lesson 39: lenormand talks tarot

Lustrous Lenormand, Ciro Marchetti and Toni Savory

My history with lenormand is well-documented (in, like, my mind). In a nutshell, I hated it for years but I learned a lot about how to read tarot from it. When I eventually stopped listening to what people were telling me the cards meant and started listening to what the cards told me they meant, I got pretty good at it. These days, I really only use for the grand tableau, but I really do like that reading. I can’t necessarily explain why, but it’s fun to do and often leaves clients pleased with the results. I would wager, though, that it’s about as specific and can cover as much ground as a nine-card tarot reading can. So I’m not sure it’s any better; just different. 

This week, I stumbled across a lenormand deck I’ve never used. Literally stumbled. It must have been under a pile of clothes I had in the bedroom and over the however-long-it’s-been-there, it wheedled its way to the floor, where I tripped on it. I have no idea how long I’ve had it. It may have been a pre-order? Can’t recall. Anyway, it’s the Lustrous Lenormand, by Ciro Marchetti—noted tarot and oracle designer and skeptic—with a book by Toni Savory, of the World Divination Association. When I saw it there I thought, Well, I should look at that. And then I thought, What if I ask it for a lesson about the tarot for this week’s blog. And here we are. 

Using my double chevron of a few weeks ago, we get:
Mice (4), Rider (2), Snake (1), Bouquet (3), Heart (5)
Dice (9), Stork (7), Clover (6), Child (8), Man #2/Them (10).

You’ll note I have a card here, Dice, that’s not usually in lenny decks. There’s a handful of additional cards in the deck, including Time, Well, Bridge, Masks, Labyrinth, and Closer Look. When I do a GT, I typically remove any extra cards—but not when doing something like this. I like the variety. My favorite lenny deck, The Maybe Lenormand, has a whole slew of additional cards making it a fifty-two card deck, and I love it. The other thing is, you’ll note we have Man #2. This deck offers two men and two women cards, which shows in some ways that we’re progressing and in other ways that we still can’t conceive of things beyond the binary. When presented with the choice of significator cards in lenny decks, I typically leave the two men in or the two women—depending on who is hotter—and refer to them as you (the client) and them (the other). In this case, there’s a man with gray hair that was second in the deck when I looked through it, so he became Man #2. But you’ll note, above, I added “them” and that’s how I’ll refer to the card here. In this case, I take it to suggest the client or the subject of the reading, regardless of gender expression or identity. 

Let’s dive in.

The symbolism in lenny decks isn’t supposed to matter, and since the symbolism on tarot decks rarely matters to me . . . that’s a-OK! I did this same spread using a tarot a few weeks ago and suggests that the cards below act as houses for the cards above and the cards above act as houses for the cards below. (If you’re unfamiliar with lenormand, when I say “houses,” think of astrology. If you have the Sun in Leo, as I do, your sun expresses itself in a Leonine way—which in my case, is both hot-tempered but also hot-blooded (ahem). This combo takes place in the seventh house, the house of relationships and partnerships. And so my Sun in Leo expresses itself through relationships. And I will tell you, as long as I’ve known that placement it has never made sense—until not long ago when I realized how often I make the people in my life serve as defense attorneys against my insecurity and as validators for my talents. Go figure. That’s kind of what houses “do.”)

One thing it was hard for me to get used to was how the cards color each other, which is odd because that is something so integral to my tarot practice. But there are so many contexts with tarot and not much of any with lenormand, because, again, the images don’t “mean” anything. We’re not “supposed” to interpret them the way we interpret the art on a tarot card. Frankly, I think that’s hogwash. If you want to use the image, fuckin’ do it. Who’s stopping you? The lenormand police? Fuck them. On the other hand, I actually don’t pay any attention to the image other than where they’re facing. In this case, the snake “faces” down to the clover, which is both its house, and the house the clover sits in. We have a snake functioning in a clovery way; we have a clover functioning in a snakey way. Those are not the same, but both likely will matter!

What’s a clovery snake? Let’s start there. When interpreting lenny, or anything, I fold fast to something I learned from Camelia Elias: function over symbology. She didn’t phrase it that way, but it’s how I sum it up for myself. The function of a snake matters more to me than the cultural associations of a snake. Now, a snake doesn’t have any “function” other than “being a snake,” unlike the heart, which is a pump.  So when I think of the items in the deck that are living things in their own right (people, child, dog, stork, tree, fish, fox, birds, mice . . . think that’s it), I think instead of their behavior. What is the behavior of a snake? They’re windy, twisty, stealthy, speedy. We could say they’re poisonous, but that’s a judgment; snakes don’t exist to poison. Only poison does that. If the card were venom, that would be poisonous. Poisonous snakes poison when they’re in danger. The thing they do is defend, not poison. Make sense? Now, contextually, cards around the snake might suggest they’re in defense, in which case poison may be the likely outcome. But we don’t have any evidence for that, and in fact a quick glance at the cards suggests there isn’t any.

Here, I can feel lenormand readers screaming at me. “No! You’re making it mushy and tarot-y!” In fact, I’m not. This card is typically meant to suggest “the other woman.” There’s no contextual relevance for that because this is a reading about tarot, not about sex. If I clung to that, I’d already be fucked. Frankly. And that’s so often where I got stumped with this pack. I wasn’t “allowed” to take the card farther away from it’s “real meaning,” but the “real meaning” didn’t fucking make any sense! Know why? Because symbols don’t mean anything in a reading if they don’t mean anything to the reader. Divination uses the reader in the act of interpretation, and if “the other woman” is just not what makes sense to the reader—and if something else does—then the “real meaning” is nonsense. 

So far, the only thing contextualizing it is the clover. Let’s consider what a clover’s purpose or function is: it’s ground cover (and a much safer bet than the grass we love in the so-called US to pour chemicals on). Now, it’s well-known that clovers are lucky—and I don’t exclude that meaning from the card, because, in a way, the clover has so evolved to suggest “luck” in Europeanized places that it’s hard to resist (same for love and hearts, which is why, sometimes, the heart suggests that, too). Clovers are easy to miss, they’re low to the ground, they’re not valuable unless you’re looking for one, and if you’re not in need of luck you don’t care about them—so you don’t think about them. 

Actually, when you look at what we’re dealing with, here, we have a “snake in the grass.” There’s a loaded expression, that means someone is hiding something—but, again, when we look at what it’s literally saying, we’re seeing exactly where a snake is supposed to be. (Incidentally, we’re not talking about yard grass in that expression; we mean the tall, natural grasses that exist in natural habitats untainted by Scotts Turf Builder). So, we have someone/thing in its natural habitat. And, while that might seem like a threat to the outsider, it isn’t. It is, in fact, exactly where we’re supposed to be. 

What of the clover when we consider it in the house of the snake? What’s a snakey clover? Weirdly, I don’t think they change each other much when we flip them—which isn’t always the case. The snake is the thing at home; the grass, the home the thing is in place in. They’re so closely wed, they mean the same thing to matter what—but this tells me that the top row, when viewed out of context of the bottom row, will focus on the thing (the reader) and the bottom row will focus on the habitat, with special attention to the client, thanks to the Them card we already talked about. 

Let’s expand outward. (It’s hard to write out readings like this without making them seem overcomplicated. It’s not really; this typically happens quite fast. But to explore all the possibilities in writing takes words.)

The snake is flanked immediately by the rider (in the “house” of the stork) and the bouquet (in the “house” of the child). So we have a storky rider and childish bouquet. A storky rider, really, is one who returns. Storks are migratory. The rider is, too, but the storks ensure that “he’ll” come back. They turn him into a boomerang. The bouquet is small or undeveloped. Bouquets are typically associated with gifts, any that makes total sense: what else is a bouquet of flowers for? Sure, it can symbolize different things: love, grief, thanks, apology—but it is always, at essence, a gift. Even when purchased for the self and certainly when placed on a sacred space. We’ve got an undeveloped gift. That will always return. 

Interesting, interesting. 

I’m going to stay in the top row just for clarity’s sake. That takes us, then, to the mice (in the house of the dice—what a neat little poem, there) and the heart (in the house of “them”/man #2). When a card falls in one of the significator houses, we say that this expresses an aspect of that person. So the client, in this case, is heart-y. In theory, the people cards have no actual meaning other than representing people, but when they happen in contexts where that doesn’t make sense, I’ll think in terms of projective (“you,” in this case Man #1–not drawn) and receptive (“them,” in this case Man #2). Which means that the heart represents the client, but when we look at the heart in the house of the client or the “them,” we’re getting the “receptive” vibe—so the reader is giving to the an acceptor. Which sounds so convoluted, that, again, this can be difficult to write. Essentially, the heart represents something being given by the reader and accepted by others. Which make sense. 

I referenced the heart being a pump. In the case of an animal’s heart, it’s the pump giving us life. In this case, the client is the lifeblood of the reader’s world. The client keeps them going. Even though, we may feel nervous (mice) that this is all just a big gamble (dice).

Mice behave nervous. That’s a trait normally assigned to the birds. Because they, too, behave nervously. I tend to view the birds more to do with talking, noise, because they’re noisier than mice. Gossip, then, is something I’ll see with the birds. The mice are typically associated with diminishment or theft, because they eat away at things. But so does every living thing. And what I’d say to anyone reading this who thinks my correspondences are wrong: you have to find this stuff for yourself, the meanings have to come from you. If you don’t, you’re just reciting nonsense. Mice are more “skittery” and anxious than birds; birds are louder and talkier. Maybe they’re anxious, but “theft,” the common association for mice, isn’t helping me in this reading. (Also, birds steal as much as mice.)

This whole top row, then, seems to say to be: “Don’t get nervous (mice) that your gifts (bouquet) will abandon you—they will always come back (rider/house of stork). You may think your gift is small or underdeveloped (bouquet/house of the child), but your heart beats with your clients (heart/house of Them), so when you follow your heart (the heart follows the rider in the spread, and, in fact, could be his direction—he’s facing that way), the road may be windy, but your gifts will always give you what you need (the way the heart gives life to the body). Trust your gifts, then, they will always be there for you as long as your focus is the client.”

Turning our attention to the bottom row, we are safe and naturally in our element (clover/house of snake—yes, this sounds like “home,” and I almost used that word—but house would be more appropriate. But “in our element” makes sense with this combo), and our inner direction (stork as migratory animals with instincts/house of the rider). The gamble, though anxiety-making, is worth the effort—as long as we don’t let our ego (child/house of bouquet) interfere with our devotion to the client (Them/house of heart).


The purists may say that me bringing in ego is a big no-no, because I don’t have “evidence” to support that. But of course I do. Ever met a spoiled child? Too many gifts (bouquet)? They’re all ego. Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, say. We’ve seen them. Veruca Salt, right? That’s ego, baby, and incidentally adults look exactly like that when we do this. The child in the house of the bouquet can get spoiled. One may say that there needs to be cards right next to it to indicate that, but fuck it. 


One thing I don’t think I’ve ever talked about before is what I’m going to call implied context or need context. Here’s what I mean: A reading will sometimes take you in a direction that makes sense given the cards you’ve worked with, but not enough to answer the question fully. There are a few cards left to interpret, and they have to fit the narrative you’re telling—either proving it or disproving it, to whatever end that matters. This means that these remaining cards are forced by the reading into potentially unnatural but perfectly legitimate interpretations. Hence, the spoiled child situation. That didn’t occur to me in my initial interpretations, but the fact remains that I got to a point in the reading where I needed them to do a job and they had to step up to it. “Little gifts” made sense in the top row, but not in the bottom. Spoiled brat, as something to avoid, made sense given that we’re talking about having anxiety about losing our gifts. The combo says that the only thing that could do that is letting our ego take over, so don’t—pay attention to the last card in the reading, the client. Boom. 


Letting go of the fear of “doing it wrong” is so important no matter what you’re learning. I really loathe fundamentalism, and the only thing I hold to be fundamentally true is that you have to figure it out for yourself. All the books by the great authors are wonderful inspiration, but the time comes when you have to put them down and it’s just you and the cards—whatever system you’re working with—and you have to let them guide you. And to do that they’re going to call on the parts of you that are most likely to get the results needed. The cards don’t care what I, or Camelia Elias, or Regina George, or anyone things of them. They care what you think in that moment, because you are the one in the role of messenger. 


All the long discussions about which system is better for which kind of reading kind of wash up to something we all hate: gatekeeping. It’s not intentional, I mean gatekeeping rarely is, but it does it nonetheless. When we announce this is the correct way, we also announce anyone who doesn’t do this is wrong, and so valueless in my eyes. 


There is a right way to do most things: the way you do them. Open heart surgery? We wanna follow the guidebook. A psychic reading? Throw the guidebook away. As well as all the pedants who are so insecure in their method that they only feel confident when bullying others into doing it their way. It’s like Christianity for diviners. And it’s cringe. 


To start this reading, I asked what the lenormand could teach us about tarot. But I think it told us what we need to know about all forms of divination: namely, focus on the client, get out of your own way, trust your gifts. Regardless of the system. It’s about them, the client, and getting an answer is exponentially more important than pleasing someone else’s sense of “correctness.” Your job isn’t to satisfy someone else’s ego, not even your own—not even your client’s, to be honest. It’s to answer the question. As Camelia Elias says, it’s to read the damn cards. 


Seconded. Obviously, if your the client that doesn’t change. 


A Read of One’s Own
Pull a spread of any kind of card you like to answer the following:

1. How can I trust my gifts more?
2. How can I stay focused on the client, not on my ego?
3. How do I put aside worries about other people’s divinatory dogmas?

For my example, I’m sticking with lenny, cuz why not? I drew five cards for each (lenormand is a more-is-more situation for me), from left to right.

1. Bouquet, lilies, scythe, choice (usually crossroads or paths), heart. This gift (bouquet) is ancient (lilies) to you; it can only be severed (scythe) by choice (choice)—the choice to cut out your own heart. (Woof!)
2. Birds, bear, ship, masks (unusual to this deck), Them (man #2 again). I’m goin to take a big step away from lenormand, even in my own technique here. There are two birds cards in this deck and the one I drew has an owl on it. I’m seeing the owl, not the birds, because the idea of preying and also wisdom matter. “Your hunt for wisdom is strong, it carries you through the client’s (Them) acts (masks).” In essence, look for the truth so strongly—because you do that, anyway—that you can see past the things the client would rather not show. Give them the message they need, not that they want. 
3. Closer look (unusual to this deck), anchor, star, whip, fox. This one isn’t really much of an issue for me. I really don’t care about other people’s dogmas, divinatory or otherwise—not anymore, anyway. But, for the sake of it, let’s explore: “Look closer (obvi) at what stops you (anchor) from your purpose (stars) . . . it’s likely your repetitive distrust.” Lenormand is famous for having “good” and “bad” or “negative” and “positive” cards. Like, fine. But, no . . . cuz life ain’t that way. The anchor, yes, is good: in the context where that matters. It doesn’t matter here. Hope, stability: not useful. An anchor dragging us into static and keeping us from the direction (star, traditional meaning) we’re meant to go. The whip can be violent or controlling, and the fox can be sly. Here I kept the repetitive nature of the whip/broom—even though that’s not its purpose (its purpose is dominance), it’s its behavior. (That said, this suggests that I don’t trust other people because I’ve had my trust betrayed [fox] too much [repetition], which is true.) How much, though, is my own lack of trust holding me back? Probably a lot! 

There you have it, friends. Let me know what you think. And I’ll see you soon.


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