Lenormand

A Tarot Spread from a Lenormand 3X3

July 12, 2019 By Joanne

lenormand-3-card-draw — Scythe, Fish, Lilies from the Gilded Lenormand

The Lenormand fortune-telling system has become very popular over the last several years, and new decks are proliferating (some quite faithful, some way out there away from the tradition). There’s been the usual fuss when something people have been using a certain way gets popular and then starts to lose its foundation. Folks often take the easy route and simply adapt it to what they already know, in most cases, the Tarot.

My Take on the Lenormand Method

I am mostly a traditionalist when it comes to the Lenormand system. It is not about the art in the cards, but about the linguistic system of divination used with the cards. Use of intuition is limited if you want the system to be effective in telling you what’s going on around you and what may be coming up to challenge or gift you in the future. This system requires a lot of memorization and putting together of concrete meanings. Takes lots of practice to be decent at it, and I still consider myself an intermediate student after more than five years.

Lenormand’s Gifts for Tarot

What I am doing, though, as I practice this system, is to allow it to influence my Tarot reading, rather than the other way around. Lenormand helps me keep my Tarot readings more grounded in real-world human concerns and connected to all of the person who sits before me, not just their soul stuff.

More specifically, I’ve been using the Lenormand 3X3 spread to do Tarot monthly forecasts. It works really well for a 1 to 3-month projection and creates some cool connections among the Tarot card meanings.

The 3×3 Spread and Interpretation

Here’s a sample draw accompanied by the Lenormand interpretation patterns from Andy Boroveshengra (excellent cartomante and fortune-telling philosopher; check out his book on Lenormand):

The cards (from the Gilded Tarot Royale by Ciro Marchetti) are drawn and placed top to bottom, left to right, so the positions look like this:

1-2-3
4-5-6
7-8-9

So, we have:

IIHP-10P-QS
2S-XVDV-6C
XWH-VIICH-4W

Here’s how I read these:

Stage 1

I look at the fifth (center) card for a focus, and then the first card for a trigger that caused that focus. I then combine the four corners for the real question, or issue.

The Devil is my focus card, a challenge to resist temptations and realize I am free to choose. This challenge is triggered by my intuition. Hmm. So, intuition = bad, or intuition = good?

What’s the real issue? IIHP + QS + XWH + 4W: Deciding which to listen to, the intuition (IIHP) or the intellect (QS) to take advantage of good luck (XWH) and create a solid foundation for success (4W).

Stage 2

I read cards 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8 for what is going to happen in the situation.(The diamond perspective)

10P + 2S + XVDV + 6C + VIICH: This is a Lenormand 5-card line. I’m going to consider the center card the focus, and pair the cards to see what’s up. What’s my potential for handling this situation of staying disciplined against temptation?

10P + VIICH looks good. Take charge of my finances and abundance will follow. This will take discipline.

2S + 6C indicates a blockage by the Two of Swords caused by a focus on the past, or maybe looking behind me into the past to resolve it.

10P + 2S indicates to me some kind of mental block or denial about the money thing (see how complex this Lenormand system gets? Lots of combinations to make a story).

6C + VIICH indicates to me that I need to take charge of the past because it is influencing me negatively at present.

Notice that the power cards are on the ends, and the Two of Swords and Six of Cups are right next to the Devil card. To me this whole string says that I’ll be challenged to release mental blocks about finances and take charge of, or move beyond past patterns to avoid problems this month.

Stage 3

I read the three vertical columns as the past; present; and, future, and then the diagonals.

Past: IIHP + 2S + XWH = I’ve been having a hard time deciding between following intuition and sticking to intellectual approaches (and getting stuck there), which has kept me from taking advantage of opportunities.

Present: 10P + XVDV + VIICH = Now, here the Devil stands between abundance and movement/taking charge, tempting me to…what? Hmmm. Is my ego getting in the way, or will better financial situation help me take charge of life and move on? Depends on what role you give the cards in their positions.

Future: QS + 6C + 4W = Let the Lady of the Mind rule the past and build the structure for future stability. I will be looking to the past to provide clues to a career move that will be well worth celebrating, I think, and it will be an intellectual approach that will get me there.

Diagonals:

IIHP + XVDV + 4W = Using the insight of the Priestess to avoid feeling trapped in my own mistakes and get to celebration?

QS + XVDV + XWH = Using intellectual approach to avoid feeling trapped by my own mistakes and take advantage of good luck?

Stage 4

I get the quintessence by reading cards 1 + 3 and 8 and 7 + 9 and 2. (Triangles perspective)

(IIHP + QS) + VIICH = Wow! So, I will be asked to combine my intuition and intellect to take charge of my career and financial situation and avoid the trap represented by the Devil.

(XWH + 4W) + 10P = All good! If I can pull this off, it will be awesome! Luck is on my side to create greater financial stability this month.

Thank you for your patience! See how this all works together to form a picture when you’re done, but not always before you’re done?

The Complete Divination Story

Looks like I’ll need both my intuition (HP) and intellectual resources (and since it’s the Queen, the ability to work with others) to work through a challenge mired in past mistakes (the Devil and the 6 of Cups). Looks like I can prevail (VIICH), and that I have some good luck on my side (XWH), but I’ll have to make sure I don’t ignore the realities of the challenge (2S) that I face. Stage 4 gives a pretty cool combination of the inner tools I have and the external situation/results I can gain if I apply those tools properly.

Let me know what you think in the comments, and if you want to get together to try this out, contact me.

Minor Arcana Cards: Illustrated or Just the Pips?

January 3, 2019 By Joanne

8 of Pentacles, Universal Waite, © US Games, Inc.

So, why do some Tarot decks have scenic illustrations for the Minor Arcana cards and some just suit symbols to count up?

Historical Traditions

Well, we started with playing cards using fancy illustrated trump cards in Renaissance Europe. The only deck that we know of with scenic numbered cards is the Sola Busca Tarot (which may have been an inspiration for Pamela Colman Smith in the Rider Waite Smith deck). In the 18th century, a number of deck designs with simpler symbolic illustrations were popular for fortune-telling, and the Marseille style was one of those.

Learning the Tarot de Marseille

8 Deniers, Universal Tarot of Marseille, © Llewellyn Publications

I learned from Lee Bursten’s Universal Tarot of Marseille, as well as my study of the Lenormand oracle system, to read without the fancy pictures resurrected in the 20th century by Smith. But it’s hard to make the mental shift. I think both methods have merit, the “stripped down” card-relationship reading and the visual/intuitive method of most contemporary decks. There are just so many different ways to connect with the cosmic energies that influence the cards, both inner (Jungian, psychological, archetypal, thematic) and outer (mundane event and emotional energies outside the self). I like them all.

Tips for Interpreting the Pips

One thing that Bursten brought up in looking for symbolism to interpret the minor arcana is that numbers, as well as suits, can give a lot of information to read with when one doesn’t have scenic artwork to provide a guide. I think the trick is to let go of your associations with the scenic pip card pictures and essentially start over mentally with just the simple pictures of staves/coins/swords/cups, then add in just the essentials (numbers, traditional suit associations) and fill in with the actual relationships among the cards, rather than relying on any one card’s message by itself. As with the Lenormand system, make a “sentence” out of the whole reading.

I have to admit now that relying on the RWS story pictures can be a little restrictive, although it does regularize interpretations vs. the way it seems to have been prior to the early 20th century. A. E. Waite himself, in his Key to the Tarot, complains about often contradictory interpretations of the cards by traditional cartomancers. And these were really just playing cards in the 15th and 16th centuries, so who knows where the “traditional” set meanings came from (the Sola Busca)?

I love the challenge of working in both “modes” and plan to honor the tradition of each deck and its philosophy to get the most out of reading with them. I think I will be one of those who will happily read from several decks rather than having just one or two that I really resonate with.

For much more on the history of Tarot, do check out the Tarot History group on Facebook. And let me know in the comments how you feel about Minor Arcana cards with pictures vs. just symbols. I’d love to know!

The Celtic Lenormand Deck—My View

June 11, 2015 By Joanne

Believing as I do that the Lenormand symbols are meant to be taken fairly simply to indicate aspects of daily life and relationships, it was a bit challenging to take on the new thematic versions of the Lenormand deck. I was at first skeptical of the idea of, say, a Celtic theme for cards using a method actually developed in the 18th and 19th centuries in “polite” European society.

But, like all effective divination systems, the Lenormand one still spoke to the universal human concerns that span all places and times: youth, movement or not, messages, conversations, health, inner struggle, relating to others intimately and socially, old age, work, home, institutions, wealth and money, travel, gifts, luck, making choices, death and endings. Sounds about human, yep.

So, since I really admired both the Celtic illustrative art of Will Worthington in his Druidcraft and Wildwood tarot decks, and the fine writing and interpretive skills of Chloë McCracken in her blog articles and videos on both Tarot and Lenormand topics, I thought I’d give the Celtic Lenormand deck a chance.

At first, the plethora of “extra” cards was a bit daunting. I was thankful that I came to this deck after actually learning with the more straightforward traditional decks like the French Cartomancy.

The first and biggest challenge, though, was to deal with the Celtic time and culture, which created some cards that were not instantly recognizable in the Lenormand system, which prides itself on its focus on standard symbols; in this case the Ring and Lilies, which in the traditional system are normally portrayed as…a ring symbol and what we in America at least, call Easter lilies.

In the Celtic Lenormand, though, the ring reflects a slightly more abstract angle on the actual meaning of the card (contracts, hand fasting/engagement), and the ring is a very small part of the overall picture. The Celtic lilies, although true to the area and time, are not instantly recognizable when we’ve been regaled with Easter lilies and the French coat of arms symbolism of the Fleur de Lis.

These kinds of anomalies I had to think about getting used to.

Back to the extra cards, then. Another set of decisions, in this case not about altering my mental picture of the main object of the card, but about allowing multiple facets for the same card. There are often multiple aspects to a Lenormand card (birds can be a couple, doubling, a phone conversation, gossip; there are two trees, the oak for robust health, the holly for the getting old and winter of life). There’s definitely room for splitting the facets into different cards, and I did like some of the Celtic Lenormand’s choices in this regard, particularly for the Birds and the Tree.

Chloë and Will used the Celtic/Pagan threesome of the Maiden, Mother, and Crone to illustrate three ways of thinking about the Birds card. I liked that and kept them all.

I think of the little song birds (maidens) as a traditional lively conversation by phone or multiplying of whatever else is in the draw; the chickens make me think of a coffee klatch of housewives gathered to gossip; and the owls of course make me think of the musings of wise older women in conversation on the porch of an evening.

The Celtic Lenormand also attempted to provide a dual-gender and dual-class option for the man and woman (different classes) and child (boy and girl). In these cases, I made some choices to keep the simplicity of individual cards in Lenormand, and chose only the peasant class for the Man and Woman, and only the girl version of the Child. It was nice being able to choose, and I may change my mind later, but I definitely did not want all of these options in one deck for this system; it just seemed to over-complicate what was designed as a grounded-in-daily-reality reading method using multiple cards in relation to each other.

That’s my take not the Celtic Lenormand. I’m using it for my daily draws now to good effect (you can get your own copy here). I still feel I have so much to learn and remember about this system, but I think the Celtic Lenormand provides an interesting and usable alternative to the 18th-century images we are used to (Chloë provides a well thought out and practical guide on reading with the cards), and as with all of Will Worthington’s artistic work, it is a delight to look upon as well. 🙂

Lenormand Shift—Imbolc Tarot Blog Hop

February 2, 2015 By Joanne

PREVIOUS BLOG | MASTER LIST | NEXT BLOG

Welcome to the first hint that winter won’t last forever, the Imbolc festival and Tarot Blog Hop. I know it can be hard to believe that we are on our way to summer, but even here in the depths of South Texas, where the length of day and night don’t change all that much by season, the days are discernible longer. So, have hope, my friends in more northern climes, as the snow howls all around, summer is still coming, thanks to the inevitability of orbital mechanics and the Earth’s axis tilt. 🙂

When Karen Sealey of the Pure and Blessed Tarot came up with her theme for this blog hop—Oracular Anomalies—I had a bit of at time thinking about which Tarot cards in which decks really “threw me off” and got me to shift my thinking about symbolism, meaning, and reading the cards.

I thought about how the Thoth tarot (Hanged Man on the left) had opened my mind to the complexities of adding Kabbalah and astrology, as well as Egyptian symbolism, to the Tarot, but it wasn’t so much of a stretch from the Rider-Waite-Smith esoteric interpretations I was already used to. And my study of the earlier Marseilles (Hanged Man on the right) and other pre-Golden Dawn decks gave me basic context for the Tarot, but they didn’t really turn me upside down and all around. Nope.

And then I remembered the Lenormand. First it challenges by saying it’s a system for reading and not dependent upon a certain set of cards, although the 36-card decks currently used are really just another modification of playing cards, but in a different direction than Tarot (smaller rather than larger deck, like taking out all the Majors and some of the Minors as well).

Then it says, this really is about the real world and practical problems, and sometimes life trajectories, but here, on planet Earth, not in some woo-woo spiritual universe and not necessarily about your psychological well-being (although you can address psycho-spiritual questions with the system). Wow. Some folks use the Tarot this way as well, but since sometime in the 20th century (often debatable as to exactly when), the Tarot went to a psycho-spiritual place for a lot of readers, and became a counseling tool rather than a fortune-telling tool. Lenormand takes us back to the idea of the cards as messages about what’s coming up next on the querent’s timeline. So, below, in a daily draw (specific questions are better), the message might be that money’s (Fish) flowing into your work, (Moon) for sure (Key) ( I would expect the possibility of a new check for my work).

2012-07-19_len_3card_draw — Fish – Moon – Key from the White Owl Deck

So, the Moon isn’t about emotions? For some readers it is; depends on what set of traditional meanings you choose to use. Totally different from Tarot, which has lost a lot of its contact with traditional fortune-telling meanings (take a look at Arthur Waite’s little white book to get an idea of some of the arbitrary ones), largely I think because it was harder to memorize than to just go with the archetypal meanings in the symbolism (but I still don’t get the Seven of Swords—it’s always complicated).

Although some folks have seen the Lenormand cards as smaller and simpler Tarot cards and have used their normal intuitive card-by-card method to read them, I think they are missing the gift in this system. Because the Lenormand system is made to be linguistic (image = keyword(s)), and read like a phrase or sentence, the usefulness I think is in reading multiple cards together. This method harkens back to the way pre-Golden Dawn historical Tarot decks were read as well, with relationships developed on the visuals of color and position of figures among the cards.

So, I thought to myself: This is neat, this is so different from the image/visual intuitive method currently used in most tarot readings. Once I learned a bit more and got into larger spreads, I thought that this Lenormand method could benefit my tarot reading and bring back to me a focus on relating the cards in a narrative story. Cool!

So here’s my favorite part about this new “anomaly” in my Tarot learning: the 3X3 spread. This is a common monthly or longer forecast used with the Lenormand method, and I’ve been having fun using it to expand my Tarot skills. Here’s what it looks like with tarot cards (Ciro Marchetti’s Gilded Tarot Royale):

The fun and time come in using the actual Lenormand method to combine cards top to bottom, diagonally, and skipping around in diamond formations to create a really deep story for the month ahead. I’ll leave it to you if you want to see the detailed pattern analysis from my original post on this spread, located here. If you’d like to see how it works with actual Lenormand cards, you can check out my post using Ciro Marchetti’s Gilded Reverie Lenormand, here. I also recommend Andy Boroveshengra’s book on Lenormand, available over at Amazon.com, here.

New Year blessings and hope for spring!

To continue on the hop, just follow the signposts below, depending on which direction you came from, to the lovely Louise Underhill’s Priestess Tarot (to the left) or to the equally lovely Arwen Lynch’s Tarot by Arwen (to the right). And if you get lost, you can always regain your bearings by consulting the master list.

PREVIOUS BLOG | MASTER LIST | NEXT BLOG

Lenormand Grand Tableau—The Year to Come

January 9, 2014 By Joanne

Well, I finally got around to using the Lenormand Grand Tableau. I’ve been doing my daily three-card readings and some 3X3 monthly forecasts, but the GT just seemed so large and complex that it might take hours to figure out, so I’ve been procrastinating for months and months on it. You see, the GT uses all 36 cards to create sequences in various directions and relationships to the significator (in my case, the Lady card).

Since it’s the first of the new year, though, I decided to take the plunge using Andy Boroveshengra’s distance method. One can also put together mini-sequences in any of a number of directions, but I really only have time to do one method in this post.

There is so much to look at! Wow! But I must say that the card combinations provide some great insights. And I had this weird experience at the beginning that reinforced the power of the energy and sight these symbols can provide. I initially shuffled with the idea of wanting to know how my prospects for moving house and expanding my business and all would go this year, and I was flummoxed by the first result. My significator (the Lady card), showed up as the last card in the spread, in the bottom right corner! Oh dear!

I went to my lovely Enchanted Lenormand companion book (thank you, Caitlín Matthews!) and found that all the cards being up and to the left of the significator meant that the spread would tell me lovely things about the past but not the future. Drat! She recommended redoing the spread. This is where the weirdness comes in. So, I gathered up the cards, shuffled again, and asked specifically for a forecast of the future, and to put my significator over to the left somewhere so I can see more of what’s ahead. Well, instead of finding my significator Lady somewhere in the middle or left of middle, she showed up as the very first card in the top left corner! Just the opposite of her position in the first draw! Talk about getting what you ask for…:)

So, here’s a pic of the draw from the Enchanted Lenormand Oracle by Caitlin Matthews and drawn by Virginia Lee (Watkins Publishing, London):

The draw by the card numbers:

29 01 30 06 15 14 22 03
17 33 27 10 21 13 02 08
34 36 24 11 07 28 23 18
26 19 09 32 05 12 16 31
35 20 04 25

The colors are for Andy Boroveshengra’s distance method. The red 29 is me, the Lady, the significator. Influence and time are gauged by their proximity to the Lady. Close is the three blue cards, Near is the pink cards, and Far is the green cards, with the black cards being neutral and influenced by the cards closest to them.

For this initial interpretation, I’m going to ignore the houses (the numerical sequence of the cards from 1 to 36 that can provide context for the card that is positioned there) for simplicity.

Close: The Lady (me, 29) is right next to the Cavalier (1), which represents movement, dynamic happenings, automobile stuff. Not actually moving house, but definitely moving in some way very soon and importantly. And this movement theme continues with the Storks (17), creating change for the better below me and then the Key (33) to add certainty to the whole concept of moving, in this case with Storks, perhaps more in the direction of up and better conditions, but we don’t see exactly what those are, except maybe the possibility of getting a new (Storks) vehicle (Cavalier again). Let’s see what’s further out.

Near (influenced by Close): Lilies (30, sex, family ties), Letter (27, news via email or letter); Heart (24, emotional focus/importance); Cross-ing (36, burdens, stuff to struggle through); Fish (34, money, business).

So we have all this cool change potential, so let’s apply it to the Near cards. Pairing Cavalier with Lilies in this context could mean family help in getting the new vehicle. Key + Letter means some kind of news on all this moving stuff is certain to open up something, probably to do with the Heart (24), which would be something close to my heart, important to me (getting out of here!). But it won’t be all fast and easy, because we also have the Key (33) + Cross-ing (36), which indicates some burdens and challenges along the way. Storks (17) + Fish (34) is good, though, because it looks like we’ll find positive changes in finances to help with the move.

Far (least influence): Since there are so many, and Lenormand runs on combinations, let’s take ‘em by natural sequences, vertical for one, and horizontal for the other. I don’t know if this is de rigeur for this spread, to go vertical, but I don’t want to make the mistake of reading cards individually. They have much more power in combination.

–Ship (3) + Coffin (8) + Dog (18) + Sun (31): Overall, looks like my friend or friendship could suffer as a result of travel, but it may come out all right in the end. And this sequence is far away so, there’s the possibility that it won’t be so bad in the end, but it may be some time before we actually travel and get through to our destination.

–Anchor (35) + Garden (20) + House (4) + Ring (25): This is the horizontal four-card sequence at the bottom. Two possibilities, depending on which house we’re talking about—First, if this is about the house we’re leaving, it could take some time to sell, or maybe even that the garden will be the selling point and provide a stable transaction. If it’s about the cool place in the country that we want to have, this will take time to get done but is likely to last when we get to it.

Neutrals/In Between: Closest to nears will take their influence, closest to fars will take theirs.

–Lilies (30) influence Clouds (6) and Bear (15): Looks like family may provide material help (or maybe Mom in particular), to get through questions of affordability for the move.

–Letter (27) influences Scythe (10) and Mountain (21): Some kind of news may come that cuts through any obstacles. That would be cool! Unless we read it as news of dangerous obstacles ahead…

–Heart (24) influences Whip (11) and Snake (7): Uh-oh. This middle bit is where the challenges may be. Could be some argument with an older lady or some conflict and thus delay in getting where we want to go. Not a straight path to that moving stuff out there in the Far cards.

–Cross-ing (36) influences Tower (19): This figures. I’m betting the IRS may throw up a difficult path along the way.

–Fish (34) influences Book (12): And most of my money will still come from book projects, I think. The secret is to keep that going through the upheaval of moving.

–Anchor-Garden-House-Ring influences Bouquet-Moon-Tree-Birds: So, the bit about the house contract (either selling here or buying there) will influence the growth of work and communication. Looks like a positive combination, though.

–Ship influences Fox and Path: May need to look out for kinks in the road once travel begins. Will need to be careful making choices.

–Coffin influences Child and Clover: Diminishment of good luck in a new situation, maybe after the move or on the way.

–Dog influences Man and Mice: A friend will help hubby when he feels drained, or will keep something from being stolen.

–Sun influences Birds and Star: All good here. Look for good news and guidance by phone.

Wow! That’s a lot of stuff! And I haven’t finished yet. Amazing thing, this Lenormand. I’d be very curious as to how you might see some of these sequences given the context, and what you think of the distance method.

30-Day Lenormand Challenge—Q 20

September 4, 2013 By Joanne

Welcome to our walk in the Lenormand Park!

Depepi’s question for number 20: How do you feel when reading the Lenormand? Is it a different feeling compared with you reading the Tarot?

Yep, definitely. It’s going to take awhile, that’s for sure. Some readings come together nicely into phrases describing potential activities to be aware of, and sometimes, it’s hard to parse them because of the linguistic nature of the interpretive tradition. So, I stay in a very intellectual mode with this system compared to the often intuitive/visual thing going on with Tarot.

For example, this morning for my daily “what should I be aware of?” three card draw, I got the Tree, the Lady, and the Dog. The Tree in the “noun” position is what’s throwing me off right now. Am I going to have “friendly” health today? Oh, or maybe this: I need to be loyal to my fitness and healthy eating practices today to avoid problems. Ah-ha! See, it’s all about taking the series of standard meanings and weaving them together into a sentence or phrase advice or description of a situation.

Let me know what tricks you use to zero in on a phrase that makes sense to you.

30-Day Lenormand Challenge—Q 19

August 28, 2013 By Joanne

Depepi’s question this week: Do you read for others? Just for yourself? Why?

Right now I read just for myself because the learning process for Lenormand is pretty in-depth and time-consuming. Not that Tarot is a walk in the park, but I’ve been using that system longer. I will give myself the usual two years, and get more fluent with the reading system and the Grand Tableau before I read for others.

To get an idea of how well the Lenormand can work to help with decision making and practical reading, I’d like to heartily endorse Mary K. Greer this week; she has really got a knack for creating a linguistic and very down-to-earth reading on a situation. She just did a whole series of questions on her daughter’s search for a house to buy with some really amazing and concrete advice results over at the Lenormand Study Group on Facebook.

I will end this post with my daily draw for 28 August and then come back and let you know how it went. I still need to work in my training on the GT here shortly. So many cards, so little time!

Not so great, then. Coffin-Anchor-Lady. Lady is me. Looks like “Stuck in a rut.” Anchor is stability, and Coffin is, like, long-term blah, depression, chronic ick, at least in relation to stuff to the right of it. Think of the coffin as painting the rest of the cards darker, in a way. So, stuck in a rut. I’ll see how that goes today and see about breaking out of it now that I know about it.

Back later with the day’s account. Got book indexing to do today. 🙂

So much for great intentions. Two days later, I remembered to come back and let you all know what happened with the daily draw above. It did end up being a stuck-in-a-rut kind of day where I lost some productivity time on my book index because I had to deal with teaching responsibilities for a course I’m running. Not having time to work on new business prospects and other new stuff has been the story of the week, actually. But fall will be coming soon, and perhaps the wind will change…

30-Day Lenormand Challenge—Qs 16 & 17

August 6, 2013 By Joanne

Welcome from the Star (guidance, nighttime)!

I’m going to address two of Depepi’s Lenormand questions today, largely because I find the first one irrelevant, and it’s my blog, so I get to say why! Then I’ll talk about the second one.

Depepi’s question 16 is: Do you use reversals with the Lenormand? Why?

Or in my case, why not? It’s just totally not designed that way. The imagery is simple and the meanings are not necessarily all tailored visually to the image; they developed from long tradition and repetition. Some of the old Tarot meanings are like that, too, seemingly unrelated to the picture, especially when the Minor Arcana are only pip cards and have no pictures. I still remember Arthur Waite of the RWS deck scratching his head (figuratively) when he commented in is Little White Book on some of the traditional but counter-intuitive meanings he’d found in his research for the cards.

For a look at a historical fortune-telling deck with literal reversals, check out Fennario’s blog on Le Petit Oracle des Dames. A weirdly reversible deck.

Depepi’s question 17: Do you follow any Lenormand school? Which one? Why?

(Welcome from the Stork(s)—promotion, change in circumstance.)

Now there’s a question that’s important to reading Lenormand. Since it’s not so much the cards themselves but the way they’re read (keeping in mind the sometimes arbitrary-seeming meanings), then consistency in reading kind of dictates picking a way to do things, particularly at first.

I note that experienced Lenormand cartomantes will mix traditions to make their own, but they normally start with one. I began by plumbing the vast knowledge, historical and fortune-telling, of Andy Boroveshengra and taking the course he used to have up on the web (he’s had to take it down, but hopefully a book is still forthcoming). He uses a combination of Belgian and French traditions for reading Lenormand, so that’s what I use.

The main differences in “schools” seem to be in setting the primary context meaning of a card. For example, some folks use Fox for work-related things, others Lilies or the Moon. I use the Moon. Usually these choices are because of old associations of these actual images with activities, like the Moon being associated with public recognition and acclaim, so it’s kind of like the way the Wands are associated with career (see the 6 of Wands in particular). Or the Bear, which, in addition to its more common association with security and authority, is associated with the mother in most traditions, but with the father in Germany.

So, I believe that a whole lot hinges on the consistency of the vocabulary and syntax in Lenormand, and the readings will be more accurate if you choose a tradition and stick to it, whichever one it is.

So, what’s your tradition, and why did you choose it?

A Tarot Spread from a Lenormand 3X3

My Take on the Lenormand Method

Lenormand’s Gifts for Tarot