Do you find the Lenormand to be counter-intuitive?

La Force

Well, here's my supportive take. What is a symbol? What does that symbol mean to you? How does that mean to your experience? A symbol is a symbol. Then only difference between Tarot and Lennies is..... Tarot cards have many symbols within symbols, on one card. Lennies have 1 symbol only.

So when you see a castle, what words can you think of? Cold, damp, chilly, king, etc. Which by the way was the original name for the tower card.

What I am pointing out is that you need to be true to yourself honestly. What does that symbol mean to you and your personal life experiences, it honestly doesnt matter where it comes from (intuitively) it how it speaks to you. Just find your own style, seriously, who gives a sh*t what the traditionist have to say anyways, if you want their input you'll ask them. The traditionist, almost wrecked my fun with lennies. I'm not going to let them wreck my fun. So my new years resolution is to help others with lennies to Find Their Own Way. not my way, or joe blows way, but their way. That's my support to you.

Knowing that the symbols come from tea and coffee ground, would you tell a tea leaf reader their doing it wrong? Ohhh maybe the rune reading people are doing it wrong? Oh no......we can not step out of the box, how dare you....

Do you want or like banging your head against the wall? Cause that is what your doing when you fight against something within you. Hey how about some hair pulling, now thats fun.... Do what works for you. That simple hon. Get out of the box, as long as you have the foundation of what each card means, there is no rule saying you can not add another 100 keywords to it. use spreads or don't, it doesnt matter. You want to read lennies like an oracle, then do it. If you want to read them like tarot then do it.

Bottom line the traditionist are realisticly just fighting over keywords, and how to read the card in the card positions. Seriously I have bigger things to deal with in my life.

Big hug :heart:

Eta: sorry for the bad spelling and the many edits. Im on my cell lol
 

theboomz

You're all a million times more experienced than I am, but as I'm learning I find that if I see a card a certain way, then the deck can talk to me that way.

Illustration: Let's say you learned Lenormand completely differently, like house means health, and tree means family or growth, ship means waves are coming, etc? Well then that is how the cards will come up. If you learn more than one meaning, then you figure out which one applies. I think most people learn different "takes" on the cards, not really entirely different meanings, and sometimes they say one thing, and some times another, or sometimes a card comes up with a soft tone, or a very loud tone, or it looks kind of like advice, and sometimes it looks like something that happened in the past. Sometimes the Eight of Cups means she's off to get another cup for this collection, and sometimes it means she's walking away from that collection, and sometimes it's advice to get out of that situation.

If you are familiar with the idiom "dog house" for a mate who is in trouble, then the cards can say that to you.

Funny you should bring up the Lily. That's the one where I was like, wut? But when I trained myself to see it that way (and some other ways), I've noticed that it does come up for my in laws now. But that card... it comes up for different things that challenge me to figure out the meaning for that context. I try hard because I feel like I'm being taught that they want to communicate using that meaning as well so we can move forward.

I find Lenormand hard, because my mind races through so many meanings. It's easier to do that with Tarot for me. I can take hints from the whole spread start to finish, the numbers the elements, who is where and what is happening.

I go to Lennies for Am I going to get Mail today.
In fact, I posted a thread nobody responded to about how sometimes I ask those questions and I get completely different answers about something that will happen later that day. And the thing is not all that important either. Lennies are still an exotic and fun acquaintance to me but we are not close friends that can rely on each other.

I friend is now calling me on skype... must go.
 

Flaxen

For a traditionalist, I suppose the distinction comes down to whether you read Lenormand cards as any other oracle or whether you use tradition-based meanings to build your intuitive leaps on. For some, this is a black and white issue but I imagine that for most people here there are shades of grey.

To use a tarot analogy - if you reject all traditional meanings (for arguments sake let's say RWS) but instead just read the pictures or go with your gut, are you still reading tarot or are you using the images to hone in on your own library of meanings for symbols? Most people fall somewhere between those extremes - i.e. use RWS most of the time but leave room for intuitive leaps in each reading.

For what its worth, I learnt using a traditional system but it took me a few attempts to find the one where the meanings 'clicked' with me. These are the meanings I use when I read and my intuition/flexibility comes into play when building combos based on those keywords or which keyword is most appropriate e.g. is Lilies 'sex', 'old' or 'contentment'. Keeping a journal was also invaluable for me. The system is what attracted me to Lenormand and for me it works well. I have a strong preference for a system - I like a framework- and love the GT as a reading tool. Horses for courses...:)

Chronata, it sounds to me like you have developed your own system over your many years of card reading and that this is, quite naturally, where you draw your meanings from using the cards as a prompt. Most people end up finding their own way with the cards - I think it is quite often a very personal journey.
 

Flaxen

I think that as Lenormand has found a wider audience, people are developing their own relationship with these cards. For some, that means a preference for intuitive readings and for others a preference for the framework traditional meanings give.

A good reference point is the many different ways people read tarot cards - some use it for fortune telling, some prefer a psychological perspective, some are strict RWS, some prefer Tdm etc. I can see that Lenormand cards will develop in a similar directions.
 

Chronata

Thank you everyone for your awesome answers!

I guess, for me the symbolism thing...tradition vs. what my own meanings are...was what I have been struggling with the most.

It's not that I never read them with traditional meanings...sometimes one card will represent the book meaning, and another will be something completely out there.
But they work together like this...and I need to figure out which meaning is "right" at the time.

I have a reading gig for a corporation this Saturday, so I am going to pay more attention to my perceptions when I read the Lennies. I think there might be a subtle shift in color or smell that happens (to me they are one and the same as I have synesthesia) that prompts me to say what I do.

Many years ago, I studied my own psychic responses to the tarot as a shift from noticing whether I see warmer colors first...or picking up cooler colors first...the warmer pinks and peachy colors in my mind's eye, meant more intuitive fanciful storytelling meanings, while the shift towards blue meant to be more logical and by rote or book meaning...or even to be more literal in interpretation.

But what I love about the Lenormand symbols as opposed to tarot ones...are the purity of one symbol, and not symbols within symbols as La Force pints out.

So there will be some interesting experiments going on this weekend!


And Lily...yeah, the more I meditate on that symbol...the more insight I get. Weddings yes...(purity, virginity) but also funerals(older folks) and so I can now see how the older gent fits in there. I almost want to call lily the "life rituals" card...because that's when you see them most. oh...and at Easter time.
 

Teheuti

There are two different aspects of Lenormand: the deck and the Lenormand language. You can use the cards in any way you want - 1) as an oracle deck, 2) based on symbols and archetypes, or 3) by speaking the language of Lenormand. I can do the first two of these with practically anything: other oracle decks, postcards, trash I find while walking, etc., etc. You may prefer the Lenormand set over the Oh! Cards, Soul Cards, or Fairy Wisdom deck. It's great when you've found a deck that speaks to you!

Then there is the Lenormand language involving both words and structure. It's obviously not for everyone. It takes time to learn, requires memorization, and may cause brain ache as new neural pathways are formed. However, it is possible to communicate more or less easily with others who speak the language and to come up with similar understandings. Yes, new vocabulary is added all the time, but it only works for most if it fits into the structure and established understanding of the language. And there are different dialects to be found - yet as with most dialects it's still understandable (do you have a sofa or a couch in your living room?). For the most part, the images are not symbols in the mythic and archetypal sense, but rather emblems in which their *function* in the language dominates. Rather than each symbol having the potential of infinite meanings (as Jung stressed), the meanings are sharply constrained, but lead to much more precision when direct, mundane answers are desired.

While Lenormand spread interpretations can vary all over the place, it's pretty obvious to a "traditional" reader just who is reading traditionally and who isn't. I've watched carefully the posts where a specific outcome is reported, and then I checked back to see which interpretations were closest and where people got off base. From these observations, I've ended up with tremendous admiration for those who stick with clear cut traditions and interpretations that come directly from these. But that's just my observation in things like finding lost objects and results of job applications, etc.
Added: It's completely understandable that to someone who doesn't know the traditional Lenormand language well (and therefore is not able to recognize it in practice), that the great range of interpretations of a sample spread in a forum (from the trad to the symbolic to the purely personal and even psychic impressions) would seem like an utter mishmash.

In my own practice, there are occasions when I've let go of the rules and gone with my intuitions in the moment - like when a woman asked about her shamanic practice and the cards took on shamanic characteristics to me (and her). However, I could use my Lenormand language to check if I had missed anything obvious that needed to be said, and ground some of my more otherworldly insights.

The important thing is finding what works for you and not getting upset when those in a group which speaks a particular language say they can't understand you (and vice versa), as happens in most disciplines.
 

Richard

.......Just my two-pennyworth. Out of interest, has anyone done a reading on "what are the consequences of using intuition and creative methods as opposed to prescriptive traditional methods?"
I would love to see a poll about who reads creatively versus who reads traditionally, with maybe a few other options for the in-betweeners. My Lenormand decks have been gathering dust for many moons, because I have absolutely no affinity for the orthodox reading methods.

ETA. I like mountains, foxes, snakes, dark clouds, and have even used a cross for my avatar. I don't like coffins, because I prefer cremation, and whips seem more for the BDSM crowd. Fish are good to eat, but I don't eat money. Guess I'm just not a Lenormand type.

Lenormand is not only counterintuitive, it is perverse. The cards have pictures and titles, but one does not interpret the pictures or titles. They serve only as place markers for a set of memorized keywords. This constitutes an intentional obfuscation of the cards themselves, which makes Lenormand reading an absurd exercise in indirection.
 

La Force

I just wanted to add. I received money as christmas gift. So I happily blew it on. The Gilded Reverie Lenormand deck. I read the booklet that comes with it, so if you have this deck, take another look at the book. The meanings are provided by Rana George. The additional description by Tali Goodwin. Ciro did some editing to better reflect his personal take on the images.

In other words what you will see, is traditional, Tarot and oracle, ways of looking at this deck. They have provided the 3 ways you can read the cards. They even suggest for you to tryout these methods to see which one works best for you.

La Force
 

pluto'sapprentice258

Dear Chronata; everyone,

This really interested me because this is an issue that seemed to by-pass me when I began learning Lennie, which was only last June, so I haven't been at it long.

I found that learning the meanings of the cards, and just being *aware* of the playing card inserts was the best way for me to begin. I have since learned some of the Cartomancy meanings don't marry exactly to the traditional meanings - but no matter. I panicked for a minute, I must admit, but then I realised that what I'd already learned was bringing in results.

I think early mentors and the information which you absorb during the initial stages of learning can influence how you read indefinitely. I was never made aware of this dispute between traditional reading and intuition - I took it for granted that naturally, intuition would feature strongly in the practice of reading Lenormand - as I feel it should when using any Divination tool, or have I missed something? :D

To me, the cards are a springboard FOR my intuition. I trust that my hands will arrange the cards in the correct way, so that the cards I pull out will draw an outline and fill in a few of the colours, then my intuition will kick in and fill in the missing shades, much like reading Tarot.

I've also noticed that me and my cards have found our own combinations that make intuitive sense to us, much like your Dog + House + Bouquet combo, Chronata :D I loved that!

Symbolism is alive in the psyche, and although symbols resonate at a universal level, they also strike a personal chord with us as individuals and as readers, based on how our attitudes allow us to experience them. Naturally the subconscious will translate the symbols into a language that the conscious can decipher however it sees fit to give the best possible information.

The only thing which we all share in common is our uniqueness, after all. :D

little p
x
 

pluto'sapprentice258

I just wanted to add. I received money as christmas gift. So I happily blew it on. The Gilded Reverie Lenormand deck. I read the booklet that comes with it, so if you have this deck, take another look at the book. The meanings are provided by Rana George. The additional description by Tali Goodwin. Ciro did some editing to better reflect his personal take on the images.

In other words what you will see, is traditional, Tarot and oracle, ways of looking at this deck. They have provided the 3 ways you can read the cards. They even suggest for you to tryout these methods to see which one works best for you.

La Force

Ahh, enjoy your Gilded Rev, dear La Force :D What a deck. Ciro brings it.

x