by Marcus Katz
Event: election, referendum, stock market crash.
11. The Rod/Whip: Argument, sorrow, disagreement.
Influence: Strife, conflict, anger, back-biting.
Agent: Jealous person, nasty person, peevish person.
Event: Workplace, marriage/relationship, divorce; Whip/Tower/ring = commitment to institution brings strife; or Whip/mice = loss of strife, however with the combination of whip/rider/mice/heart = love or union loss brings strife.
12. The Birds/Owls: Brief difficulties.
Influence: chatter, communication.
Agent: telephone call, skype call.
Event: Group discussion, friends talking at a bar, conference call, meeting/discussion, people gossiping., birds/moon = recognition verbally; in that people are talking about something or somebody. Birds/key = unlocking communication.
13. The Child/Little Girl: Good friends.
Influence: childlike behaviour, innocence, authenticity, new enthusiasm.
Agent: Child or childlike person.
Event: Birth of new idea, newcomer (with Rider).
14. The Fox: A deceiver or trickster.
Influence: Ambition, completion, greed.
Agent: Rival, for example somebody who is after your job.
Event: Successful plan, job or project success, promotion opportunity. Fox/fish = money work, work you do will bring money. Fox/ring = work commitment, Fox/book = knowledge work; this is as simple as working to get educated, going to college.
15. The Bear: Happiness, but warning about the jealousy of others.
Influence: authority, legality, strength.
Agent: Strong male figure, boss, bank manager, authority figure.
Event: Meeting with your financial advisor or bank manager. Bear/letter = written advice, perhaps a legal letter. Bear/mountain = obstacle authority figure; somebody is going to stop you getting your own way.
16. The Stars: Extended luck.
Influence: Guidance, advice, clear direction is brought to the situation.
Agent: Handbook, google, navigation, satnav, map.
Event: Trip, consultation with an astrologer, lawyer, accountant. Stars/woman; this is wise woman.
17. The Stork: Change of residence.
Influence: Return, habit, displacement.
Agent: Someone from the past returns.
Event: A repeating event.
18. The Dog: Faithful friend.
Influence: Loyalty.
Agent: A close friend.
Event: Trustworthy advice.
19. The Tower: Healthy old age.
Influence: Bureaucracy, organisation, control.
Agent: A social worker, bureaucrat, official.
Event: Authorisation, passage.
20. The Garden: Good friends.
Influence: Social connections.
Agent: Many people, connections, a networker.
Event: Social event.
21. The Mountain: An enemy in your way.
Influence: Obstacle, detour.
Agent: Someone in your way.
Event: A problem, a challenge.
22. The Ways: Misfortune.
Influence: Gives freedom, choice, opportunities ahead, opens the situation.
Agent: Someone asks for a decision or forces a choice.
Event: Things come to a head and cannot go forwards in the same way.
23. The Mice: Theft, loss.
Influence: A reducing of things, a nibbling away, biting into the situation.
Agent: Others are being left alone too much and taking to their own devices.
Event: Something, even if just your time, is taken from you in small ways.
24. The Heart: Union, bliss, harmony.
Influence: Love, good feelings and blessings, strong emotion is brought to the situation.
Agent: Someone who cares about you, literally has your best interests at heart.
Event: A declaration of love, support or trust.
25. The Ring: Good marriage.
Influence: Union, agreement.
Agent: Someone who agrees with you, someone close.
Event: Contract, agreement, marriage.
26. The Book: A secret.
Influence: Secrecy, knowledge.
Agent: An expert.
Event: Knowledge, a secret revealed (with Key), new information (with Rider).
27. The Letter: Written news.
Influence: Recorded information, archive.
Agent: Someone who remembers.
Event: Written communication, email, text, etc.
28. The Gentleman: A man.
Influence: Masculine.
Agent: A Man.
Event: A male partner.
29. The Lady: A woman.
Influence: Feminine.
Agent: A woman.
Event: A female partner.
30. The Lily: Virtue, good living.
Influence: Time, age, sexuality, purity.
Agent: An older person.
Event: A good deed, a virtuous action.
31. The Sun: Happiness, encouragement of growth.
Influence: Expansion, growth, success.
Agent: An optimist, someone who has big plans.
Event: Success, good luck, a big opportunity to grow.
32. The Moon: Honour.
Influence: Recognition.
Agent: Someone with influence.
Event: Promotion, announcement, award.
33. The Key: Success.
Influence: Unlocking, opening, revealing.
Agent: Someone with influence, a decision-maker or deal-maker.
Event: A revelation or opportunity, success of a plan.
34. The Fish: Fortune.
Influence: Acquisition of resources, finances.
Agent: A wealthy person (in time, resource or actual money).
Event: The availability of money.
35. The Anchor: Faith, success in business and love.
Influence: Long-term, stability.
Agent: A long-standing member of a group, etc.
Event: Setting a long-term plan in motion.
36. The Cross: Misfortune and suffering.
Influence: Hardship, discomfort, difficulty.
Agent: A depressing or negative person, complainer, trouble-maker.
Event: An adverse change in circumstances.
Lenormand Oracular Sentence
We can now use these keywords within those aspects of the cards to create an oracular sentence or oracular construct, as we term it. The straightforward grammar of these three aspects is that “an event is caused by an agent, bringing the influence of the third card to the situation.”
We can write this out in the construct:
When [Event] By [Agent] It Will Bring [Influence].
We can see that this works as well when reading “right to left” as Influence acts on Agent to cause Event.
We always place the cards into context with a question in Lenormand, which is very different than tarot in this respect. In Lenormand, the cards act as symbols or emblems rather than in tarot where the cards are complex metaphors, having multiple symbols on one card.
This construct, with the context of the question, allows us to perform a simple three-card reading with Lenormand that respects the way of reading larger layouts and helps build proficiency in the method. We will start with three-card readings but recommend that the reader quickly moves to nine- and thirty-six-card layouts even if you only choose to read sections of the larger layout. In our experience, it is easier in the long run to start with the full “grand tableaux” of thirty-six cards and work backwards with Lenormand.
Having said that, here we provid
e the shortcut three-card method to get you up and running quickly.
We will ask the cards as an example, “What will happen if we request a delay to the project?”
We shuffle our thirty-six cards and receive:
Heart + Mouse + Ways.
When [Heart/Event] by [Mice/Agent] it will bring [Ways/Influence].
“When there is a declaration of trust, by the people who have not been trusted, it will bring new opportunities ahead.”
We should consult and involve in the project anyone who has felt excluded from it, explain the reasons for wanting the delay, and this might even bring new ideas and plans for the future.
We can now turn this into a more direct oracular, predictive or fortune-telling script by simply putting it into the future tense like so:
There will be [Event] by [Agent] Bringing [Influence].
If we received the cards:
14 + 17 +16
Fox + Stork + Stars
“There will be a successful job opportunity through/by a person returning to a place they have been before which will bring clear guidance.”
Another example would be:
“How should we launch the project to make the most of the newly changed situation?”
14 + 2 + 7
Fox + Clover + Snake
“There will be project success by connecting with the right person through networking, but be warned that this may bring betrayal at a later date.”
So, we should look to capitalise on the connections, and then go it alone as soon as possible, or have a cast-iron contract or loyalty agreement, perhaps. Once we had made that change, we could then consult the cards again to check that we had removed or mitigated against that risk.
We will now travel along the timeline and recover questions from across time to show how the Lenormand, using the keywords given throughout this chapter, can resolve any situation no matter the era, culture, or language.
Lenormand Answers to Questions Through the Ages
I am twenty-three, engaged to a young man I love very much but he is very mean. He hasn’t even brought me a ring. He lost both parents in the war and he says he is saving to buy our own house as he is sick of lodgings. But is it true that mean men make jealous husbands? 116
If we were to rephrase this in a contemporary manner, perhaps what she is asking is, “Am I with the right man and should I marry a man like this? Is he worth marrying or should I cut my losses?”
We perform a simple three-card spread for the question and receive:
Lily (30) + House (4) + Letter (27)
The first card here is the Letter, and as we see in the Square of Seven in our cartomancy chapters, the cards can influence one another from left to right, or right to left, depending on how you choose to read.
The Letter card corresponds to “written communication” and suggests that until the man about whom we are asking the question (therefore the question’s subject) has a contract in his hand securing a house, he will not be content.
The House is literally the house that he wants to buy, whereas the Lily is about age and retirement—long-term security. So, there is a letter about a house and a long-term plan.
The answer to the question is that he is only interested in his security and not much interested in romance, as the woman suspects. This does not look as if it is going to change in the long-term. The biggest concern here is that he is not going to provide any romance in the relationship. So perhaps if this relationship is not fulfilling her needs she should cut her losses and end the relationship.
If we were performing a reading for a real person, it may be that there are issues with the loss of the parents affecting the man’s ability to seek intimacy, a matter we could explore with the cards. What indicates this situation is the Lily (a flower sometimes associated with mourning) at the left side of the reading, which the other two cards are affecting. It is not true that Lenormand can only read mundane matters; it is quite capable of communicating psychological and spiritual concerns.
We now turn to another relationship question, as three out of the five questions asked of every cartomancer are about relationships:
Pete and I have only been married for a year and already I am just an old housewife to him.
He scarcely speaks in the morning and never takes me anywhere, and more and more he goes out with the boys before coming home. What can I do about it?
Our contemporary rephrasing of this is “My husband has gone off me and I am worried that he is having an affair. What shall I do?” The cards we draw are:
Snake (7) + Mountain (21) + Garden (20)
Reading from right to left:
Garden: Meeting place + Mountain: Obstacle + Snake: Betrayal/other woman.
The Garden, a meeting place, and then the Mountain which signifies that it is an obstacle in this marriage. On the left, we have the Snake lying in the garden. Betrayal is indeed as old as time itself—like all these answers, we have drawn cards at random from our deck, not deliberately selected them for the question.
Even down the ages, oracular moments are still being picked up down the timeline. This question was a real-life question of a young woman from 1958. To an oracle, all time is one and the same. We wonder what happened to this young woman, and whether she found happiness in life? Out of curiosity we pulled another three cards to see:
Rider (1) + Whip (11) + Letter (27)
From right to left it reads:
Letter: Written communication + Whip: Strife/conflict + Rider: News.
Here we have written communication, most likely a legal letter, and the presence of the Whip indicating much strife in the marriage. Then we have the Rider (most likely bringing the decree nisi) to state the end date of the marriage.
From this reading it does not look like the marriage survived much longer than the one year.
Next, we will look at a more existential question, and one no doubt that is asked by querents in every day and age:
I expect you will think that this question is foolish, but it worries me so that I have to thrash it out. Why is it I feel like life is just pointless? I work, come home, have my meal, go to the pictures or a dance, and then go to bed. 117
In modern terms, should it be needed: “What is the meaning of life, have I got a greater purpose?”
The three cards pulled for our demonstration are:
Ship (3) + Lily (30) + Mountain (21)
From right to left, they read first from the Mountain, an obstacle that blocks, but with retirement (lily) on the other side, in the sense of “taking time out.” This will bring about travel. The cards suggest that over time the person discovers a new experience (Lily) through travel (Ship).
In this next and closing example, we will take a situation and answer it by splitting it into two related questions, performing a three-card reading for each question. Whilst there are many methods for carrying out a full-scale reading for a complex situation (such as the Grand Tableaux, or “big table”), we can begin by building up sets of three-card readings.
I have two lovers, writes Crushed Strawberry, and I like them both equally. One is liked by my mother but disapproved of by my father, and the other one my father favors and my mother does not care about. What am I to do? If I take either, it will be in opposition to the wishes of my parents. It makes me extremely miserable and I don’t know what to do? 118
There are two issues in this question and thus they need addressing separately. In modern parlance, we can ask:
I am torn between two lovers. What shall I do?
I let my parents control my life. If I carry on like this, where will it end?
Question 1
We ask the first question and receive the three cards:
Tree (5) + Cross (36) + Garden (20)
From right to left we read this as “We have a m
eeting place (Garden), where the relationship will be brought out into the open, which in turn will cause suffering (Cross), and this will affect your health (Tree).”
Question 2
We ask “I let my parents control my life. If I carry on like this, where will it end?” and receive:
Heart (24) + Child (13) + Ring (25)
Here we have, from right to left:
The (Ring) will commit you to a (child)-like state of (Heart) emotional union.
The cards are saying in their literal and direct wisdom, that if you do not take control you will be committed or bound to a child-like relationship with your parents.
In summary, the cards are simply confirming the obvious health issues that the stresses of indecision and parental authority are causing the querent. The advice is to bring the situation out into the open, otherwise there will be increasing risks to health.
If these two rows of cards were laid one above the other, we would see how the Tree (Health) was above the Heart. This would indicate the nature of the health issue that might be increasing in risk. Similarly, the Cross is above the Child, indicating that the main cause of all the suffering is the childlike relationship with the parents, and the Garden is above the Ring, meaning that the lover who should be chosen is whomever proves ready to commit (Ring) in public (Garden).
Lenormand Nine-Card Square
As we have just seen, the positions of cards above and below each other as well as to each side can also add to our reading. We can now slightly re-word our oracular construct and easily create a comprehensive nine-card reading by laying out three rows of three cards in a nine-card square.
29. Nine-Card Square.
First lay the man or woman card as appropriate in the center of your table and then place eight cards around them.
The first (top) row can be read as “What is over me?” It indicates issues that are influencing your situation and over which you have less control or are in the hands of other people or processes.
The second (middle) row is read as usual with direct regard to your question.
The third (lower) row is read as “What is below me?” It indicates those things upon which you can act or change most readily.
You will soon find with a bit of experience that using the nine-card square after just a few practice three-card spreads rapidly becomes second-nature. You can then quickly move to laying out all thirty-six cards even if you start reading it in 9 x 9 sections as described below.
