In working with my "Knights' Crossing" spread, I realized that it would be useful to have a visual cue-card (or "cheat-sheet") for my clients to choose which of the topic cards is the best fit for their current circumstances. I decided to select the keyword parameters for those cards that are most likely to exhibit … Continue reading A Lenormand Topic-Card “Cheat-Sheet”
Lenormand – General
A Lenormand Deck Saga
As my Lenormand deck collection continues to grow along with my experience, I thought it would be interesting to recap my journey so far. My first deck was Ciro Marchetti's Gilded Reverie (bottom row, second from right), which I used for around a year before buying Laura Tuan's large-format Lenormand Oracle and then the poker-sized … Continue reading A Lenormand Deck Saga
When Enough May Still Be Too Much
About half the time, I'm struck by a clever title for a new post and then have to go hunting for a topic to wrap it around. You can probably spot them with little difficulty, although you may have to think about a few. Here I want to talk about the trend of modern writers … Continue reading When Enough May Still Be Too Much
Turn of the Tide
It's probably obvious that I really love the tarot. It's been a faithful companion on my life's journey since I first discovered it around 1970; it brings out my contemplative side in the same way that philosophy does, thanks mainly to the writing of Aleister Crowley, whom I admire as a thinker and scholar if … Continue reading Turn of the Tide
Back to the Basics
Similar to the tarot, which has Arthur Edward Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot as the first - if not necessarily the best - gateway to the most popular style of modern tarot reading, the Lenormand cards have their watershed moment in the Philippe Lenormand Sheet, a single page of keyword meanings and interpretive guidance … Continue reading Back to the Basics
Lenormand Crossovers: Breaking the Chain
For the tarot enthusiast aspiring to master Lenormand reading, there are several cards common to both systems that stubbornly resist shedding their tarot trappings during the transition. Interestingly, they all appear in sequence in the tarot: the Tower (XVI), the Star (XVII), the Moon (XVIII) and the Sun. (XIX). Since their Lenormand counterparts, at least by title, … Continue reading Lenormand Crossovers: Breaking the Chain
Grand Tableau a la Carte
The conventional wisdom among Lenormand mentors who coach beginners in the art of reading is that, after learning the card meanings and memorizing their numbered positions in the 36-card series, neophytes should start their practice with three-card lines, move on to five and seven card draws, then to the nine-card square, and finally to the Grand Tableau, … Continue reading Grand Tableau a la Carte
When “Bad Is Bad”
Although I'm a newly-minted traditionalist in the Lenormand system of divination, having been involved only since 2012, it strikes me that the tradition has been undergoing a gradual degenerative decline (or maybe an insidious "dilution" is a more apt word for it) that probably isn't entirely reversible. Converts from the more fluid/squishy realm of tarot wander in and set about rearranging … Continue reading When “Bad Is Bad”
Lenormand Lost & Found
I have been working with the “location” guidance in astrologer John Frawley's Horary Textbook to come up with similar attributes for the cards of the Lenormand deck to be used in “lost object” readings. The following ideas are provisional and subject to change as I develop them further; because this is unmapped territory, in many cases I'm going with … Continue reading Lenormand Lost & Found
A Harmony of Parts
Near the end of his epic performance of "Alice's Restaurant," folk singer Arlo Guthrie exhorts the audience to sing "with four part harmony and feeling." That sense of harmony is part-and-parcel of what it takes to read the Lenormand Grand Tableau with sensitivity and precision. Unlike the tarot cards, the Lenormand cards don't carry an … Continue reading A Harmony of Parts
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 