Chloe demonstrating the Square of Nine spread
When Chloe announced that she would be doing a Lenormand workshop, I was over the moon. Knowing Chloe from her Inner Whispers blog and having met her at the UK Tarot Conference, I know that she is both knowledgeable and wonderful to talk to in real life. Her knowledge of Psychotherapy and Counselling (currently doing her Masters) makes her the ideal teacher as far as I am concerned. Cartomancy without a deep understanding of the human psyche is not only ‘fluff’ but could potentially do harm.
I had wanted to learn the Lenormand properly ever since I got my first deck over five years ago (the Blue Owl I left behind after the workshop – sorry!). However, I quickly realised that Lenormand studies would take every bit as much patience and dedication as learning the Tarot and also that it was quite a different way of reading the cards.
Trying to learn on my own lead to overwhelm, so I put my Lennies to one side… until the big Lenormand explosion that happened online last spring. All of sudden everybody and their uncle wanted to learn and New School experts started cropping up across the pond. Facebook study groups mushroomed and for a while I enjoyed all the flurry… until overwhelm hit again. Too many systems… too many different voices. There had to be a better way. Spending more time online when I was already spending soooo much time online with my own work seemed plain crazy too.
Chloe’s workshop arrived just at the right time for me and it more than lived up to my expectations. It provided a way for me to kickstart my Lenormand reading skills and I’m not exaggerating when I say that the cards finally began to whisper and sing to me after this workshop. It gave me that extra bit of confidence I needed to begin trusting my inner voice.
An early start for me to get from North Yorkshire to London in time for the workshop which was scheduled to begin at 11AM!
Chloe’s approach is relatively ‘New School’ too and I like how she is not too prescriptive about combinations and sentences. This style of reading really suits me, as does taking spiritual and psychological aspects into consideration when reading the cards, which is an approach quite far removed from the Old School European way of reading the cards (strictly fortune-telling).
My Lennies and a bit of light reading for the journey down to London 
Due to heavy snowfall, I arrived slightly delayed and Chloe was just about to start going into individual card meanings. I missed the history portion and the explanation of various levels of interpretation: Symbolic, Literal, Form, Cartomantic, Image, Person. Thankfully, I was able to catch up on what I had missed thanks to the excellent handouts. Did you know that Mlle Lenormand never read with the Petit Lenormand? Shocking, I know! This system was devised be Johann Kaspar Hechtel.
For each card, Chloe gave Nouns, Descriptors, Verbs, Form and Person. The person aspect mainly applies to cards associated with Kings, Queens and Jacks but Birds (7 of Diamonds), for instance, is associated with a couple, siblings, a pair or two friends. Ship can be a business person and Rider (9 of Hearts) a young man/lover etc.
Chloe explaining Single Position Spreads
After the lunch break, we completed going through the individual cards and started talking about different spreads to use with the Lenormand cards. According to Chloe, the Petit Lenormand deck can be used with any type of spreads, including Single Position spreads such as the Celtic Cross.
We moved onto reading a single row of 5 or 7 cards and Chloe made us guess what sentence the row of 5 she had chosen to use a header image for the Workshop created:
Cloud-Book-Rider-Flowers-Rider
“The gift of knowledge clears the clouds of confusion.”
Brilliant and totally true!
Chloe talked some more about ways of reading a row, pairs, order (noun and descriptor) and mirroring. Then we practiced reading the row of five in pairs:
Gilded Reverie Lenormand by Ciro Marchetti used here
Pauline was my practice partner and she did a billiant reading for me with the cards below:
Great readings were had all around:
We then moved onto the Nine Square Spread and got quite deep, talking about Knighting and Mobile Houses.
Chloe explaining how mobile houses can be used for smaller spreads like the Nine Square.
Around the Nine Square we built a Grand Tableau which was an excellent way of demonstrating how you can read the Nine Square within the Grand Tableau.
Chloe also demonstrated various ways of reading past/future within the Grand Tableau, as well as what is affecting you (above) and what you can affect (below). We looked at rows, columns, diagonals and knighting with the GT as well. What was so amazing was that at no point did I feel in overwhelm with the information presented. Chloe has a very clear and calm way of transmitting material, which makes her an ideal workshop leader.
We laughed a lot too. It seems we did not only share our love for cartomancy in this group but also a similar sense of humour. I would love to attend a follow-up workshop at some point in the future and I hope everyone who was at the first workshop can make it!
I came away with a renewed passion for the Lenormand… but more importantly, with the ability to look at the cards and not just draw a blank Thanks again, Chloe – You rock!
Blessings,
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Thank you, Lisa, for such a beautiful write-up, and for helping make my first Lenormand Workshop such an enjoyable experience. It’s always great to have a friendly, knowledgeable group to share and learn with
So glad you like the write-up. Fun was had!
Sounds you all had so much fun! And it’s great to see Chloe in full-on ‘Can you hear me, class??’ mode!
xx I hope I can make it to the next one to have fun and get my mitts on those glorious handouts! 
Thanks, Carla! I hope you can make it to the next one too – would be great to meet you in person!
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