Two Choices Tarot Spread
Two choices is a Tarot spread. It’s not as common as the usual past-present-future spread, because it’s much more complex, but it is also more in-depth. The two choices spread is used when you have a specific question: I can do A, or I can do B. Which one should I choose, and what are the characteristics of each choice? What are some factors that I should consider? Is one choice unequivocally good or bad? While two choices does not give you a straight yes or no answer, it can help to clarify how you feel about the two choices and help you think it through.
A friend of mine once asked me for a Tarot reading, and it turned out to be so frighteningly accurate that I saved it as a future example. My friend was a young woman, a writer, who was considering marriage. She had two choices: marry the man in her life at the time, whom she had misgivings about but still loved, or move south to start up an entirely new life in a new place. She was a freelance writer by vocation, and worried that she might have to give that up if she married. This was a burning question for her, and I decided to use the two choices spread, because she had two clearly defined paths before her. It was almost a Robert Frost-esque situation: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…”
So, let’s get to the reading. The two choices spread has five cards, laid out like so:
1
2 4
3 5
Card 1 offers an overview of the situation. Card 2 offers the positives of choice A, while Card 3 offers the negatives of choice A. Similarly, Card 4 offers the positives of choice B, while Card 4 offers the negatives of choice B.
The cards turned up on this reading were as follows:
1: Ace of Cups, reversed.
2: The Lovers
3: Wheel of Fortune, reversed
4: Knight of Swords, reversed
5: Queen of Swords
Keep in mind that it is unknown, at the beginning, which choice is A and which is B.
Now, the Ace of Cups represents a new love. It involves romance, creativity, and creative energy. Reversed, it brings out repressed emotions and disappointments in love. As the overview to the situation, the Ace of Cups showed what the main factor was: my friend’s misgivings about her potential match.
The Lovers represents a renewal of energy, making the right fundamental choice, and becoming passionate again. So if she chose Choice A (whichever one that was), she could expect a fresh start on passion and everything else.
The Wheel of Fortune ordinarily means taking a risk and getting a big payoff, but the reversed Wheel of Fortune means disappointment and failure for things to pay off. So if she chose choice A, there was a risk that she could end up simply floundering and not moving forward.
The Knight of Swords ordinarily represents a big breakthrough, especially using a new idea or achievement. But reversed, it means stagnation and frustration with an inability to move forward in life. Since the Knight of Swords reversed is appearing as the positive aspects of a choice, that would mean that the positive aspect is avoiding the negative connotations I just gave for this card. So right then my friend was feeling unable to move forward to the next stage of life, and choice B would alleviate that.
The Queen of Swords is a card representing excellence in speech and writing, eloquence, the fluid transmission of ideas and thoughts. Clarity and poetic speech are associated therewith. Since the Queen of Swords shows the negative aspects of choice B, we can infer that choice B has the risk of missing out on what the Queen of Swords has to offer.
With all that out of the way, it became clear which one was which. Choice B was marrying, and Choice A was leaving for the south. So the positive aspect of leaving for the south, the Lovers, was breaking out of a possibly stagnant relationship, while the negative aspect was the uncertainty. She wanted to move on to the next stage of her life, but the reversed Wheel of Fortune spoke that she risked floundering and flailing instead of taking a concrete step forward. This might just be another misadventure in a life full of misadventures.
Choice B had the positive aspect of the reversed Knight of Swords. My friend’s uncertainty about her life, and her uncertainty about moving forward to her next stage, would go away if she married. Marrying was a concrete step that would change her life. However, choice B, the choice to marry, also had the negative aspect of the Queen of Swords. The implication was clear: my friend risked losing her ability to be a freelance writer if she entered into marriage.