The Lenormand Tree: Rotten to the Core?
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I just came to the realization that the illustration of the Tree card in most Lenormand decks shows it to be mature and clearly in excellent health, while its usual interpretation is anything but hale-and-hearty. This discrepancy seems like a “red herring” that leads beginners to see it as a fortunate card when in fact it often signals illness at worst and a sense of inertia or “stuckness” at best. (To be fair, there is the idea that it conveys something “deeply-rooted and enduring,” but that could just as easily signify a protracted ailment as an encouraging sense of long-term stability and durability.)
I probably shouldn’t be showing my advanced age here, but there was once a cartoon show way back in the 1950s called Tom Terrific (on the early Captain Kangaroo show, no less) that had a character named “Crabby Appleton” whose arrival was always heralded with the ominous voice-over “rotten to the core.” While his appearance generally matched his grumpy disposition unlike that of the Tree, I can see parallels between the two. In a recent online conversation that addressed the Tree in a spread, I commented: “I’m reminded of a mature tree in the forest that gives the appearance of good health but is really rotten and hollowed-out at the core.”
Elsewhere on the site I questioned why the Tree isn’t more frequently depicted as sickly, befitting its common portrayal in the narrative of a reading. I’ve seen a few instances of this, but not many. Artists obviously want to dwell on the concepts of wholesome growth and longevity in their imagery rather than on any hint of infirmity. This seems to go back all the way to the earliest historical examples. The Philippe Lenormand Sheet, possibly the original packed-in “Little White Book,” doesn’t help matters much by what it leaves unsaid:
№5. — A TREE, if distant from the Person, signifies good health; more trees of different cards together, leave no doubt about the realization of all reasonable wishes.
The reader is left to assume that when the Tree is anywhere but “distant from the Person,” it must mean the opposite of good health. I would venture to say that this is the root of current thinking that the Tree far away from the Significator card is relatively innocuous, while nearby it symbolizes an unhealthy state of affairs. The seasoned readers I communicate with online are of the opinion that the Tree is not normally a hopeful card; when distant it can be safely ignored, but when ominously near the Significator it portends the need to pay close attention to one’s well-being, whether in bodily terms or in the circumstances of the matter at hand.
I’m thinking that the best solution to this conundrum may be to present the Tree as “half-dead and half-alive,” one side of it green and growing in a verdant landscape and the other side barren of leaves with its roots exposed. Depending on which side faces the SC in a “near-to-the-Person” scenario, we could decide whether to shade it toward “risk of illness” or “long-term health” (although the frost will most likely catch up to the latter before too long). This is one of those cards where absolutes seen less dependable, so a little flexibility may be warranted. But this is just the speculative raving of a borderline Lenormand renegade with iconoclastic notions, so take it for what it’s worth.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on November 27, 2023.
