The “Closer”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: In my recent essay on the “trickle-down” progress of a Lenormand Grand Tableau reading I mentioned that the card at the extreme lower right of the layout has the potential to “bring the querent the greatest satisfaction since it is a ‘known quantity’ that is under complete control.” The assumption is that cards to the right of the significator exhibit a more pronounced sense of purpose and those below it are subject to a greater degree of conscious direction. Here I’m taking the idea to its logical conclusion (although this experiment does jump the bounds of tradition as I learned it).
In his book, Lenormand, Thirty Six Cards, Andy Borveshengra mentions that the card at the upper-right corner of a GT is the most influential because it has reached maximum extension in terms of “above and to the right,” while the card at the lower-left corner is the least influential. He doesn’t talk about the other two corners, but it stands to reason that any card to the significator’s left is of declining importance. That leaves the lower-right corner to examine.
When read as part of the clockwise rotation in a “four-corners” analysis, this card is not the final one in the sequence, so it doesn’t carry the same weight as I’m proposing here. However, some people read the corners “on the diagonal,” in which case the top-left card (the lead card in the three-card “message for the querent”) and the bottom-right card are conceptually linked, raising the profile of the latter as it represents the fulfillment of the original promise. While this may not play into the typical “near/far” or “Method of Distance” delineation, neither do the other corners so I will present it as a “thing apart” for interpretation. We might say of this phenomenon that everything fetches up in the basement and we are “left holding the bag,” but it could just as legitimately mean “the buck stops here” in the sense that we must act decisively to move past the finish line.
First, the question of how to handle the four-card bottom row of the 8×4+4 GT must be answered. I generally don’t factor those cards into the “four-corners” overview because they constitute a self-contained “mini-story” within the reading, an arguably moot addendum that is pushing me toward using the 9×4 tableau instead. Therefore, in the 8×4+4 spread the “four corners” become Card #1, Card #8, Card # 25 and Card #32, with the last one being the pragmatic “closer” for the reading (while the bottom “fate or destiny” row conveys a more mystical denouement). Interestingly, it represents the “house of the Moon” in the standard 8×4+4 layout, or the area of life where we can do the most to “polish” our reputation and public image, always a good place to seek opportunities for personal advancement. In the 9×4 tableau it is the “house of the Cross,” suggesting the “climate of restriction” that we must transcend or outgrow in order to proceed.
In a reading I would look to this card for the last word on the practical implications of the main narrative, a kind of postscript or coda to the outcome that is not topic-specific but rather shows where the querent is likely to arrive in terms of overall material stability. I don’t think of it as a situational wrap-up but more as a “positioning” factor, suggesting how the querent can leverage everything that went before in the most utilitarian way according to the nature of the card that falls there. Think of it as a one-card snapshot of his or her best chance for mundane success and satisfaction in the long run.
I wouldn’t place a tremendous amount of emphasis on this card as an ending and would treat it only as a self-initiated exit point or “jumping-off place” for further developments beyond the accumulated testimony shown in the rest of the cards. Everything to its right is “off-the-page” so I would view it as an opportunity to break new ground from the vantage point of greatest traction. It would be worthwhile to use it as the opening card in a supplemental five-card line to see where that might lead for future circumstances of a purely functional kind. Since many readers view the proper focus of a Grand Tableau to lie entirely in the Present, this shift in context could serve as an augury of long-term consequences.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on October 10, 2023.
