Learning about Lenormand at the Tampa Bay Area Tarot Meetup

Cards from Pixie's Astounding Lenormand by Edmund Zebrowski.

One of the things we are doing in our (still relatively new) tarot meetup is asking our members to share their knowledge in little ways, and in big ways.

Everyone shares their knowledge in little ways during discussions, and when we read for each other.

Many of our members are agreeing to share in big ways by teaching sessions on tarot, astrology, Lenormand and other areas of interest to our group.

Yesterday, Bridget Fortune Burns led a session on Lenormand.

I’ve been a tarot reader for more than twenty years. However, my skill with tarot does not necessarily easily translate to Lenormand – it’s a very different system. I’ve been struggling for a while to add this skill to my toolbox. Yesterday’s class with Bridget really resulted in some breakthroughs for me.

At the end of the session, I was able to perform a nine-card Lenormand reading for myself that was accurate and insightful, and I was able to help another group member interpret her spread.

Bridget helped us make Lenormand flash cards, and taught us to understand the court cards.

Here are some things I learned.

It is important to memorize the number associated with each Lenormand card.

Although there are not suits, as in tarot, the numbers are still important. That’s because the Lenormand cards also become the “houses” of the grand tableau.

In Lenormand, as in astrology, houses are essentially departments of life.  So the first card in a grand tableau is the house of the Rider, the second is the house of the Clover, and so on. I had known this, but it hadn’t really made sense until yesterday.

This reminded me that Marcus Katz taught us a similar technique with tarot at TarotCon (Florida) 2015. In this technique, we used three tarot cards to create spread positions into which we drew other tarot cards at random.

Bridget also stressed the importance of memorizing key words. I am a huge fan of tarot key words, so that makes sense to me.

Next, we learned about the Court cards of Lenormand. We discussed the people that the twelve Lenormand Court cards might represent, and the general meanings associated with the suits.

Finally, Bridget shared her method for performing a nine-card reading with Lenormand.

By the end of our two hours at Panera, I was feeling a lot more comfortable with using the Lenormand for divination. I can see a time when I will incorporate these cards into my professional readings.

One of the best parts of gathering together with tarot friends is the opportunity to learn from each other. Fostering a cooperative environment of learning and sharing among readers is an important part of building community. 

If you are in the Tampa Bay Area, please join our meetup!