It looks like we are off to a very good start.
The general plan is to learn about this Lenormand deck in the same way we recently explored the Publishing Goblin oracle dice and before that my new and much used Alleyman’s Tarot Deck.
There is no teacher quite like experience, especially when it comes to something as subjective and individual as intuition and oracles. The basic strategy over the coming weeks is that I’ll pull a random card (and post the draw on YouTube Shorts. I did that this week but the the technical glitch gremlins got to it)
After the random draw, we’ll read it purely intuitively based on the collective energy of the day – just like we read the collective energies for the week each Monday.
Then I’ll go to the guide book, which in this case is sparse, around a paragraph per card, and summarize what it says.
A word on guide books in general:
Use them as a tool, but not as an authority.
There is no dishonor in finding inspiration when you need it.
Guidebooks are great in situations like this to help you get comfortable with a new deck or technique. Guidebooks are essential when you are very first learning to read cards at all, like the DIY one card meditation readings you learn how to do in my book PeaceTarot.
Even after reading for 30 years, there are still times when I look at a card and get exactly nothing. Tarot readers are human and nobody is perfect. If you hit one of those I-got-nothin’ moments then it is perfectly fine to fall back on either a guidebook or a memorized “meaning” It will prime the pump so speak, and spark the intuition that you need for genuine reading that is of the energy of the moment.
Today’s card is The Dog.
The image on this particular deck is warm and sunny, and I associated it with all of the positive happy energies of the RWS major arcana card The Sun. Dogs are the essence of loyalty and friendship.
Clearly this is a good start for making friends with a new deck.
It has a sense of reciprocity today, too. “To make a friend, be a friend”
In the moment, it feels like making friends with this deck is going to be easy.
The guidebook doesn’t add much, just reiterates the “faithfulness and loyalty”
The guidebook isn’t much help in this little learning project we have going. I may just give the key words in the beginning and just give it an intuitive read from there.
Do you have any thoughts which would be more helpful to you? Comment if you like. Guidebook keywords at the beginning or end?
It’s interesting that the card is connected to the 10 of hearts. You can read the suit of hearts much as you would the suit of cups in the RWS decks. It is about emotion, happiness, closest inner circle relationships….like your closest friends.
PeaceTarot also teaches you how to use playing cards in place of Tarot cards to use the guidebook meanings in PeaceTarot if you prefer playing cards or if you don’t have access to a RWS style Tarot deck. 10 of hearts is equivalent to the 10 of cups, which has to do with happy family and happy (and loyal) relationships. It all fits.
If this card resonates for you today, it is a reminder to appreciate the friends and emotionally close people in your life. Tell them. Show them. Check in with them. Be a friend today.
If you are feeling friendless, befriend yourself. Just be patient and kind. It’s like playing fetch with your favorite doggo…throw some kindness out there and life will fetch it back sooner or later.
Thank you for reading. The short and sweet newsletter for this week will post on Thursday morning.
See you at the next sip!
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Image: author photo of her purchased copy of Healing Light Lenormand by Christoher Butler copyright 2021 Lo Scarabeo srl, via Cigna 110, 10155 Torino, Italy. All rights reserved, used by permission.
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