Big Spreads – Love ‘Em or Hate ‘Em?

I don’t know if you caught it, but Benebell Wen posted a YouTube video about the Tarot Tableau, based on the PDF book by Thomas of Hermit’s Mirror. The Tableau assigns each Major Arcana to its own ‘house’, much like the assigned houses of Lenormand. The spread is designed to see where you are on your life’s journey (or a specific project journey) as well as the factors impacting the journey. The only cards used in the reading are the Majors.

Cards are read through the lens of the house in which they land; for example if the Hierophant is in the House of the World, the message may be about the need to have established boundaries during the journey. In addition, just like Lenormand’s Grand Tableau, the Tarot Tableau reads certain sections, with the most important the houses of the Fool and the World, then finding the ‘heart of the spread’, and also reading corners, using knighting and mirroring.

Thomas’ 96-page PDF explaining the spread is $7.

Thoughts on the Tarot Tableau

As someone who likes doing readings with 1-3 cards, I have to admit I am typically put-off by large card readings (unless it’s Jessica Macbeth’s Chakra Spread – hopefully coming to a later newsletter). But I wanted to give the Tableau a spin, as I do like the concept of checking in with the beginning and the conclusion of a journey. I did a single reading for myself using the Tableau and two for clients and my conclusions were this:

Reading the Fool and World Houses gave valuable information.
Finding the Heart (placed in either the Strength (8) house or Death (13) house was equally valuable.
Beyond those placements, I didn’t get as much value from reading corners, diagonals, etc. In other words, the typical Grand Tableau reading techniques.

But, that’s just me. If using many cards in your reading suits your style, then this might be an exceptional tool for you to incorporate, particularly if you’re already reading Lenormand. Caution, though, this is not a quick read spread – the readings I did took me a little more than an hour each. However, if you concentrated on the Fool, World, and Heart, you could easily interpret in a much shorter reading.

Under the Moon Tarot Spread

This week on the blog I posted a new spread. If you’ve ever seen On Golden Pond, there’s a night scene with Dabney Coleman in which he’s saying that he thought he saw a bear. Hepburn’s response: That’s a lawn chair.

Each time I pull the Moon card (Major XVIII) I think of that scene and how the things we see by moonlight are always suspect. Reality or illusion?

Yes, the moon is the card of intuition. Yes, the moon is about emotions. But more than that, I see the Moon as the card that cautions us to be aware that we don’t have enough sunlight to see what’s truly there. This spread was created to help dispel a little of that moonlight illusion.

Begin by choosing a specific situation.

Card 1: How do I perceive this situation? (Moon)

Card 2: What is the reality of the situation? (Sun)

Card 3: What is my right action in this situation? (Stars)

Give Under the Moon a spin and let me know what you think.

One Last Spread – Identifying Obstacles

I was surprised to see that posts were appearing once again on Little Red Tarot, an LGBTQ-centric site. This spread caught my eye and I thought I’d pass it along for your feedback. Honestly, I don’t know if I was having a bad day or whether I was having a less-than valuable spread day, so please check out the Identifying Obstacles Spread and send me an email with your thoughts.

I think part of my issue is that I don’t see much difference between ‘lessons’ and ‘challenges’. I know, just call me thick.

If you find a new and useful Tarot Spread – please share send it along. Spreads are my passion!

I think that’s it for today. I’m glad you’re here – and a shout-out to all of the new readers!

Nancy

p.s. I’m around on Social Media but mostly on Insta – see you there?