I learned something valuable about the oblique influence of knighting in a recent Grand Tableau reading. The male querent was interested in finding a new job, so I asked him if he wanted a specific career reading or a full “life-reading.” He said he wanted “life.” (I asked him “Life without parole? You’re already married, right?” We know each other well. ) My approach was to focus on the job-related aspects of the spread with additional areas of life blended in so we could look at other contributing factors.

The Significator’s row began with Fish + Moon + Man, showing that he presently has a job that pays well and in which he is highly regarded. But the Man was followed by the Coffin, indicating that he is pretty much dead-ended as far as advancement. The Coffin was followed by the Letter, which suggests that he would be on the right track in opening a formal inquiry with his present employer regarding his future with the organization.

But this is mainly validation and not especially revealing. What we missed completely was the hidden significance of the Man knighting to the Dog (with the Dog in the “house” of the Man). I treat knighting as neither positive nor negative, just as additional insight that is “off the main stem” of the narrative; the cards pulled provide specific inflection. We explored it as the possible involvement of a friend in getting him a new position (the Dog also knighted to the Letter in the Significator’s row, implying that the recipient of his communication could be someone higher up in his current company who is in a decision-making capacity). But it had darker implications.

As an online mentor has said to me, Lenormand iconography is very literal. Man knighting to Dog under the influence of the Coffin subtly intimated that the Man and his dog would reach a parting of the ways, and it died about a week later*. (This was not entirely unexpected and only a matter of time since the old dog had become increasingly challenged, as reflected in Dog knighting to Cross.) The Man was literally “staring death – or at least some kind of definite ending – in the face” and the Dog entered the picture through knighting; this is not something you can just blurt out to a person even if you do see it. The “knighting pattern” passed from the Dog through the Ship (which Andy Boroveshengra says can stand for “loss and bereavement” as well as a “passage”), then through the Coffin and on to the Man. Remarkable!

Because the focus of the reading was largely on career matters, the incidental sidelights affecting other unrelated areas of life were somewhat neglected. The moral of the story is “It pays not to get too fixated on a single line of inquiry with the GT.”

*I want to thank a fellow Lenormand reader who was privy to the session for pointing this out to me.