Vitruvian Square and The Deck of Shadows almost do the reading for you. I will follow this approach and construct my reading pretty much straight off the key words of the cards and the square.
If you have Scott’s Vitruvian Square and his Deck of Shadows, you can follow along and will see exactly where I got the things I said. We will start with the Karmic lesson to be learned, expand on it with three cards, and then find out what action to take by looking at The Vitruvian Square.
So I have dealt out three cards from The Deck of Shadows:
1. Seven of Diamonds
2. Eight of Diamonds
3. Jack of Clubs
I have the rest of the deck face down on the zero position (at the top of The Vitruvian Square) . . . I turn it over and the bottom card now facing me is:
4. Five of Diamonds
[SCOTT’S NOTE: When the cards are placed in The Vitruvian Square matrix, the formation looks like the diagram, below. Remember that the cards are placed on the numerical equivalent of their value. So, the Seven of Diamonds goes on the “7” square, the Eight of Diamonds goes on the “8” square, and the Jack of Clubs equates to “2.” Jacks = 2, Queens = 3, and Kings = 4.]
The Karmic lesson that you need to learn at this point in your life is to keep a sense of adventure about life. To some degree you have lost the ability to risk, to seek variety in life. There just hasn’t been enough movement in your life and things have gotten stagnant.
I can’t help but notice that three of the four cards are Diamonds; a clear indication that the field of adventure you need to address is in your personal finances. While this doesn’t mean being a financial fool, it does suggest you might look at spending a bit of money in a way you hadn’t expected to, just because it is fun.
What has happened is that time has snuck up on you. It seems many opportunities have passed you by and you find yourself wondering if those are all of the chances you will get. It is clear from this card though that, if you go with the flow, things will begin to happen . . . much more quickly than you thought possible.
In a way, this change now is due to a maturation . . . doing adult things for adult reasons. It makes you savor the moment and just expand the present to forever. This change is your destiny. It is something you have deserved for a long time, your Karma. Serendipity will present more challenges and opportunities but you must do a couple things first.
If you look at your Vitruvian Square you will see you are only one quality away, in each direction, from from having two powerful planes (Squares 5 and 9). First, you are just short of completing your Plane of Values . . . finally finding out who you are. To do this you need a little Heirophant time (Square 5) – spending some time with your own inner judge, your value system and looking at it honestly.
Once you have done that it is time to complete your Plane of Action and make a difference in the world. To do this you need to complete the emotional work you started when you worked on your Plane of Values. This requires you to spend some Hermit time (Square 9) to balance your values and you will be there. It is only your thoughts that are stopping you, and you will complete this phase by trusting your inner moon.
The result of all this will be the completion of your Karmic lesson for this time of your life . . . adventure. Do these things we talked about here, and a fun and interesting life will be yours!
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Thank you, Craig, for sharing this with all of us. It’s always exciting to see how others extend my creations. If anyone else is interested in providing some guest content, let me know.
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SCOTT GROSSBERG thinkingmagically.com 