Can I Use My Intuition When Reading Lenormand?

Welcome to another addition of Deep Dive Divination! This is where we take a look at your divination questions and answer them in depth.

Today we’re addressing the question: can I use my intuition when reading Lenormand? Most recently, Cait asked me a variation of this question in my Lenormand class (thanks Cait!) and it is a question that frequently comes up.

To adequately answer this question, we first need to define what intuition is and how it is used in our daily life.

What is Intuition?

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“Intuition is a process that gives us the ability to know something directly without analytic reasoning, bridging the gap between the conscious and nonconscious parts of our mind, and also between instinct and reason.” – Francis P. Cholle, Psychology Today

 Think about all that you do in a day, all that you see, all that you interact with. In a single day, it isn’t uncommon for us to interact with dozens of people and as we interact with them, we pick up their body language, the intonation in their voice, the language they are using. We are also exposed to hundreds of advertisements, TV shows and movies, countless photos in our social media feeds, just to name a small portion of the stimuli we interact with each day. If we were to consciously process all of this information, our brain would be TOTALLY overloaded. We wouldn’t be able to function. So instead, our subconscious comes to the rescue and stores this information for us, which allows this information to just graze the conscious mind or bypass it altogether.

I like to think of our subconscious like a squirrel’s cache just before winter. Our minds are like mines of these intuitive diamonds, waiting to be plucked and used at just the right moment.

Check out this previous post on using our intuition for more on this.

We are ALWAYS depositing and withdrawing from this cache and this enables us to detect remarkable things. We can often tell if someone is newly in love based on their body language or the look in their eye. We can look at a loved one and just KNOW something is off. Sometimes, we get a sense that something wonderful is about to happen to a person like they are about to get married, or get a big opportunity without any logical explanation for this feeling all of this is thanks to our subconscious and intuition.

So…Can We Use Intuition When Reading Lenormand?

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 When I am asked this question, I want to say…proceed with caution here!

 Here’s the short answer:

Yes, we do certainly use intuition in reading Lenormand, but not in the same way as we would with Tarot or oracle cards. Instead, we need to first become intimately acquainted with Lenormand through consistent practice. Then, and only then, after you have added the inherent Lenormand card meanings to your intuitive cache, can you use your intuition to help you interpret Lenormand.

Why is this? Why can’t we just use our intuition right off the bat like we would with Tarot or Oracle decks?

To grasp this, we need to fundamentally understand the main difference between Lenormand and other forms of cartomancy such as Tarot and oracle cards. I have a Post on the 3 Main Differences between Lenormand and Tarot, but for our purposes here, there is just one distinction we need to be concerned with.

Mary Greer highlighted this main difference so precisely in a comment about this previous post on Facebook:

 “…Tarot is symbolic while Lenormand is emblematic.”

If you haven’t checked out Mary’s Blog yet, you’re missing out!

With Tarot, although each card has its own distinct meaning, the symbols on each card allow us to attribute some of what is already in our intuitive cache to the cards. We can resonate with certain images on the card and from person to person, the meaning of each symbol can vary widely. When reading Tarot, we can look at the images on the card and ask, “which part of this card catches my eye?” and dig into the symbolism of that particular image. For instance, you may see the lobster on the Moon card in the Tarot and think, ‘oh right…I remember hearing at a restaurant that lobsters are the scavengers of the sea and so the fact that I drew this card now means that I need to dig down deep and use my resources within.’ We are correlating a symbol on the card to how we experienced that symbol in our life. The meaning of any given symbol in the Tarot is essentially endless as you can attribute countless experiences from person to person, and not to mention the number of symbols on each card.

Lenormand is very different in the sense that the cards are emblematic, or another way of putting it, each card is representative of a somewhat limited meaning or essence. Each card has an inherent essence to it and in order to read Lenormand in the traditional sense (there are many opinions on what traditional means in Lenormand so it could be somewhat debated) we read in accordance with this essence. I find that reading in line with the traditional essence/parameters of each card leads to most accurate readings. This is one of the benefits of Lenormand – once you learn the essence or the scope of each card emblem, you combine cards to create meaning to give you literal, specific, and accurate readings.

For instance, let’s look at the Snake card. The Snake in Lenormand means, problems, betrayal, lies, etc. In Tarot, the Snake can be a symbol for renewal and rebirth, flexibility, and much more. I often see Lenormand students treating the Lenormand emblems like Tarot cards and attaching positive attributes to the Snake card. However, the Snake is not emblematic of positive meanings in Lenormand (of course, this is not hard and fast as the context of the question and surrounding cards are taken into account). Even if we had a positive experience with a snake in our life, we are not going to incorporate this experience when interpreting our Lenormand reading that contains the Snake card. Our personal experience with a symbol is not taken into account when it comes to the essence of each card in Lenormand. Instead, we are reading the cards like we’re reading a sentence in a very lexical way.

With Lenormand, the meaning of each card has a limited range of mobility and is augmented only by the context/question and cards that it interacts with.

Whew okay. Now that we understand that difference…

How Can We Use Intuition with Lenormand?

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Since Lenormand doesn’t necessarily draw upon your previous relationship with the symbol on the card, how can we use our intuition when reading them?

There are a variety of ways we can use our intuition when reading Lenormand. Let’s look at each one. The last point here is where we spend a tad more time as it is the most complex.

Ways to Intuit with Lenormand

  • Formulating the question. What is the best question to ask at this moment in time?

I think this is the point where we can call in our intuition the most. We need to use our intuitive abilities to determine how to craft the best question for the situation at hand as we are using our past experience to shape how and what we ask. In Lenormand, the question is HUGE as the cards respond directly to the question posed. If reading for a client, we are picking up the way our client is talking, their body language, what they say versus what they mean, etc. and use this information to craft the best question for them in that moment.

P.S I have a free guide to asking clear questions which you can get HERE. 

  • Selecting the spread to use for the question at hand

We also use intuition when it comes to choosing which spread would work best for each question. We may have a feeling about which spread would work best or get an idea to try something new without having a logical reason why this would work.

  • Drawing cards

How do you determine which cards to draw? There is often something inside us the beeps, buzzes, or otherwise signals to us that we have selected the “right” card. Although this could be argued as a psychic hit, for our purposes here, we can put this in the intuitive bucket.   

This last point is where the majority of the questions come up when it comes to reading Lenormand.

  • Interpreting how the cards apply to your question/context.

Let’s look at this last section to investigate interpreting with intuition in Lenormand. 

Using Intuition When Interpreting Lenormand

In order to use intuition in interpreting Lenormand it is first essential to KNOW what each Lenormand card means in your bones.  

What I mean is, you need to have a strong relationship with the cards through consistent and continued practice, applying the cards to your life and the lives of your friends and your clients.

Why is this?

By learning the traditional essence of each card (emblem) and building a rapport with Lenormand through daily practice, we are adding Lenormand card meanings to our intuitive cache.

Once you have this relationship, THEN the Lenormand card meanings are in your cache and available for use. Once you have a quality rapport with the cards through seeing how they play out in your life, you are more apt to divine and intuit within the confines of the card essence. If we don’t have this relationship built, we are in danger of what I call “tarotfying” the cards and attaching our own personal symbolism to the emblems. If you have this strong relationship built through consistent practice, your intuition will sync with the language of Lenormand. It will then become like thinking in a new language – it takes time and dedication of learning that language but once you do, it becomes seamless.  

So How Do I Begin Building My Relationship with Lenormand?

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We can begin to build this relationship in a variety of ways. What I would suggest is to begin with just 3 cards a day and documenting these draws in a Lenormand journal.

This simple act of pulling 3 cards daily strategically stockpiles Lenormand meanings and correlates these meanings to our lives. We experience everything from the grand to the mundane in daily life which provides the perfect opportunity to see a wide range of meanings for each card. You can of course expand your Lenormand cache by reading for others, using a variety of questions, and spreads to get a well-rounded view of each card in different situations.  

To get started with this, you can snag my Free Lenormand Mini Course and check out my How-to Read a 3 Card Spread.

Happy Divining,

Emily Rose