Welcome to this week’s Lenormand & Tarot tag-team reading!
We’re going to let the Lenormand start things off, and this week, I’m turning to the most recent deck in my ever-growing collection, the Unforgettable Lenormand, by Teri Smith of Divine Walks (you can check out a video of the cards here, or go to her site for more information here).
With the deck in hand, I’m shuffling, cutting, and dealing up the cards for this week’s reading, with this question in mind: What are the possibilities for the week ahead?
The video below reveals the cards in the reading:
If you prefer to read the post, here it is:
The cards for our reading are Scythe, Bouquet, and Dog.
Scythe, Bouquet, and Dog, from the Unforgettable Lenormand, created by Teri Smith.
The focus of the reading is Bouquet, which suggests the central issue can be about an invitation, gift, or a surprise. Bouquet can also represent appreciation.
For me, personally, I can see this card as indicative of allergies (pollen), and I had taken my allergy medication right before I sat down to shoot the video for the reading.
Lenormand is best read in pairs and triplets, and in the reading, we have three pairs.
Our first pair is Scythe + Bouquet.
Scythe is a card of removal and elimination. It’s a card of something that is sharp, pointed, and can cut. It’s a card of something being broken or being severed. It can indicate a hurt, pain, wound, or injury. It can suggest a need for swift and sudden action.
So, the pair could indicate a sudden invitation or gift, one that is given unexpectedly.
Bouquet, being flowers, can make the gift fresh-cut flowers (given that Lenormand can be quite literal). It doesn’t have to be flowers though, as the pair could represent any form of sudden appreciation.
In the case of me and my allergies, the pair could read as a sudden allergic reaction due to pollen.
Scythe can also be a card of surgery; Bouquet can also mean something beautiful, or beauty itself. In this light, the pair jumped out to me as surgery + beauty, which I equated as plastic surgery, a process to alter one’s appearance, to enhance that’s person’s beauty.
The pair offers an interesting dichotomy, with Scythe being pain, and Bouquet being beauty. It makes me think of times in my life when I’ve experienced something painful, something that hurt deeply, but I also looked back on with a sense of appreciation once I got through it.
What painful experience have you had that you can now see the beauty, or the gift, in having had it?
Another pair in this reading is Bouquet + Dog.
Dog is a card of a friend, a partner, a companion. Dog can mean help, support, and trust. It’s a card of loyalty. In the literal sense, it can represent not only dogs, but pets generally speaking.
So, the pair of Bouquet + Dog can mean: an invitation from a friend, a surprise from a friend, a gift from a friend; the beauty of friendship, the gift of friendship, or appreciation for a friend/friendship; as well as appreciation for the help and support of a friend, partner, or companion.
In the case of allergies, I see this as being allergic to pets, pet hair and pet dander.
And keeping with the idea of plastic surgery, Bouquet + Dog could point to a beauty consultant; Dog, being a person who offers help, support, and guidance (think guide dog for that one), would make the person a possible consultant by profession.
And the final pair in this triplet of cards, Scythe + Dog, can be read as: a disconnection with a friend; severing a friendship or partnership; a break in trust (with a friend or partner); helping with something painful; sudden help or support; or the removal of an animal (in connection to an allergic reaction).
Reading the line, from left to right, could suggest the possibility of a sudden or shocking (Scythe) invitation, gift, or surprise (Bouquet) from a friend, partner, or companion (Dog).
Using a shortened variation of the Hidden Dynamics technique for possibly more information (since there are three cards rather than the five I typically use this technique with), Scythe has the Jack of Diamonds as its inset, which is valued at 11.
The 11th card in the deck is Whip.
Whip is a card of repetition or repetitive activity. It can be a card of conflict and strife, a fight or debate. It can be a card of heated words, like an argument. With that, the card implies being angry. It can be a card of discrimination, as well as need to be more discriminating.
It can also imply discipline; in the negative sense, being disciplined or beating oneself up, and in the positive sense, working on something repeatedly as a way of becoming more disciplined.
I also see this card as trying to work things out, or trying to sort things out.
On the other side, we have the 10 of Hearts in Dog; the 10th card of the deck is Scythe, which is in the reading already.
The pair of Whip + Scythe can be read as trying to work something out quickly, as well as getting to the point of a conflict or strife. This would be especially so if there is a disconnection in a friendship or partnership (Scythe + Dog).
Bouquet, being the center card, would ask us to consider what we appreciated about the friend or partner, what the gift of their friendship or partnership has been to us.
The last thing we can do with the pips (playing cards) is to add the numbers together for another piece of advice. So, taking 11 + 12 (Queen of Spades) + 10, we get a total of 33.
The 33rd card in the deck is Key.
Key is a card of answers and solutions. Key can mean a discovery, a breakthrough, and a revelation. It can mean something vital, certain, and important.
This card could suggest finding the solution to the problem being pointed out by Whip + Scythe; it could suggest that what I just said about appreciation (Bouquet) is “key.”
To round out this reading, we can take the numbers of the cards, and like the pips, add them together to get the essence of the reading. Taking 10 + 9 + 18, we get a total of 37. Since there are 36 cards in the deck, I add the two digits together (as the number is over 36); 3 + 7 =10, and the 10th card in the deck is Scythe once again.
As you can see, Scythe is really trying to make its “point” this week, having appeared in the line, within the Hidden Dynamics, and now as the essence of the reading.
And with the point being brought home, that brings the reading, from the perspective of the Lenormand, to a close. Since this is a tag-team, the Lenormand has tagged the Tarot for its turn, which I will present in the very next post.
Until then…
life of HIMM 