LENORMAND GRAND TABLEAU LESSON

On occasion I publish here examples of lessons that I conduct with students on one-on-one basis. The latest lesson of this kind was one on the Marseille cards. People have not only found it useful, but have also shared it generously. Thank you.

Today I want to share an example of a lesson where I give feedback on a reading of a grand tableau with the Lenormand cards. Although this student wishes to remain anonymous, I thank her for giving me permission to make our lesson public.

Hopefully the readers here can learn something about some of the pitfalls when reading a grand tableau, what to avoid, and the importance of formulating a precise question and the context for it.

Understanding this post presupposes some knowledge of the Lenormand cards. In this lesson I only instrumentally make reference to my method of reading the grand tableau. For an idea of how I myself approach reading the grand tableau, I refer you to my popular method text: The Happy Marriage.

The method

As in my previous example, what I’m about to share is what I delivered to the student.

The lesson is based on the student’s own reading of her cards, followed by my feedback. Here, however, I’m using my own cards for non-identification – Ryan Edwards’ beautiful gift for me, the prototype for his Maybe Lenormand, now available from the US Games.

For the sake of clarity and coherence, first I give you the student’s text as it appears in its entirety, and as a reading of the grand tableau cast by herself. Then I give you my feedback based on how I break down her text.

As this was a reading about relationships, the main significators are the Woman (the student), the Man (her lover), and the Snake (the other woman, or her lover’s lover).

Regarding the seeming ‘demolishing’ of the student’s text, let’s just say that one of the assumptions for all my lessons is this: No pain, no gain.

If it’s not already apparent, however, this lesson is based entirely on my aim to help the student in the most sincere way, rather than merely slaughter her interpretation. I practice compassion as truth not compassion as validation.

Enjoy this lesson, for all its value and generous vulnerability.

The cards

The student’s reading

A new relationship started with someone who was a friend, there was duplicity in this situation because of a commitment elsewhere. It brought him a lot of stress. You are in between two people. There is a block that you have no control over because of the nature of the situation. Extremely stressful. With this person there was a fear of financial issues. Ending it also brought stress to the other party. The ending was good for financial reasons.

In front of you is the other female party – karma? She is out in the public. The one who he is publicly with. Does he tell her about me or does she find out? A long term relationship ends. His or ours? It is unclear but one of them ends soon.

There is a new beginning for you with financial security. An ending is part of this. There was someone else who you were involved with who was blocked because of financial/security/stability. He was depressed and there was abuse around him. You don’t know whether it happened to him or he had something he was hiding. Possibly as it is something that comes with who he is. You don’t know what happened in this situation.

You are confused about your heart because you do not know where to live. Success with work. You have the solution as a mature way of dealing with it now. You are holding strong and karmically, which is great for your finances.

Right know you are at a crossroads and need to make a decision. You have the right answer. There is success for you in the unknown and wisdom about a man (ending things). Work is very strong. There is security in stability and you are very lucky. There is some confusion about pain (old pain), and your happiness with ending things to do with the other woman, plus your heart.

Love is stuck between being a secret and out in the public. You don’t have any control over his decision to bring you into the light and talk about it, but you have taken some control over not being given that and have risen above being kept a secret. An ending comes with this. Ends a new beginning.

She is all about work and her public name. For her, he is her stability. She is successful and very studious. Across traditionally – (false friend/manipulative person in your past/a woman you know, illness. Pregnancy/birth /recovery. Permanent change/end of a relationship. Broken agreement separation.

Book = Trip is a dream come true reaching an agreement. Successful. 4 days weeks months a relationship ends brings stress. Good communication at home. Long term relationship lucky for me. Not the other woman.

The feedback

A new relationship started with someone who was a friend, there was duplicity in this situation because of a commitment elsewhere. It brought him a lot of stress.

So far so good. But you read particular events because you know the story and how it developed, for instance, the fact that the relationship with you brought the man a lot of stress. I can see why you say that, because the Man has the Cross behind him, but if I were to read this for someone I didn’t know, I’d read it the cold way, which is to say, with my eye on what evidence in the cards I find for what I say. In this case here, I’d see the Cross as a manifestation of trouble. That is to say, the Man comes into this picture, the grand tableau, from the position of having had troubles. I wouldn’t say stress, because I wouldn’t know that. Besides, there aren’t any cards next to him to testify to that. We have the Man engage in a knighting move to the card of the Mouse. We might think of stress if we knew the context before hand, but the Mouse can just as well refer to loss.

In this context here, the reading would have been more correct if you had said that the Man has indirectly been experiencing the loss of you. So the Mouse card does not modify the Man card giving us the idea of stress, but rather loss; stress and loss are two completely different things.

You are in between two people. There is a block that you have no control over because of the nature of the situation. Extremely stressful.

Actually, we don’t quite know that you’re in between two people, as this is not apparent from the position of the cards. What is more fair to say, by following the intersecting line between the Woman and the Man, is that the two meet in the Mountain. This suggests that not only is this relationship insurmountable, but it creates animosity too. Climbing a tall mountain requires some considerable mental stability and training. If you have neither, you end up hating the effort. Hence the notion that the Mountain represents ‘the enemy,’ if we stick to the suggested meaning in the Game of Hope instruction booklet.

Now, given the Snake flanking the Woman to the right, for the future, we can infer that you’re the one suffering from having to stumble over the ‘other woman,’ and that’s too bad for you. But where he is concerned, the deal is clear. He sees the relationship with you a stumbling block – as he literally walks into the mountain, where the two of you meet. This doesn’t apply to the other woman, as he’s in conversation with the Snake. He knights to the Snake, meeting her in the Birds. He even seems to talk to her over the Mountain.

At this point we don’t know what the conversation with the Snake is all about, but we can guess, given the Mountain in front of the Man. This tells me very concretely that he actually has a hard time communicating. Either with you, the Mountain is on top of your head, or with the Snake, though it looks like she gets the message, whatever that is, over the Mountain, while all you get is a block in your face, as it were.

With this person there was a fear of financial issues.

You’ve lost me here. How can we see this Man’s financial situation? The money card, the Fish, is as far away from him as it could be. I’m clueless. You may know this, as this pertains to your situation, but we certainly don’t know this from the cards. If you were to read this for another person, you would have to be able to account for where you get your information from: what cards demonstrate what you postulate?

Ending it also brought stress to the other party. The ending was good for financial reasons.

Here you’re definitely mixing the narratives: one of love and one of money. What’s the link between them? There’s a lot of implicit knowledge you draw on, which is fine, but it wouldn’t wash, if you read this for another person you don’t know much about.

In front of you is the other female party – karma? She is out in the public. The one who he is publicly with.

The card for the public is the Garden. The Snake’s relation to the Garden is via the Letter. But it’s not sure that this Letter, or written message, has much to do with you. If anything, the Letter ‘crowns’ the Snake. Now, if there’s a possibility to read what you suggest, namely that the Snake finds out about you via the public network that the Man is heading towards (Garden in his diagonal immediate future line, which is your present), then it is so only because the Man knights to the Letter. So there’s an indirect attempt here, perhaps, to say that the Man may desire to let the Snake find out about you via his social relations, but this would be a bit of a stretch.

Does he tell her about me or does she find out? A long term relationship ends. His or ours? It is unclear but one of them ends soon.

I’m a bit lost again. Do you say this because of the Scythe in your line? Your line is quite interesting, as we have the Woman, you, move towards the Snake, and it’s clear that you will do something drastic to change the situation of her sitting on the long-term relationship, but we don’t really know how this will turn out.

If we go back to assessing the positions of the cards for you, it is clear that this Man is in your past. At the same time, from his perspective, he moves right into you, and some nice harmony in the domestic space (his diagonal furthest future line). But that is his perspective, not yours. Yet you keep talking about it, as if this tableau was a reading for him alone, not for yourself. His perspective means nothing. Remember that.

This is the point when we like a very clear question from you in order to determine according to whom we this tableau. Are we reading for your story or for his story? Without a clear question, the Lenormand grand tableau is useless.

There is a new beginning for you with financial security. An ending is part of this. There was someone else who you were involved with who was blocked because of financial/security stability. He was depressed and there was abuse around him. You don’t know whether it happened to him or he had something he was hiding. Possibly as it is something that comes with who he is. You don’t know what happened in this situation.

At this point you have gone astray. Again, you’re mixing the narratives and thus lose focus. What are you talking about? Love or money? And what card exactly represents this other Man? Usually the Rider is the ‘other man,’ but we’re a bit off topic here.

Now, we can easily talk about love and money in a grand tableau, but if that is what we want to know, then we’d have to designate clear significators in place before we proceed with the dealing of the cards on the table.

We can then follow the pedestrian way of methodically unwrapping the narrative by tracing the intersecting lines between these significators. If the significators are not clearly designated, then sooner or later you drown in the tableau, as you’ll want to read everything and nothing in it. This leads to grand imprecision.

You are confused about your heart because you do not know where to live. Success with work.

As your significator meets the Heart in the Stork, I can see that you have a loving heart, as the Queen of Hearts, and with the Stork we can talk about a shifting character, but how we go from there to success at work is not at all clear to me.

You have the solution as a mature way of dealing with it now. You are holding strong and karmically, which is great for your finances.

Actually this one is way off. By the same token of following where you meet with certain key cards – here the solution card, insofar as you meet the Key in the Scythe – I’d say that you don’t have the solution at all. It’s quite dead, this one.

Right know you are at a crossroads and need to make a decision. You have the right answer.

No. The Crossroads is followed by the Moon, the House, and the Clouds, as the last card in the tableau. The Moon suggests that what you see is not what you get. Consequently, you lack clarity. The Clouds card testifies to this. Being the last card in the ‘fate’ row, the string of cards that exceeds the past/present/future relations, the Clouds card becomes emblematic of how you feel, and about how this situation destabilized you mentally.

There is success for you in the unknown and wisdom about a man (ending things). Work is very strong. Security in stability and you’re very lucky. There is some confusion about pain (old pain), and your happiness with ending things to do with the other woman, plus your heart. Love is stuck between being a secret and out in the public. You don’t have any control over his decision to bring you into the light and talk about it but you have taken some control over not being given that and have risen above being kept a secret. An ending comes with this. Ends a new beginning. She is all about work and her public name. For her, he is her stability she is successful and very studious. Across traditionally – (false friend/manipulative person in your past /a woman you know, illness. Pregnancy/birth/recovery. Permanent change/end of a relationship. Broken agreement separation. Book = Trip is a dream come true reaching an agreement. Successful. In four days, weeks, or months a relationship ends and it brings stress. Good communication at home. Long term relationship, lucky for me. Not the other woman.

Again, in this final paragraph I can see where some of the statements come from, but none of it makes much sense, as we don’t find evidence for any of these statements in the cards themselves and their positions. This paragraph also reads more like notes, random statements that you put on the table, statements that come from your experience of wishful thinking.

The major trouble here is the fact that you don’t stay on track. You shift between focusing now on love, now on you and your work and money, and now on the other woman. The reason why this reading fails, then, is because of agency. Who is doing what to whom, and for what purpose exactly? As a fragmentary, cautionary story, this reading here has some value, but for a formal reading, from which we want to derive a clear course of action, your interpretation not only lacks direction, but it is also quite incomprehensible.

Try again, and remember to be very specific with your question and your significators for the issues that interest you. If you don’t ask a specific question about love, money, work, or health, and the interplay between them, then don’t bring these topics into your reading. Don’t ask for one thing, and then, just because you have cards to represent these other concerns you shift your focus. Focusing on irrelevant cards muddles the waters. Calibrate your reading by understanding what is at stake in what you’re asking.

♠

For more such practice with the cards:

• Join the Read like the Devil Club.
• Visit also Aradia Academy and sign up for the newsletter that will keep you informed on upcoming courses and cartomantic activities. Note the Off the Shelf offering that also includes free resources.
• Check out my books on the philosophy and practice of divination at EyeCorner Press.
• Get a reading. When I perform a reading, I also teach, simply because I can’t help myself, so you will be twice served.