If you haven’t seen it yet - the Map of the Universe is a subtle and flexible tarot cloth I created to be a companion to the Golden Thread Tarot deck. There’s a lot of thought that I placed into the cloth, and I realized I never really took the time to explain it.
The original purpose of this cloth was to give you a little framework to build your own tarot spread, which is why the symbols are there, but without any overt suggestions of where to put your tarot cards. This makes it so that you, as the tarot reader, will know where to place your cards, without ugly boxes making it hard for the cloth to be anything else than a tarot cloth. It also makes it so that you can choose whether to just create a simple 2 card reading, or do a reading that requires the entire cloth, like a yearly overview spread.
This helps the cloth also be something you can carry your deck in, like the old witches of days past, who carried their decks in silk, or be whatever fashion accessory with just some cool patterns.
The idea of this was based off of the mandala, which is a representation of the universe in pictoral form - a microcosm, if you will - as well as other sacred depictions of the buddha and eastern religious figures. Until you learn to decipher each image, all of this will probably look only like pretty images to you, but each of them has a structure that is common throughout.
If you understand this structure, you’ll get a lot more out of what each image. This is the same concept we’re going to borrow for our little tarot cloth. It’s going to be best explained however, if I give some examples, which will be what the remainder of this post will be about - some spreads you can try out if you’re starting with our cloth!
Gold foil on black plastic deck. Compatible with the Labyrinthos Tarot App.
This is a great simple spread to use when you’ve found yourself having to make a decision that you’re unsure of.
Another super simple one to use to suss out both our desires and obstacles that stand in our path.
So…the two following spreads are going to be long, and they are using the same positions in the cloth to tell different stories. I think here, you can really see how adaptable this cloth can be.
This spread is meant to give an in-depth overview to what the months ahead will look like. It’s super simple, each card represents a month / cycle.
I don’t claim any credit for this spread, as it’s already a well known one that is commonly used for birthdays, and other large life events. It follows the idea that each zodiac symbol rules a house, which rules aspects of our own lives.
I’m personally not great at astrology, so I think there will be people that use this section of the cloth better than I can. But to give an idea of what that would look like…
Hopefully now you’ll see how easy it is to make some spreads on this cloth with some basic knowledge of the structure and symbolism! You can even go ahead and just mix and match the symbols to build a spread that is unique to you. I’m really curious to see how you all are building spreads! If you’ve got one, feel free to contact me at [email protected]
And of course, if you’d like to purchase the cloth, we have both silk and vegan friendly options available at the shop.