lenormand prospects

While visiting my parents I made use of my father's color printer and ready supply of cardstock type paper to print myself a simple, no-frills version of the lenormand deck I'd made. I brought it to my local tarot meetup last Saturday, and read with it a bit which went quite well. Several people expressed interest in purchasing a copy if I'd be willing to print it, and since it is all public domain art I used, I could, so I said I'd look into it and bring in some more copies next time if it turned out to be doable. Thinking more on the idea...well, what better way to explore the prospects than to ask the deck itself?
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(This was  a simple five card line reading, but I can't take proper pictures at the moment so reading is posted here the way it is...)

In the first two cards of the row we have the Tower and the Rider. In this case, I think the whole stable, solid foundation is best meaning for the tower, and with that, a message, a forward movement. I have the right foundation to move this project forward. I have the cards all done, I was careful when making it to only use public domain images, and I even have some spare money to print some copies, assuming costs are reasonable. I live in a city so finding somewhere simple to do it, kinkos or some similar, should not be very hard at all.

The third card, in the very center of the reading, is the Lady, here no doubt representing myself. What I want and what I am willing to do, how much energy I have to devote to this, is central. This card is next to the Rider on it's left...I am the one who would have to be the rider her, moving things forward, walking around to find a printing place, doing the legwork, all of that.

On the right of this card we have the Snake, for deception and trickery and such. Given the placement and lack of other obvious influences in the spread that makes me think of self-deception. Am I telling myself this will be less work/hassle than would really be the case? Am I scaring myself off from trying by over-emphasizing those aspects? Both are possible...

It might indeed be that printing some copies of this deck, to bring to my tarot group and maybe offer online, wouldn't be as simple and casual a thing as I would like. I've never done something like this before, so I really do not know. I made this deck on a whim when severely sleep deprived and stressed. I quite like it, and my motivation for considering this is not any kind of money-related. If I did this, it would be because I like the idea of having something creative to do. If other people actually like what I did, then for printing costs + a bit for my time, if it were reasonable, would be great to offer some copies for this. If it does turn out to be more complicated or stressful than I imagine...I could see  the scythe being the end, yes. Suddenly deciding to just give up this whole idea, maybe doing one or two small batches and that's all folks, because well...I have more important things in my life to stress me out and suck up on my time, and if this were to become something other than I nice change of pace, some experience and a bit of fun...well, yes. Cutting it off and moving on.

It's interesting, that contrast between first and last card. Tower and Scythe. A strong foundation but also easily ended. Actually, that seems like the best argument for giving it a bit of a go...I can decide not to continue with this at any time. It's all about what I want to do, as the lady shows.

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Also, in thinking about this, I threw together a few more cards...a back I'd like to use, as well as additional reversed and renumbered Lady and Gentleman cards, for folks/readings where two same gender cards would preferable:

snapshot of a day

still too busy finishing up to get to properly working with my shiny new victorian romantic mini tarot deck... so for now, this.

I drew these three lenormand cards this morning and they turned out to be more on-point than I expected. A day full of travel it was indeed: what is normally a four and a half hour bus ride took seven, then more time in the car getting home, my father taking a different route that had us wondering through a very Hasadic section of Brooklyn...

Productive though, in spite of that. Made much progress in completing my work on that long bus ride. The camel here looks to the right, at the sun; the ship, too, sails towards the light. Not quite there yet, the Sun in the center rather than at the end of the line which has this ship, the ongoing journey, but the light at the end is visible now.

A positive slant. The rider and sun together can mean receiving good news, news of success brought to you. I get home after all my moving about and find an email from professor whose paper I had slaved over all of last week. His comments on it were all positive - in fact, apparently I managed to impress him enough that he actually decided not to penalize me for submitting it a day and a half late...something he really seemed to be a stickler for. Sun type sign indeed. Pride, validation.

Sun in the center, and a push. The ship too, is nearing its goal, its day almost over, a journey coming to an end. Finish this paper and put the journey of this semester behind me - if I can force myself to stay awake, sleep deprived one more time...I think I can.

personal lenormand - short reading

So yeah, even when I am working very hard on getting something done and very stressed about it, I seem to have an inability to really stay focused on only one thing throughout. Add to that a need to distract myself from a kind of panic attack today over still not being done with this now-late-in-spite-of-extension paper, and...well. I sort of threw together a personal use lenormand for myself, using public domain art (wiki paintings is useful place :0).

Mostly this is inspired by the fact that my tastes apparently differ from most as far as lenormand is concerned. Granted I am a mere dabbler at this point, but.... I've heard a lot of people say that whereas they like complex imagery in their tarot decks, a simple straightforward art style for lenormands does it for them. While I don't necessarily NOT like that...well. What can I say? I've always been a very, very visual person. Besides that, doing this was a fun little distraction indeed because it allowed me to really think about what felt right to me, to find images that together hold I kind of universality which is rather lacking in most lenormands especially. Like the house card: yes, for some a house is a nice square building with big windows and a garden out front; for others, a house is a yurt. Both are houses aren't they, the same idea? So why always show only the one?

Anyway, wanted to give this a quick test drive. It's all digital for now though I may try to print me a copy eventually. No in depth reading...really have not the time or the mental capacity right now.

First row of cards quite accurately captures my current predicament. House, Book, Moon. I have barely left my house for days other than venturing out to grab beverages when I get too dehydrated. It is a mess, calling for attention. I must pack in the next few hours to go to another house, my parents', for the holidays. I feel stuck in this house, in the house with that book that taunts and taunts because I only have this one thing left to finish, this one final paper, and yet it never seems to end and my mind is not being cooperative and on and on it goes. The moon on the other side of this book, yes. My mind jumps and skips around so many things. Wild thoughts, crazy ones - creative too, inspired, except not about the THING THAT I AM SUPPOSED TO BE WORKING ON. Stuck in the house working on finishing this book work and feeling like my sanity is wearing away...

After that I decided to draw two more cards - since the first three described my situation, the last two, for a nice five row whole, to provide me a solution. A contrast here, with the Fish and the Star, the positive energy as opposed to the negative overall feel of the previous cards. Like the Moon the fish can be seen as creativity, but also work, momentum, succeeding by keeping on. The star indicates positive things indeed, success, completion, getting it done. A reassuring message for me, here. Part of my issue is that I keep thinking about failure, and well. Hope, yes. And a reminder to take better care of myself, I think, between the star and the fish....I won't get into details but last couple days with all of this I have not been...good about that, at all. Touche.

A good first reading, I think. Now to get back to doing appropriate things....