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
Lenormand Techniques
2019 Six-Month Look-ahead
I performed a Lenormand Grand Tableau using the Gilded Reverie deck to examine my overall prospects for the first six months of 2019. The period begins, literally, with a new beginning - the Child in the house of Rider. The implications of this card are two-fold: we just relocated our household to a new home … Continue reading 2019 Six-Month Look-ahead
Reading Without Borders
I admit to enjoying the challenge and satisfaction of reading cards in a completely open-ended fashion (not exactly in a vacuum; let's call it a "rarefied atmosphere"). Like Google, the cards "know everything." Approached properly (that is, with sensitivity and diligence), they will invariably speak the truth in one form or another, although not always … Continue reading Reading Without Borders
Dump That Trump? (Volume 2)
It's been a year-and-a-half since my last Grand Tableau reading on the fortunes of United States President Donald Trump, so I decided to perform an update on the subject. This time I did something a little different: there is a technique by which tarot cards are merged with Lenormand cards to provide a kind of "circumstantial background" for the Lenormand … Continue reading Dump That Trump? (Volume 2)
A Tight Rein and a Short Leash
In the Lenormand system of cartomancy, traditional meanings are concise and pragmatic, the epitome of "what you see is what you get." Lenormand cards have been popular in Europe for a couple of centuries but have only recently gained prominence and wider use in the United States. Understandably, its emergence has lured a large number of people … Continue reading A Tight Rein and a Short Leash
Crunch Time
This is the first Grand Tableau I've done in a while. We are coming down to the wire on our planned relocation to be closer to our granddaughter, and I wanted a general indication of how the situation will play out in the next three months. As Significators, I focused on the Gentleman, the Lady, … Continue reading Crunch Time
The Funnel, the Hourglass and the Megaphone
As a visual artist of the graphic persuasion, I'm constantly looking for patterns in card layouts. The Lenormand Grand Tableau is particularly ripe for this pursuit. I've already posted about "ripples on the pond" (concentric circles of cards surrounding the various topic cards that overlap, either reinforcing or cancelling one another); "knighting arrays" (block patterns … Continue reading The Funnel, the Hourglass and the Megaphone
Example #2: Lenormand Deck “Attitude Check”
Ciro Marchetti's Gilded Reverie Lenormand has been my go-to deck since I first started studying that system of divination in 2013, but I've been less enamored of it lately. So I decided that I would bring it to my Lenormand "attitude check" spread to see what that might tell me. The Significator once again turned … Continue reading Example #2: Lenormand Deck “Attitude Check”
Example Reading: New Lenormand Deck “Attitude Check”
The Golden Lenormand Oracle is my newest Lenormand deck, so I thought I would run it through my new "attitude check" spread. This deck has caught some flack from traditionalists (even though it's just a dressed-up Blue Owl) because of its gold-foil "bling" and its much-larger-than-average size. I've read with it a bit and the … Continue reading Example Reading: New Lenormand Deck “Attitude Check”
New Lenormand Deck “Attitude Check”
Because most Lenormand decks are matter-of-fact and don't differ much from their peers in terms of imagery or interpretation, it has always seemed to me that trying to conduct the kind of "new deck interview" that many people do with tarot decks is an exercise in futility. The cards don't respond well to the kind … Continue reading New Lenormand Deck “Attitude Check”
