Lenormand for Advice Readings

Lenormand for advice. According to many people I see online I must not be serious! We hear everywhere that what is wonderful with Lenormand is how descriptive and down to earth it is, Tarot is the tool we normally use to give advice. I beg to differ. We can be descriptive with Tarot and can give advice with Lenormand.

They’re both card based systems. They use different concepts, but they’re both flexible. Of course, when reading most Lenormand books, we only find descriptive and predictive definitions and techniques. Please bear with me for a second. If, instead of looking the Lenormand cards as predictive, what would happen if we shift our perspective and see them as actions and problems to overcome? The Fox would not be something wrong anymore, but would tell us to act like a fox, the Cross would not be about pain anymore, but telling us to have faith. If we simply use this new perspective, we’re getting into a new realm, a realm where we give advice.

As we have seen in the previous article, Daniel was left with a lot of problems concerning his marriage. This is what I wrote to resume the situation “Distance and isolation have created a wall between them, with a lack of communication. Instead of a stable home life for Daniel, the recent past shows that that distance and loneliness have been the number one enemy to the mariage, and the root of all problems.”

This said, what kind of advice could we give Daniel? Telling him to just reestablishing some form of communication or even coming back closer together seems obvious. But how well would it be received? How practical is it? Is it even feasible straight away? As we’ve seen, there are problems to solve, he might also have someone on the side, she might suspect, and she might also move on her own. 

At the base of every reading, we find tension, a conflict. Be it about love, work, money, or anything else, when someone comes for a consultation, it is usually to resolve a conflict. For these, I like to use a spread of 13 cards. The first time I’ve seen it used was by Camelia Elias, she calls it the council of 13. The same spread was also described by Dawn Jackson, on her now defunct hedgewytchery web site. She called it the coven. From what I can find, this particular spread goes back to Etteilla, known then as the great star.

The steps to read it are to start with the central card and treat it as a focal point, the central piece around what everything else revolves. Next, we read the inner and outer crosses, and later the diagonals. What is interesting, in addition, is to look at the opposites sides, left right and top bottom, and compare them in a way where we try to resolve conflicts and differences. 

By reading this spread, first as descriptive, then shifting to advice, we can gain a lot of useful information on what to do, or not.

Coming back to Daniel, what kind of advice can we give him in order to improve the relationship with his wife? What should he work on?

First, if we look at the suites, we have 4 spades, 3 hearts, 4 clubs, and 2 diamonds. We have about a 50-50 proportion between on one side, the possibility of improving the domestic life, security and comfort, and on the other side difficulties and day to day twists of life. Immediately we see that there could be quite a few roadblocks to solve if he wants his situation to improve.

Right away, as the focal point, we have the Mountain, an inimical situation and quite a few obstacles that will need to be worked on. The Mountain usually appears to show major difficulties, so we immediately expect that an important amount of work will be necessary to overcome all the burdens. As advice, we can add that these obstacles have to be overcome, he has to move to the other side of that mountain, or said otherwise to establish bridges between his wife and himself.

The inner cross shows a lack of clarity, problems and stress over waning visits and communication between them. The Clouds show that some things should be clarified, Mice show that the different problems should be worked on one after the other, diligently. The Rider shows that seeing each other would certainly overcome some obstacles and would allow to clarify many points, allow them to communicate better. Now, of course, if we look at the cards between this wife, represented by the Woman, and the Rider, we have the Clouds and the Mountain, the way is paved with obstacles and difficulties, this will necessitate some serious efforts.

If we look at the outer cross, we see that his wife has certainly the energy and optimism to implement the changes necessary to stabilize the situation. This is an interesting point. If we compare the inner and outer cross, we see immediately that most of the work to be done to improve the situation has to be done by Daniel, his wife is ready to react positively, she’ll do what’s needed to improve their lot.

Looking at the diagonals, we can see that the main obstacle to long term bliss in their union is how to strategize the way they should to act, bury the hatchet and replace that mountain with a real guidance of where they want to be. It is also interesting to note that all the clubs, the suite of difficulties in Lenormand, surround the Mountain. As if that mountain, these obstacles, were created by wrongness in their actions, lack of clarity and stress that resulted in deterioration.

If we look at the left and right sides, we see that Daniel’s wife is ready for finding a path to long term satisfaction and direction for the couple, even if not everything is clear at this point, but Daniel should quickly transition and put into light some form of strategy to end what was perceived as wrong. There is a sense of urgency for him in finding a solution.

Looking at top and bottom, long term changes are necessary to bury the stress under which is their union, and that would require a clear strategy on how to stabilize things, communication seems key.