Following The Trail: Using Lenormand To Unravel A Mystery

Lenormand is a great tool to use for digging into mysteries.

We will often find we may want to use  our Lenormand cards to uncover or explore something – or someone –  we don’t know, or don’t understand. (We see this most obviously in 9-Card Readings or like the ones in the People card post. where we’re trying to dig for additional information)

But sometimes it’s helpful to use for a little detective work when are things that come up in our own readings that we don’t understand. I call the method I use “following the trail.”

What Do I Mean By “Following The Trail?”

I mean following clues, like breadcrumbs, to uncover more and more information, so you can build up a complete story.

More often than not, this means doing additional readings, or doing readings in such a way that the focus is on uncovering information.

When Might You Might Want To “Follow The Trail?”

• When your whole question is based on finding out information about something or someone in your life or someone else’s you’re unsure of. “What is this individual like?” “What is going on with this woman?”  “What should I know about this company?” “What was the reason for X happening in this situation?” “What was behind this decision?”
• When you’re trying to find out information in the wider sphere or news stories (WARNING: be very careful about doing this with things like true crime, missing person cases etc. There are big ethical issues here and many people, quite rightly, find this sort of thing distasteful, particularly if put out into the public domain or approaching anyone involved. If you are interested in doing stuff like this, I would strongly advise you to do it for your own interest only and keep any readings you may do strictly private.)
• When something appears in your own or someone else’s reading that just doesn’t seem to make sense and you want to find out more OR the reading you have done does not give you enough information and you need clarity on certain aspects.
• When something unexpected comes up in a reading, and your curiosity makes you want to explore it more.

Ways To Follow A Trail of Clues & Find Out More

The basic methods are as follows:

• Depending on what comes up,  you can ask any additional questions that arise. Just reshuffle the deck and do open readings for each question you ask in the usual way, using whatever layout works best for you and to answer that question.
• Explore particular areas of interest and focus questions by using keycards. I find the 9-Card spread most useful for this personally. You could also use the 5-Card, although it won’t give you as much information. I don’t tend to find that the 3-Card spread will gives you enough information in these situations. It’s a little too basic, as it just gives an overview.
• If you are doing a Grand Tableau, use the Knighting, Mirroring and Reflection Techniques as well as the Houses for any area that interests you and gather additional clues that way. (Rana George also has an amazing ‘trail’ technique she uses in the Grand Tableau. I won’t detail it here, but you can find it in her guide to Lenormand )

Example

Imagine I draw the following 5 cards for a weekly reading, and just  ask the general question:

Q: What’s coming up this week?

Sun—Storks—TREE—Heart—Clover

Success—New Start—Health/Vitality/Karma—Love—Luck

So I do my reading as usual (for speed here, I’ll just do the quick overview version):

Centre of the reading:

Storks—Tree = Healthy or flourishing new beginning

Tree—Heart = Physical heart health, Love or Passion revitalises; Love karma

Around that:

Sun—Clover = Lucky success; positive outcome; unexpected success

Storks—Heart = New start in love; new passion; something new for the heart (eg cardio exercise)

Chain Reading:

Sun-Storks = Success with a new start or something new

Storks-Tree = Healthy or vigorous new start, a karmic new beginning

Tree-Heart = Love karma; heart health

Heart-Clover = Lucky or unexpected romance; fortunate passion

Q: What’s Coming Up  This Week?

A: A positive and healthy new beginning of some kind, which brings to positivity and success, possibly love-related and karmic, and which may be unexpected.

OK. “Well,” I might think. “That all seems very lovely, but kind of vague. What if I want to find out more?”

Here are some questions that might arise from that particular reading

Obviously, in whatever reading you are doing, you’ll have your own questions that arise related to the situation, but here are mine:

• What is the new start being referred to?
• Are we talking physical health or the more karmic meaning of the Tree?
• If karma, what is the karmic aspect of the situation?
• Is the Heart referring to a romance or a passion – or the physical heart?
• If a romance, who is the person concerned?
• What good fortune will manifest as a result of this situation?

I could pick any of these, but for now, let’s just choose one and see what information I can get about it.

I decide to find out more about the Heart aspect.

I reshuffle the cards, and ask the following question. Note that I keep it fairly loose on this occasion. I will be doing a 9-Card Reading using the Heart card as a keycard

Q: What is the Heart card referring to in this reading? Tell me more about it.

So now I do a 9-Card reading about the Heart card, and this gives me the following clues:

• Overall: Health or energy ends; serious illness OR a karmic ending (Coffin—Tree); reduced health, growth stopped in its tracks (Tree—Scythe); a secret is uncovered, a discovery (Scythe-Book), education complete, book ending, secret revealed (Book-Coffin).
• About this Heart: depressed, ill, last or finishing woman (Woman-Coffin); second chance, success in the end, positive ending (Coffin-Sun); successful or happy woman (Woman-Sun).
• What is the Heart referring to?  Heart health, cardio, love karma (Tree-Heart); secret passion, hidden love or heart issue (Heart-Book), hidden health issue, researching symptoms, secret karma (Tree-Book).
• Additional information: Trip cut short, movement curtailed (Ship-Scythe); painful decision, suffering, burden or pressure reduced (Scythe-Cross), burdened trip or movement (Ship-Cross).
• Previously:  Healthy, energetic woman (Woman-Tree), health-related or karmic trip, movement and energy (Tree-Ship), travelling or moving woman (Woman-Ship)
• Now:  Love or romance ending; heart failure (Coffin-Heart), broken heart, heart injury (Heart-Scythe); painful or decisive ending (Coffin-Scythe).
• Future: Secret joy, successful education (Sun-Book); the pressure or burden of knowledge, spiritual knowledge (Book-Cross), the pressure of success (Sun-Cross).
• Past to future: A woman’s burdened or pressured heart, love life or blood pressure (Woman-Heart-Cross); a successful and happy love journey or a heart improved by movement (Ship-Heart-Sun).

This is all they are though — clues. And as you can see, they still doesn’t give me a definitive answer, although the amount of extra information is useful.

As it happens, there are two particular situations in my life it could apply to; I have indeed been thinking about my heart health and lack of cardio exercise as I’ve been very busy lately, not moving enough and as a result lacking in energy and sluggish, so making  more time to exercise has been on my mind. It could easily be this, and who knows what other positives may arise from that.. However, there is also another situation going on in my life that could indeed be related to a karmic romance, so I’m not discounting that.

On balance, though, I’m going to go with the health and energy one, just because I know it’s been on my mind and it’s something I can take action on. Also, going back to the original reading (ALWAYS refer back to the original reading to ground yourself and any additional information) it looks like it does end positively and with unexpected luck, so really, I have nothing to lose in this case.

What If I Want To Follow The Trail Further?

Now, depending on what comes up in my extra readings, I have even more avenues to explore.

I could explore more cards from the original reading, or pick up on some of the things that appeared in the 9-Carder.

Further questions I could ask in this case & what steps I could take are:

• What can I do to build my health and vitality? (A reading with the Tree as the keycard OR blind)
• What good fortune will manifest from this situation? (A reading with the Clover as keycard)
• What would success look like in this situation? (Use the Sun as keycard)
• What aspects of the Woman are important in this situation? (Use the Woman as keycard.)
• What is it that is ending? (Use the Coffin as keycard.)
• What is the journey being described? (Use the Ship as keycard.)
• What is the knowledge or secret being talked about in the reading? (Use the Book as keycard.)

and so on. In some situations you can carry on doing readings indefinitely and build up more and more information until you’re happy you’ve got the complete situation.

But That’s A LOT Of Information! How Can I Use It To Get “The Right” Answer?

As is often the case with Lenormand, it really depends how you use it and how good you are at piecing things together – and how confident you are in doing so. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes – as I often find with the 3-card spread, in particular – it really isn’t, and paradoxically, it’s the simplest spreads that can be the most confusing. Sometimes more is actually better, even if it requires additional work to create a story.

Yes, a lot of additional information can be overwhelming. However, you will often find that the more ‘clues’ you get, the more becomes clear to you as they start to fit into the story and build the big picture. (It’s not called the Grand Tableau for nothing, you know!). The key when following any trail of clues, I think, is to always refer whatever information you find back to the original reading in some way; to remind yourself that you are still talking about the same situation.

What You Need In Your Lenormand Detective Toolkit

Well, if you know classic TV detective Columbo, all our trusty lieutenant needed was that scruffy mac, a cigar, an inquiring mind and that disarming “Oh, just more one thing,” habit just as the culprit relaxed and thought they’d got away with their crime. As always, the tools YOU need at your disposal to ‘detect’ successfully in. your readings are:

• A confident understanding of the cards’ underlying meanings & how they manifest
• Knowledge of how to apply those meanings to different situations & contexts
• An understanding of card combinations and how they work
• A creative mind, that can piece a story and meanings together from clues
• If you are doing a Grand Tableau, a knowledge of  Knighting, Mirroring and Reflection techniques to dig out hidden information.

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