Combination Reading Experiment I

So having tarot cards and an oracle and the arcana stones AND a lenormand now got me thinking... and when I start thinking, sometimes I come up with some funny ideas. What would happen, for example, if I tried doing a reading that combined ALL of those?

So I decided to do just that. Rather than just read for myself as usual, I offered two experimental readings to members of the Aeclectic Tarot forums in exchange for feedback and permission to re-post them here. This is the first of these, including the feedback.

In this case, my sitter asked:
I would like to know if there is potential for me to move to a job that is better suited to my personality anytime soon.

10 of Sticks  |  Rebellion  |  Letter  |  Malachite/Empress

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We start of the reading with the tarot card, in this case the 10 of sticks. The figure here is clearly struggling to move forward while balancing such a large, heavy burden on his back. No doubt this is one of the many times he has had to pause, re-adjust the sticks, keep going. Nonetheless, he is managing it, even if it is slow progress, and no doubt stressful and unpleasant. He can keep going on just as he has been for a while yet. Is it worth it though, to keep on with this burden? Is all that effort getting him to where he wants to be? A lot of the time, when we are under this kind of pressure, so much of how we handle it is attitude - if you know that you need to do what you are doing to get you to your goals, its easier to maintain morale, whereas when things feel rather pointless/like a dead end...

Yup i can definitely understand this card, work is relentlessly busy due to staffing cuts with loads of non-negotiable deadlines made all the harder because i find the actual job painfully tedious so i can see where attitude might come in lol.

The card that follows indicates the latter may be the case, in your situation. Here we have the card titled Rebellion, representing the energies of Mars in Aquarius. Mars is, of course, the planet of war, fire-energy, assertiveness, even aggression; Aquarius tends to be very independent-minded, one that judges the merits of something according to their own principles and values, and not what anyone else might say. Aquarius doesn't tend to just go along when things don't feel like they are working, don't feel right. Here, in the bottom of the image we see a fort, well-defended, well-established. Going up against it can be a difficult prospect, moreso if you consider the authority and power behind it...and yet there, above it, a youth is doing just that - challenging the stylized, ritualized, static figures of authority, of established things. There is not enough freedom in this work situation for you to be happy - the personality aspect of your question, I take it - and you are ready, deep down, to do something about it. You should, in fact, this card says, do something about it, rebel against that burden you are feeling.

This made me snigger a bit because it sounds soooo like me. I work in a typical bureaucracy where there are established ways of doing things regardless of whether or not it makes sense and i'm forever kicking against it. I also tend to value the differences in people and believe everyone has a right to be themselves without judgement but some of the people i work alongside have very rigid views about how people should think/act etc and can often be incredibly petty. Needless to say i don't particularly conform to their world view which doesn't trouble me though it can get wearing at times and i just can't find it in me to go along with them for an easy life lol !!!

And how? On the other side of this card we have the Letter. This card can represent communication, reaching out, and also physical things - letters, documents, diplomas. In this context, this makes me think of resumes - have you updated it recently, perhaps asked someone knowledgeable to look it over for you? What about cover letters? It can be easier to job search with confidence when you know that your 'paperwork' is up to par, and if you haven't started the process yet, it can be a good first step. If you've been thinking of going back to school or some kind of training/course or such, this card suggests that it might be wise - another certificate/diploma/thing to put down on paper might help you along in your search for better work. Lastly, looking at communication more broadly - have you though about how you might network? Phone calls, emails, social networks - anyone who might know of something more suitable thats hiring or the like? Even if it doesn't pay off right away, it might help you to maintain those links in the future.

Although I have a fairly high level of education already because I'd like to try a completely different path, i have been thinking about looking at further study recently though finances are a sticking point for now. It's a good point about updating the resume which is something i haven't looked at in a long time!

Finally, we have the Malachite stone, representing the Empress, which I think ties up the reading quite well. Following the letter card, I think it gives a nice emphasis to the message there - work on developing your credentials, skills, on nurturing those aspects of yourself that will help you advance in your professional life and help you get to where you want to/would rather be. This can be the paper-work stuff, but can also be about nurturing yourself more broadly - about having and projecting confidence, in feeling surer of yourself when you interview, in believing that you deserve to have a job that isn't so burdensome, that you can succeed in finding one and excelling in it. It also emphasizes, I think, that your feelings of 'rebellion' against your current work situation are appropriate: getting out of it will help you grown, perhaps allow your creative side to develop more as well. If you get any flashes of inspiration - ideas of where to apply, who to try to reach out to, perhaps trying to do something more like starting a business of your own, anything like that - don't be afraid to pursue them and see where it goes.

Interestingly I do want to find something that is more creative and have toyed with ideas on looking at self employment though as yet no idea has firmly taken root but maybe i just need to explore that a bit deeper.

Thank you for the reading, it all made sense and tied in quite well with what's going on around me at the moment and has validated some of the things i've been considering.

moving forward, walking away

So some more experimenting - this time, an attempt to do a reading combining tarot and lenormand. Basically, draw one tarot card and have that serve as the overarching 'theme' of the reading, and then a string of three lenormand cards as the message for/response to/clarification of the tarot card. Basically the tarot still gets read as tarot and the lenormand cards still get read together, as lenormand cards ought to be.

In terms of over-arching theme, we have the eight of cups. A man stands in a body of water, his back turned towards the future, the sky. Above the water he is attractively-built, strong; below it, a kind of tentacled creature, bizarre, flexible and yet so...intangible, difficult to describe. The contrast between how others perceive us and how we perceive ourselves, in our heads? Ever since I was a small child I have always had this odd feeling that my body wasn't really...me; not the way my mind was, my thoughts.

Anyway, he faces away from the cups, the things he has, the place he has been, the past. Instead he looks up, towards the sky, the stars, hopes and dreams and the intangible - all the things you must work for, grasp at if you ever want a real chance at having. Turning away from the status quo to pursue more, the new. Letting go, being willing to reach. Knowing when to walk away, and what to walk away from.

Then, to take a look at the lenormand cards and see what they have to say about that...We have the crossroads, which is about making choices, and decisions, being forced to figure out which road you will take, what sacrifices to make doubts; and the coffin which speaks of difficult things, depression and illness and death, of endings; and the stars, of hope and creativity and imagination, of renewal, inspiration.

Given the cards around in, the coffin in this layout seems to hold a meaning quite similar to that of the Death card in the tarot. Particularly striking in this image is the ritualized, stylized nature of the thing - it isn't just death, it is death, decay preserved, romanticized, all that energy and cost gone into preserving something gone, over...reminds me of Lenin's tomb for example - quite disturbing and unnecessary, if you think about it. Better off to kill those things for good, let them go, choose to walk down the path of separation that would take you into the future towards far better, healthier, more productive and fulfilling things.The star at assures that it is possible, that you have in in you to heal, to fulfill those dreams, to do so many better things if only you could make that decision to let the negative coffin things really go.

How much energy goes into maintaining that elaborate coffin, dealing with it? What kind of starry things could you accomplish if your focus could be fully turned elsewhere, if like the man you could walk away from those tired old cups?

For me, this message is utterly applicable. Things that have gone on for ten years now... I truly do not know how to even try anymore and yet, the cards remind me, that I must; to not give up when I just feel so tired of the inevitability of it all. You can never get unstuck if all you do is muddle about and dwell on how stuck you are. 

Lenormand dabbling

So yes, after long-resisting the idea of branching out into anything but tarot (too many decks already!) I first got an oracle and now...a lenormand, too. Pixie's Astounding Lenormand, in the 2nd edition, specifically. Confronting a whole new system of reading...it's comforting to have the familiar art style, which funny enough I actually appreciate more in this than in the actual RWS...

Anyway, a sample of the dabbling -

So, to go by the lenormand style, which seems to be much more about reading the cards together in string rather than individually, and then make connections, the way one does in tarot...

The ship and the moon together seem to reflect the way my mind is right now, moving about, unfocused, now daydreaming this and that, distracted by anything - I should be cleaning! Studying! Instead I am playing with Lenormand cards, flitting from this and that, anxiety and feeling adrift, yes. Aimless, foggy mind-sailing.

Which is in fact interfering with my studies, the books and readings I need to be doing, the learning I ought to be absorbing - as the book and the cloud together right there indicate. Of course this ship-moon-book combination, this lack of focus, only make me feel more stressed, the clouds thus forming a bridge between the book and the stars, the whole cycle of stress and anxiety making me feel worse which makes it even harder to do anything useful and yet...

The reading ends of the stars, the card of hope, inspiration, imagination in the Lenormand as well as the tarot. Stars, the awe of looking up at a perfectly black sky and seeing those pinpoints of light...hope, need to focus on that, finding the motivation behind the clouds even in times like this...