Card combinations are at the heart of the Lenormand system, and being able to read the cards in pairs easily is crucial for your development as a Lenormand reader. This is because:
- MOST card layout methods are based on you being able to read the cards in pairs
- You then need to put those paired interpretations together with other pairs to form the story of a given reading
Newcomers to the Lenormand system tend to rely heavily on card combination lists, and indeed they are incredibly helpful when you are practising your first layouts and readings; when you’re learning layouts, it’s way, way easier just to look something up quickly for an answer than it is to have to try and work out the potential meanings on top of everything else.
So if you can just learn all the combinations by heart, you’ll be ok, right?
Wrong!
The problem with this approach
First of all, learning all the combinations by heart would be an impossible task. Why?
Well, there are 36 cards and each card can combine with each of the 35 other cards to make a new meaning. Given that the order the cards fall in in a pair can affect the meaning, that means that, even if you only had one interpretation for each possible paired combination, you would have a MINIMUM of 1260 combinations to learn by heart. A minimum. Can you imagine?
Infinite Interpretations
The other thing is, there isn’t just one interpretation for each pair of cards. There are a huge number of possible interpretations, as you’ll see from the examples below. Why? Because not only does each card itself have a number of meanings which can combine in different ways, but that will also depend on the context in which you are reading the cards.
You’ll find that the card combination lists provided by myself and other Lenormand readers mostly contain two or three of the main possibilities at a maximum; usually, two or three of the most common or basic, to set you on the right road.
Can’t I Just Rely On the Lists You Give Me?
As I say, the card combination lists we provide are really useful when you are first learning the Lenormand system, because they’ll give you a quick and easy reference to the basics. But they are not the only possibilities.
The problem can come when you are trying to string a ‘story’ together in a particular reading or context, you want precise answers related to that, and you’re dealing with more cards (and yes, even in three card readings, you need to read combinations in pairs). For a reminder of how you might string card combinations together take a look at this post:
How To Tell A Story With Lenormand
Sometimes it works fine when you just use the combination lists provided, but for better accuracy in all readings, with greater use of your intuitive skills and greater confidence, you’ll want to be able to let go of the lists and come up with combinations yourself.
So How Do I Do That?
First, you need to learn the basic rule of reading paired Lenormand Combinations. You can find it in this post here:
How To Read Lenormand Card Combinations: The #1 Secret
Got that?
Noun + Adjective.
Some combinations are the same whichever way round the cards are, so it’s not 100% true all the time, but for beginners it’s a pretty good rule of thumb. Once I learned that approach, my Lenormand card reading got a LOT easier and more flowing. Why? Because it freed me up in terms of interpreting in all sorts of different contexts, for much bigger readings and for all sorts of different questions AND it built my confidence and ability to use my own intuition in a reading.
Let Me Show You How It Works
OK. So let’s just take a random pair of cards:
BOOK + FISH
And I go to my Lozzy’s card combination list for Book and I see that the Book + Fish combination means the following:
Book & Fish: Business learning; business secret; freelance knowledge
Those are just three of the possible meanings though. Useful, but what if they don’t totally fit my context or reading? Can I come up with more? How might I have come up with those? Did I study the lists and learn them all by heart?
No I didn’t. So what could I do instead?
First off, and remembering that the first card in a pair is usually the Noun (thing, person, object), I make a list of as many meanings as I can think of, in Noun form, of the Book Card.
BOOK (noun)
Book
Schoolbook
Learning
Education
Knowledge
Information
Secret
Classes
School
College
Publishing
Manual
Teaching
OK? So I’ve got lots of possible meanings of the first card there.
Now, it’s time to look at my second card in the pair, The Fish card. The second card in the pair usually describes the thing, person or object, in other words, it will be an Adjective, or work like an adjective in a sentence. So now I’m going to think of as many adjectives or describing words/phrases from the Fish card as I can.
FISH (Adjective)
Business (-related)
Independent
Free
Freedom-Loving
Freelance
Liberated
Adaptable
Enterprising
Freeing
Cashflow-related
Marine
Making a Combination
Now to come up with as many combinations as I possibly can, based on this pair of cards, in this order.
BOOK + FISH
To do this, I am going to combine as many of those nouns and adjectives that I came up with as I can and get them to make some kind of real-world sense (bear in mind, some combinations won’t come up with anything you’d find in real life particularly.) So I will need to use the Noun + Adjectives I just came up with, and try to make combinations that make sense, remembering that in English, we usually put the adjective first when we speak.
Ready? So, the Book + Fish combination could mean:
Business (-related) Book or one about Enterprise or Cashflow
Free Book
Book about Freedom or Liberation
Book about Marine Life or Fish
Schoolbook about any of the above
Business learning or classes
Free courses
Courses on Marine Biology or Fishing
Marine knowledge
Business knowledge
Freelance knowledge
Freedom knowledge
Cashflow knowledge
Liberating information
Business secret
The secret of liberation or freedom
Business school
Business publishing
Freelance publishing
Business teaching
So that’s 19 possible combinations just for those two cards: and I’m sure other people could come up with even more!
Do you see now how I came up with the meaning in my card combinations list of:
Book & Fish: Business learning; business secret; freelance knowledge
but also WHY that might not be the best meaning in all situations?
Aargh! But that’s even MORE things to remember! How will I know which combination to use?
Well, first of all, you’re not usually going to sit down in front of a reading and write huge lists like the above to come up with all possible meanings. They are just an example of why combinations list don’t give you the whole picture.
Instead, with a bit of practice in readings you will find that the answers and possibilities come quite easily and naturally. And the reason for that is…
THE CONTEXT OF A READING AND THE QUESTION
If you are doing a reading for a friend in a work and career context and the question was about how she could progress in her career, which of the possible combinations do you think would be most likely?
It would most likely be the ones about business school or business learning, wouldn’t it?
If you were talking to a young person with a science background and a love of the sea about what to study at university?
Well, it might be a Marine Biology course
A person with a tendency to get trapped in unhappy love relationships?
Learning or educating themselves about how to maintain freedom and independence, maybe?
So How Should I Use Card Combinations?
There is nothing wrong with going with the most basic meanings in a reading when you are first starting out, but at the same time, be aware that there may be others better suited to your context and question. The best advice I can give is to start training yourself to use the noun + adjective method whenever you can until it becomes second nature, and see if you can come up with combinations of your own. Your readings will be better and more accurate for it.
As I have said: you will find that when it comes to card combinations in the Lenormand system and readings, practice makes perfect.
Want to test your knowledge of card combinations?
Try my Card Combinations Quiz and see how you do!
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Grazie!!!!!! Thank u for sharing with us this article