Lucky in Lenormand
Rana George’s The Essential Lenormand is quickly gaining a reputation for being a very approachable guide to this fascinating system. Her decades of experience and vivacious personality make the book a delight to read. She makes learning easy. One of the challenges of Lenormand is that the cards don’t simply have a set meaning. The cards’ meanings are very dependent on surrounding cards and their position within the Grand Tableau.
The complexity of the relational dependence of card meanings can make a teaching challenge. Rana overcomes this by introducing concepts in layers. Take, for example, her introduction to the Clover:
“A green four-leaf clover is usually depicted on this card; sometimes the clover flower is shown with it. Clover symbolizes luck, chance, blessings, and good fortune.
The Clover is a positive card, bringing happiness, good fortune, and success. It adds a positive vibe to any reading and diminishes the negativity of negative cards, especially when it lands on the right side of the negative card or at the end of the line reading. The Clover cards brings inspiration and hope.
When this card appears, it forecasts happy tidings to the reading, as long as these cards not to the right of it: Clouds, Snake, Coffin, and sometimes Scythe and Mice. In the case that the Clover card is followed by negative cards, it announces the return of deception or previous negative predicaments. On the other hand, getting the Clover card after a series of negative cards predicts the end of sorrow or that the trouble will be short-lived. It speaks to the positive turning of the wheel and the return of luck. The Clover is the reward card, the great find or the bargain card. The Clover urges the querent to take a leap of faith.”
She starts with the “basic” meaning, then explains how its position affects the meaning, and finally gives some examples of how it interacts with other cards. She gives enough information, in the introduction of each card (which is followed by more in-depth explorations) to convey the concepts so that we, the readers, can easily extrapolate further as needed, but not so much as to overwhelm. She teaches reading techniques rather than memorization.
