Free Associations

What makes Lenormand powerful is freeform readings. There’s nothing worse than shoehorning Lenormand into small positional spreads, like the french cross. Free flowing is key when interpreting Lenormand.

That’s why I usually avoid small spreads when reading, they feel too constricted. There are two principles that make the fabric of this deck, it’s the method of distance, and a free style of reading, like doing a tableau, with the full deck or a smaller size.

I understand, with modern life and time constraints, we don’t always have the time to do a grand tableau. In that case, when we want a quick response to a question, and at the same time, still having enough details, a small tableau is certainly the way to go.

Another advantage of using a small tableau, is that the important cards for the question will appear, and the not so important cards will not be selected. It tends to put light on what is important to see.

As an example, I asked what is important to know about learning Lenormand?

As a first step, I always try to locate the cards that could be important for the question, as the reading will be anchored around these. Think of these as significators into a grand tableau. What I want to see is the dynamics between them.

Usually, I see the cards as represented by the letter, which is not present in the spread. What seems important is the ring, showing our commitment. The book represents meanings and all the details we learn about the cards, the tower can represent tradition, and the star is showing guidance, intuition.

So, first impression, commitment to the cards is important, as well as some study and following tradition. Intuition also has a role to play. We could see this as the frame of the reading, now let’s look at the details linking these together.

If we look on top of the ring, we have the tower, tradition. The tower itself is flanked by the key and the sun: our commitment should be to tradition, it is key to our success. As I wrote earlier, something that makes the fabric of this deck is the method of distance, that’s’ what tradition is, so it should be taken into consideration when we do readings.

There is a direct  line between the ring and the book, we have the cross and the crossroads. Learning is difficult, but the pain will pass when we see the multiple options that provide us. As with many things, we start small and it takes a long time to learn (child, tree, book), that’s why it’s difficult (cross), but over time (tree), we start to see the beauty and reliability (bouquet, dog) in what we learned (book).

That’s an interesting point, and probably why we see so many newcomers stuck, discouraged. For a deck that seems so easy at first view, the apprenticeship is long, it becomes reliable some day, but a lot are discouraged. The tree usually signifies years when looking at time, and that reflects exactly how learning goes, we feel small for a long time faced with what needs to be assimilated before trusting the deck.

But if we look deeper, the key to our flexibility comes from the solid base we have (key, crossroads, anchor). With time (tower) that allows us to see clearly (sun) all the complexities (snake). As a remark, I see the snake as only small complexities in this spread, the energy of the sun on top of it allows us to put light on it.

So, repetition (ring) over time (tower) is key (key) to the choices (crossroads) we make.
However, I  see a warning with the star surrounded by the snake and the scythe, the danger of being lied to by our intuition. Not guided, intuition can be treacherous. As I explained, the snake is not very dangerous, being placed as it is, so this should not be a big deal.

If we look at the distance, we see the star much closer to the ring than the book. Learning is certainly good to start, but at some point, we must also trust our intuition, and distance ourselves from the book, as long as that intuition is rooted in knowledge.

The cards show evidence for this if we look at the square of 9 around the ring. The tower dominates, as said earlier, it is the key to our success. Other choices can be treacherous, but as long as we look at solid and trusted options, intuition becomes great, as the diagonal shows, it is also key to our success.

I will stop here, as we went through all the cards. If we look more, I’m sure we could find more information, but the most important has been said without being too redundant.

I must say that I’m always amazed by a few random cards and how the cards can reveal so much truth about any subject. Learning is important, apprenticeship can take quite a while, but the result will be a solid and trusted system. And later, our intuition rooted in tradition will make it something wonderful.