A Lenormand 3-card reading

Recently I’ve been learning more about the Lenormand system of cartomancy.  It’s quite different from tarot, which has moved away from fortune telling in recent years and become more psychological in its approach.  Lenormand is pure fortune telling of the “you will go on a cruise with a tall dark stranger” variety.

It turns out there was a Lenormand deck in my family many many years ago.  I remember looking at the cards as a child and thinking what nice pictures of animals, boats, etc., they contained.  I had no idea back then about using the cards to “predict the future.”  In recent years there has been a bit of a craze about the Lenormand cards.  It seems that fortune telling is again on the rise.

Astrologically, I relate the cartomantic arts to Uranus and Neptune.

In 1993, Uranus conjoined Neptune in Capricorn.  This conjunction correlated with a huge interest in tarot.
In 2009-2010, Uranus formed a semi-sextile with Neptune from Pisces to Aquarius.  This semi-sextile correlated with a huge resurgence of interest among tarot readers in learning about the Lenormand cards.
In 2017-2019, Uranus will semi-square Neptune.  I suspect that during those years the interest in Lenormand among tarot readers will undergo another significant transformation.

In any case, I wanted to present a recent 3-card reading to illustrate Lenormand divination for readers who may be unfamiliar with it.  Yesterday I drew three cards with the question in mind about what might be coming up during the rest of my week.  These are the cards that appeared:

26.Book – 15.Bear – 12.Birds

These cards are from the 36-card Petit Lenormand deck.  There are several regional traditions for interpreting the cards.  My current preference is for the German tradition.

The first card Book has to do with knowledge and secrets.  I assumed the reading was about learning something, or discovering some unknown information, about the Bear in position two.  The open side of the Book is facing the Bear, so something will be learned about the Bear.

The Bear is often regarded as one of the cards that represents people in the deck. In nature bears are large, imposing powerful creatures that you treat with respect.  Their divinatory meaning often has to do with people in power or authority as well as people who are our elders and who thereby deserve our respect.

The final card Birds has various interpretations.  It commonly has to do with minor or fleeting difficulties and troubles.  Some readers regard it as representing communications, including phone calls.

I thought this 3-card reading meant that something unknown would be learned about a person who commanded respect and that some passing difficulty and perhaps a phone call would be involved.

Not long after I drew the cards my wife telephoned me to say that her mother’s leg was swollen.  Her doctor had ordered an ultrasound of the leg, and my wife wanted to know if I could re-arrange my schedule to take her mother to the ultrasound appointment the next day, which I was able to do.  Fortunately, there was no blood clot so that the swollen leg, though of some concern, was not a major difficulty.  The 3-card Lenormand reading appeared fairly on target.