AUTHOR’S NOTE: Here is a third adaptation of Benebell Wen’s Lo Shu Square, this time applied loosely to her feng shui tarot model. I’ve created my own theme and position meanings for this purpose and did not adopt her spread design. (See her book Holistic Tarot for background details.) Another inspiration was the Lenormand 9-card “box.”

The central “Core Identity” card can be selected intentionally or randomly and should be read as the self-awareness hub of the four intersecting horizontal, vertical and diagonal runs. The peripheral cards can be interpreted as four separate horizontal and vertical lines as well as being connected via the :Lenormand “knighting” technique in eight different patterns to see how well they play together in the subject’s internal and external affairs.

Elemental Dignities can be examined for the three cards in all eight linear series to assess the potency of the “principal” (middle) card in each case. Reversals may be used for additional nuance but aren’t essential to the archetypal analysis

In the aggregate, these considerations provide a comprehensive overview of an individual’s access to three discrete kinds of power in three different ranges. Other than the historical features, there is no “temporal” (i.e. past/present/future) component in this layout.

I’ve included an example reading to show how this matrix can be approached in practice. For illustration purposes I chose not to allow reversals in the pull. All cards were drawn randomly.

For this reading I asked the question (a bit redundantly after decades of astrological navel-gazing) “Who am I really?” Yikes, look at all those nasty Swords! I think they’re getting back at me for writing that essay on “bad cards.”

For your information, I began by dealing the central “Core Identity” card (I wish I hadn’t) followed by the “cross” array, horizontal first and then vertical. Finally, I finished populating the peripheral horizontals, top row and then bottom row. I’ve numbered the cards for sequential clarity, but you can pull them in any order you prefer, and you can also substitute other position titles for a different overarching focus. I’m giving the array the “once-over-lightly” treatment rather than a full analysis.

The “Legacy Power” series is nice enough, but after that it pretty much goes downhill from an elemental perspective. With only one exception (8 of Swords and Princess of Disks), the knighting arrays hang together far more agreeably than the linear runs, particularly the links joining the Earth and Water cards and those connecting the Fire and Air cards.

Although my astrological profile is almost all Water and Earth, I’ve been aware that there is a good deal of mental acuity that doesn’t make much of an appearance in the horoscope. I’m mainly a classical astrologer now, so I haven’t been including the “generational” influences of Pluto in Leo, Neptune in Libra and Uranus in Gemini at the personal level of “temperaments and humours,” but this reading makes me think I need to look more closely at the latter. Anyone who has felt the sting of my curmudgeonly broadsides aimed at the online tarot community would probably concur. Uranus definitely had a lot to do with my teenage interest in Ayn Rand’s “Objectivist” philosophy, my involvement in astrology and my attraction to Mensa in my early twenties, although I let my membership in that organization lapse a long time ago.

It looks like the 9 of Swords (“Cruelty,” Mars in Gemini) has picked up the crusade now, with the Ace of Swords as my “calling.” At least the unfriendly dignity between the Ace of Swords and the Princess of Disks takes some of the savagery out of the Nine without unduly blunting its edge, while the rest of the axial dignities are all neutral and therefore have no effect. Years ago in my old hometown we were experiencing a major political upheaval over an attempt to site a regional shopping mall there, and my pointed editorials were at the forefront of the newspaper campaign against it. One of my fellow activists said “Remind me never to get into an argument with you.” I guess, huh? “Terrible swift sword,” indeed . . .