I know a woman who is forever agonizing over how to get a better job but is somehow never able to "pull the trigger" on actually getting one. Something always seems to stand in her way. I saw this as a perfect opportunity to test my "Rocky Road" Self-Betterment spread. I used the Gilded Reverie … Continue reading A “Rocky Road” Example Reading
Lenormand
The Rana George Lenormand “Attitude Check”
Not long ago I bought the Rana George Lenormand deck. I had taken it off my wish-list as being of only middling interest, but you know what happens when commercial availability and consumer vulnerability converge. Although its artwork is nowhere near as dazzling as Ciro Marchetti's Gilded Reverie Lenormand, I place it in the same … Continue reading The Rana George Lenormand “Attitude Check”
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
“Hear All About It” – Lenormand “News” Cards
I have always understood that the Rider is the primary "news-bearer" among the Lenormand cards. However, in reading back through some of my published material, I came across a couple of distinctions. The Rider often represents news that is delivered in person, while the Letter indicates receipt of a written missive, whether through the post … Continue reading “Hear All About It” – Lenormand “News” Cards
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
“Look, Ma . . . No Hands!” (A Five-Card Experiment)
I decided to put my somewhat feeble line reading skills to a test in two different ways, asking the same question of two decks and using a pre-positioned topic card in one of the spreads. I used the Blue Owl for the unstructured line and the Piatnik for the pre-arranged one. The question was "What is … Continue reading “Look, Ma . . . No Hands!” (A Five-Card Experiment)
The Literalist
I've recently been involved in a debate about the necessity - or even the desirability - of large spreads. In tarot, I seldom use spreads smaller than five cards, and seven to ten cards is closer to my ideal (the Celtic Cross has been my mainstay for decades). In Lenormand, I prefer the Grand Tableau over … Continue reading The Literalist
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
Personalizing the Grand Tableau Houses
There is a technique in Lenromand reading - I believe it's a modern innovation but I could be wrong - known as "movable houses" (one wag has called them "mobile homes) which extends the house system native to the Grand Tableau to smaller spreads. Rather than having a fixed series of houses running from the Rider to … Continue reading Personalizing the Grand Tableau Houses
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”
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 