Tree of Life Spread

Recently someone reached out asking for assistance in understanding how to work with the Tree of Life Oracle when laid out in the Tree of Life Spread from the guidebook. Doing so reminded me of two things: this is a beautiful oracle deck and this is a great spread.

Uses

Most spreads can be tweaked to make them suitable for a variety of uses. That is definitely the case here. For me though, this is a fantastic spread to use when:

• you are trying to plan out or progress a goal.

The spread I have shared below is a slight variation on the version shared by David Wells in the Tree of Life Oracle guidebook.

Considerations

The Tree of Life Spread is long so I would recommend using a smaller sized deck if you have one. I initially laid out this spread using my Heaven and Earth Tarot but I struggled to fit it on my desk. Obviously you can overlap the cards but I prefer to see all my cards in full where possible. I did try and divide it into the the various Tree of Life triangles but I wasn’t a fan. I like being able to see the various diagonals and the surrounding cards. This is important to me as I use them as clarifiers.

Tree of Life Sample Spread

Rather than breakdown the entire spread I’m just going to share how I interpreted certain aspects otherwise this would be a very long post.

5 of Cups in Position 2: The spark

I’ll start with this because grief might not be the first thing that comes to mind as a positive spark. But for me it makes perfect sense. Rather than focusing on what hasn’t worked in the past or the things that have run their course, I need to focus on what I want and need to connect with now. I spoke earlier about using the diagonals and surrounding cards for clarity and I did that here. Focus on how you want to be seen (Queen of Wands), rather than on what might make more business sense (King of Pentacles) as that is keeping you trapped (8 of Swords) and in a state of confusion (2 of Swords).

Each card may be assigned to a position but it can still talk to the cards that surround it.

8 of Swords in Position 4: Gift or Help available

Restriction might not be seen as a gift but it can indeed serve that purpose. Limitations can deepen rather than hinder our creativity and the work we produce. Sometimes the restrictions placed on us by others can also be a hidden gift. I have come to realise that.

8 of Cups in Position 6: What’s needed for balance

The 8 of Cups here isn’t unusual but sometimes it can be difficult to know (2 of Swords) what it is we are meant to walk away from. Here The Hierophant points the way. In this instance walk away from anything that doesn’t align with your core values and the messages you want to share.

II The High Priestess in Position 8: Messages that might be blocking you

On its own this surprised me, but the surrounding cards painted a clearer picture. It’s not so much that intuitive hits are blocking me, it is that sometimes I question whether to believe them (2 of Swords) and their value (9 of Pentacles). So I walk away from what I know inside which tends to trap me in a certain way of thinking (8 of Swords). This made perfect sense to me.

Wrapping it all up

As you can imagine, there is much more information to be derived from the above spread. However I hope the brief breakdown above shows the versatility of the Tree of Life Spread and how potent it can be. This spread is now going to be one of my go to spreads. If you give it a try I’d love to know how you found it and/or any tweaks you made.

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Resources

Tree of Life Oracle created by David Wells with artwork by Roberta Orpwood, published by Hay House in 2023.

Smith-Waite Tarot Deck: Centennial Edition published by US Games Inc in 2015.