In this episode of Awakening Reflections Podcast, I’m speaking with the brilliant Trish Appleyard of The Book and the Key. We chat about Trish’s spiritual beginnings and how they shaped her current beliefs and career, the concept of cocreation, and the fascinating Lenormand card system.

The links to Trish’s website and YouTube channel are below, as well as in the podcast episode notes. We hope you enjoy.

Transcript

Ellen (00:04):

Welcome to Awakening Reflections podcast. I'm your host, Ellen M. Gregg.

In this episode, I'm chatting with Trish Appleyard of The Book and the Key. Trish runs the Meetup group The Card Sleuths, and is a Lenormand and tarot reader and teacher, as well as an Akashic Records reader and Reiki master.

She has a YouTube channel with pick-a-card readings featuring Lenormand, and her website, thebookandthekey.com, features Lenormand resources, meanings and combinations, plus card spread ideas. It's also where you can book a session with her and find the link to her Etsy shop.

You can catch Trish in person at events in Brisbane and South East Queensland, Australia, or work with her online. Now onto our chat.

Hello, Trish Appleyard. How are you today?

Trish (01:02):

Hello, Ellen M. Gregg. I am very good.

Ellen (01:09):

It is not very often that I have someone actually call me by my full name like that. I love it.

Trish (01:13):

Yeah, I know. Me too. That's why I was like, oh yeah, that's me. That is who I am. Okay. It just sounds so special coming from your mouth, Ellen.

Ellen (01:29):

Oh, you’re so sweet. You're so sweet.

Trish (01:33):

Infusing it with all sorts of sparkles. Yes, magic. It's an emoji.

Ellen (01:43):

So Trish, with these conversations, I love to know how people came into their own, so to speak, in terms of their intuition. And it's so funny, I always say intuition but I heard somebody say, “Intuitive powers.”

Trish (02:06):

Yeah,

Ellen (02:07):

Yeah,

Trish (02:08):

Great question. And I was thinking about this recently about when the first time was when I was a lot younger, when interesting, miraculous things started happening. And I think I was lucky in a way because, well, we all grow up the way we grow up, but in a way I feel I was well suited to growing up in an environment that had a religious backing to it.

So primary school and high school, I grew up with these stories about these ancient people who could all these amazing things and talk to God and have these gatherings where all the people there knew you could talk to God and knew you could do miracles and dah dah. And I think I took it literally. A lot of people just think it's a nice story and think of it as very far away from themselves, but I was like, oh, Jesus wanted us to do as he does.

(03:28)
So we're allowed to learn how to miraculously heal people and multiply food and do all these crazy things with matter and time and space that you don't see every day until you do see it and then you can't unsee it. Or I think for most of us, our brain does protect us from seeing bizarre things. And we get into this, did that really happen? Did I see that? That must have been, our brain just protects us and puts up this nice fuzzy wall of that didn't really happen.

Don't reorganize every single neural pathway in your brain to accommodate this and change your entire view of reality. Don't waste effort, just forget about it. So anyway, I had several kind of, I'm going to say miraculous experiences when I was younger that left little bits of proof so that I could check and see, oh no, no, I'm not just imagining it.

(04:44)
That really happened. And I can look at it and touch the thing and see that it was real. So one of the first things I remember is spontaneous healing. So I cut myself and I just started exploring the idea of me personally performing. I don't know these things that I heard. I heard, “You can do it.” 

And so I sat down and my cut on my right leg was bleeding. It wasn't too bad. And I just kind of decided I was going to heal myself. And so I put some fingers on my cut, which didn't really hurt, and there was this beautiful white light that kind of gathered all around me and my eyesight kind of went fuzzy. And I just saw white, very clear white, not like a yellow warm glow or anything. It was white. And I just kind of healed myself.

And so what was left was a cut on either side of my fingers, but where my fingers were touching was clean, perfectly healed skin. And I had the scar for years afterwards. So whenever I, oh, I'm getting chills just talking about this. Whenever I doubted it, I could look at my leg and see the scar with two little scars and a break of lovely clean skin in the middle.

Ellen (06:24):

And just for context, approximately how old were you when that happened?

Trish (06:30):

Maybe 12 or 13.

Ellen (06:34):

Wow. Wow. So first of all, okay, so for you to even have the wherewithal to have the thought process of attempting that and almost going by the assumption that you could is remarkable. So you see that solely as a result of that religious upbringing and well, that combined with the fact that you did ingest that supernatural paranormal information as though it was reality?.

Trish (07:25):

Yeah.

Ellen (07:26):

Wow. Well,

Trish (07:28):

Also,

Ellen (07:29):

Yeah, go ahead.

Trish (07:31):

Well, also, I think back then there wasn't an internet. It was computer people typing in numbers and letters, and that was how you could chat across the world with internet IP chats. So there wasn't Google and all that sort of thing on YouTube, but we'd have books or there'd be a TV show on some supernatural thing.

So there were these little tidbits, these little clues all around the place that I was able to find. I remember reading about a young boy somewhere in South America who was a healer. He was really, really sick. And with his last days on earth, he just had a line of people outside of his sick room and he would just lay his hands on them and heal them cleanly perfectly, and they would go away being able to see or having the cancer removed or having these terrible conditions fixed.

And it was credible enough that I was like, okay. And I suppose I was young, so it didn't have to be too credible for me to believe it, but that a modern person was doing it and that it wasn't just, oh no, Jesus, 2000 years ago in a Bible that's been retranslated 50 million times before it got to me. So I did have, well, other people can do it, other modern people that are just regular humans.

Ellen (09:07):

So that has then flavored your journey, so to speak.

Trish (09:16):

And I think I kind of give everything a go. I'm the kind of person that just kind of goes, oh, I'll try that. And then I've got really good beginner's luck and I may or may not continue that hobby or activity or pursuit, but I'll give it a go and I'm pretty good at it the first time.

So it is the third time, that's the difficult time for me that suddenly I dunno how to do it anymore and I've got to learn, but the first time I do things, I can kind of just do them. And I think that's that accessing the Akashic records type ability or I don't know.

That's what I've come up with so far. And another thing that happened a year or so after that was toning; singing to heal. Of course, 

Ellen (10:13):

I want to Google it so I can just- Toning. It’s toning.

Trish

Yes.

Ellen

Took me- I thought you said Tony, like the name Tony?

Trish (10:17):

No, toning, toning. You know that person? Toning? Yeah, toning. So there was a book, I don't know where it came from, but there was a book in the house. I had lots of brothers and sisters, and they were all older than me, so there was all sorts of things floating around. So there was this toning book and I was like, oh, cool, maybe I picked it up. I'm not quite sure.

Anyway, I just read it and just started doing it. And no one was home, which was really rare with so many brothers and sisters and parents and a grandmother that lived with us and pets, and there was no one there. And I was like, oh, okay. So I just kind of went into the bathroom where your voice sounds the best. Obviously we should both be really suing in the bathroom right now doing this.

(11:11)
And so I just started singing. And with toning, one of the things is that you don't have to breathe. You can just keep singing and singing and singing. And I just did it. I just sang for a really long time, this one note, doing all the instructions from this book, which I really wish I still had that book. I have no idea where it is or what it was called.

And eventually I just got bored and just stopped singing this note. I just kind of sang this note, and I was like, wow, yeah, really, I'm not having to breathe. This is really cool. And then I was sitting in the bathroom kind of singing, and then I got a bit bored. So I wandered out to the kitchen still singing this note, and then I was like, well, yeah, okay. And then I just stopped singing it.

It was minutes and minutes. It was a really long time, and I didn't have to breathe. It was minutes and minutes. And so being younger, I think I just got a bit bored and I stopped, but I was like, okay, well I can do that then. Wow.

So I guess I kind of just had this assumption that if there's good enough instructions that I should be able to do it. And I have this belief that all humans can kind of do anything, and we've just got to figure out how to unblock ourselves from being able to do it.

Ellen (12:53):

Yes. And I completely agree with you. It's one of those things where it rankles me when people talk about intuitive abilities and things like that as though they're only for certain people, they're only for special people. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Because there's a certain sense of exclusion there that I don't believe exists. So I feel like anybody can do those things. It's a matter of surely awareness of them being there and then permission, give yourself permission to give it a go. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? I mean, yeah.

Trish (13:38):

We're all part of this giant interconnected web of everything and can access universal life force. We can access source divinity. That's what I believe. So we're all inside of us, all of the dimensions. We can't exist without being in every dimension, the third dimension, fourth, fifth dimension, and that new age theories and stuff.

But it's all inside of us. We just have go inside of us and take the time to do it and decide that we're going to do it and then spend the time doing it. It just depends what you want to do in this life doesn't it?

Ellen (14:19):

It does. And maybe that's the thing too, is, well, I can only speak for myself, but it's sort of being a kid in the candy store. And it can almost be sometimes as though there's so much I can't even decide that could also be the fact that I'm a Libra son. But anyway…

Trish (14:38):

Is that a Libra thing?

Ellen (14:39):

It is, totally. Indecisiveness is a Libra thing. I don't like it, but there it is.

Trish (14:46):

I was thinking, well, I'm a Gemini sun, so I'm like, well, why not do both at the same time?

Ellen (14:53):

I’d like a little bit of that. I'd like just a little bit of that.

(14:58)
Yeah. It's one of those things where I look at the things that I have studied, Reiki, for example, and where that has led me and how expansive it can be. And it makes me wonder if those other things that I find myself doing more frequently than not, if I really set my mind to it and invested a little bit of extra time in it as an individual focus, what might happen.

And the thing is, maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe it's the fact that if you're using it on a regular basis, it's bound to expand anyway. It's like exercising a muscle. And it does make me wonder,

Trish (15:48):

Yeah, that happened recently. I just kind of got a lot of messages that I'm expanding on being, giving more gifts and other readers said the same. I've got a monthly group in my local city and once a month we all get together and just swap readings and practice being a reader.

And so it's very reader focused rather than give-me-a-reading focused. And people just are encouraged to help the person giving the reading to have autonomy and independence and to go by their own meanings of the cards and their own feelings. And we're allowed to have different meanings and we're allowed to do it differently and be helpful, be kind.

And so I get regular readings once a month from a bunch of different wonderful ladies. And then I've been giving readings at markets in my local area recently as well. And so when we're between clients, me and my market reader partner will give each other readings and I give myself reading, so I'm like, I just love doing all the cards stuff.

(17:01)
But then there's also just tuning in inside yourself. And when I was a kid, I just would go for it and be like, oh, okay, yep, I can do that. And I didn't have that, “Oh, you've got to be special to be able to have this talent or ability.” And then the older I got, I think the more I got that hierarchy or something, I don't know.

And so I still doubt various things. Like if I'm being told intuitively, psychically internally, or even externally, I'm more likely to believe it if someone else tells me or if the cards tell me. If it's a new ability that I think, oh, only special people can have that, then I find it really difficult to believe it inside myself. My own psychic messages, I'm not sure how much sense that just made. 

Yeah. So that's why I find the cards quite helpful because it can help get rid of that doubt. We've got that external token looking at you. Yeah.

Ellen (18:06):

Yeah, totally.

Trish (18:07):

I don't know, did I finish my point? I'm a bit, what was my point again? I think

Ellen (18:13):

About studying the benefits of studying something, like studying a modality, for example. Is that perhaps a better way to go than just swinging at the fences and going for it, or does it matter? Maybe it doesn't matter. I'm not sure.

Trish (18:36):

Yeah, I guess we all trip into it in different ways.

Ellen (18:39):

Yeah.

Trish (18:40):

Yeah. I kind of at studying in different things like Akashic records and studying card reading, getting certification and stuff like that. And that helped with my confidence, but I don't think I needed to do that.

Oh yeah, that's what it was, the study versus sometimes you're just gifted, sometimes you practice enough or you do X, Y, Z, and the divine just kind of goes, okay, I'm going to open this up for you now. And we discover we can do extra things or some extra things.

Ellen (19:18):

And I wondered too, this expanding certain abilities, we might become aware that we're doing something that we haven't done before and we're like, oh, that's cool. And I know for myself, I'll be like, oh, that's cool. And then I accept it as just adding another something to my healing kit and when it comes up, it comes up, but I don't tend to take that thing and then go and research it and see how other people are using it or how I might expand upon it. I sort of treat it in a pretty casual way as I stop to think about it.

Ellen (20:01):

I don't take it for granted, but at the same time it's like, okay, cool. And maybe part of that too is because I don't know how things come up for you, but I can say almost across the board, 99% of the time, new things come up in the middle of a client session. It's never like when I'm just sitting quietly doing nothing. It's always like when I'm actively practicing.

Trish (20:34):

Yeah, that's a good point. I was thinking about a reiki session I gave on the weekends. I wasn't advertising reiki, but someone just saw that I was selling reiki-infused homemade lavender sachets, which feels so nice. And they just saw reiki and they were like, “Oh, can I get a reiki session?” And then they were like, “Oh no, that's Reiki-infused sachets. Oh, right, sorry.”

I was like, “Oh, no, I can give you a reiki session.” And I was like, “Oh, I forgot that I've spent probably $10,000.00 in lessons and levels and how many hundreds of hours actually doing reiki sessions, but for some reason was not advertising. I can give you a reiki session.” See? Imposter syndrome and all that.

And so I was just like, “Oh, I can do that.” And then we sat down, I'd already had protection set up because of the readings that we were doing, and it was already kind of set up nice and privately, and I just gave her a session.

(21:39)
Anyway, my point was that I ended up doing positioning of the hands and interacting with her meridians in a non-standard way. You know how there's the reiki positions here and here over the ears of the crowd, and you must do it in this order and you learn these standard patterns? And I just kind of didn't do that.

And so I got that kind of experimental flow happening that was in the moment, that was very of the situation and contextual that you can only do when you're in the moment. And I think when we're in that flow, that's the perfect opportunity for us to be kind of just in alignment with the moment and yeah, oh, how do you explain it?

If we're all levels of consciousness and all dimensions in every particle at all times when we're in the flow and we're interacting with another person, there's that expansion effect. I think maybe that's it when we're doing it with another person, there's that different set of almost like rules to scale. If you're working in a group or if you're working with two people or three people, there's almost like these different things you can do.

Ellen (23:16):

That is so interesting. That's a really cool notion because I wonder too then in that similar vein, and again, thinking about how most things have come through for me again in that context of being in flow with someone else in that moment, and there's no time for thought it's coming you, so I wonder too, if that's more evidence and perhaps highlighting the importance of remembering that this is all

Trish (24:02):

Yeah,

Ellen (24:03):

And it's so funny because I drew the two of cups from the Light Seer’s Tarot a couple of days ago and I haven't been able to put it away yet. It's really important. And it's not about-

Typically with two of cups people will go straight into some kind of a relationship; a person-to-person relationship and sure, yes, except it didn't feel like a romantic relationship, or I couldn't say mother and daughter, brother and sister, whatever. It was much broader than that.

So this is so interesting that this is still hanging out because it feels like there's something really important about that co-creative aspect of things. In terms of the work that we do,

Trish (24:59):

I often have the two of cups meaning me and my relation to my higher self or me and my relation to my guides or archangel or source divinity or more often than this is a relationship. And it's funny because I give readings and people who know tarot will give the tour of Cups their own meaning when they see it. And they'll go, oh, and they'll point at it and they'll go, oh, I know who that is.

(25:30)
And it's not to me because I'm giving the reading. And to me, the two of cups doesn't always mean that, and I might have a particular position in the spread that is actually indicative of this significant other in this situation. And so they'll see the two of cups and go, “Oh, that's the relationship.” And I'll be like, “Oh no, this is the card that represents the relationship over here, actually.”

So it is very interesting how we put our own meanings on the cards, which is kind of why I like using the Lenin card system with tarot readers because then they can't look and automatically know exactly what they think it means. And they let me give a reading. Yeah, totally. They let me do it.

Ellen (26:18):

Totally. And that's an ideal segue right there. So you've talked about using the cards and we were just talking about tarot - two of cups is from tarot - and you just mentioned Lenormand. And so for those who may not be familiar, how would you describe the Lenormand card system?

Trish (26:42):

Yeah, yeah. So it is 36 cards, [Tarot's] 78. It's also based off playing card system like Tarot originally was, but Tarot got the extra major Arcana, those 22 special cards. And so the playing cards as they spread across the current latest ideas is that it came across from the China area through the Silk Road and up through Arabia - I don't know all the names of everywhere now - top of Africa, up through Spain and into Italy.

And that's where it met tarot. That's where it met the 22 mythical Ggods and goddesses cards, those epic stories that were in that game. And then they blended them, they put them together. And so you've got the four suits and the major arcana. Whereas with Letterman, its journey was that it got combined with these common symbols that were the most common, most known symbols of coffee cup grind readings.

So tea leaf readings, yes. Where you have cup tea and you look at the patents. Before there was tea, there was coffee. And yes,

Ellen (28:16):

I've seen that done before.

Trish (28:22):

And so that was very big in the Ottoman Empire, the coffee readings. And in Turkey still, like my Turkish friend, she gets a coffee grind reading every day. And so they mix these common symbols in with the cards. And so they just took out, I think the threes to sixes, the twos to sixes. Oh, I wish we'd really know that. Sorry. And so there's not 50 odd cards, there's 36 cards. And so that's the kind of very dry explanation.

But Lenormand, as my friend who tries to describe it to people, seems to be more practical. There is this object, there is this work, there is this exact person, and they are doing this activity regularly or they are in a retirement phase or they are currently getting medical treatment.

I'm not a medical practitioner obviously, so I can't give medical advice, but often the cards will identify if the person is themselves about to have surgery or they're changing the medicine or something like those transition times often come up in readings and people adjusting to the new gear shift, the new way of doing things.

Card readings are really great for that kind of one-on-one counseling thing with advice from spirit. And am I on the right path? Am I doing the right things? Am I missing something as a good client that you can say, yes, you're missing something. Here's this thing that you never thought of before and I'm just going to tell you. And they don't kind of resist if you can tell them, “Hey, there's this thing you're completely missing,” and they don't resist. That's the dream client.

Ellen (30:09):

Oh, man. Yes. Oh, so Trish, when you give a Lenormand reading, do you have a certain way that you do it? I know for example with tarot, I mean there's so many different sorts of spreads and you can make up your own spreads, no problem. However, I would say that the spread that is most well known is the Celtic Cross, which is pretty extensive. Right. Does it use how many cards? 13 cards or more?

Trish (30:49):

10 I think. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and then four up the sides. Six. But yeah. But yeah, everyone's got their own variety of it.

Ellen (30:59):

Okay. So then is there something similar to that in Lenormand that provides as deep of a look at a situation?

Trish (31:10):

That there is, Ellen. I'm glad you asked. Sorry.

(31:18)
And I'm currently figuring out my computer stuff at the moment so that I can have a free download of this on my website. So by the time this goes to air, if you go to my website, you can download this. It's called the grant Tableau. And when I was learning, I hung this up on my wall and I just memorized the positions of all the cards.

So you lay out all the cards, all 36 cards. So it's great because they're really small compared to a regular tarot deck. I'm just, for you guys listening, you can't see, but I'm holding up this tiny little palm size deck of lineman cards next to a regular kind of Rider-Smith sized tarot deck. And they're what, two sets?

Ellen (32:12):

Yeah, they're like an inch shorter. That's so interesting.

Trish (32:16):

And so it's great that they are, because you've got to fit 'em all on your table. And so one of the first thing that you actually have to do with Lenormand is find a table, find a space that is big enough so you can practice this thing. So I - it's hilarious - had to, when I was saying I'd figure out, I sc screen it to the edge and I have the two end cards hanging over the side. They'll fit on my tiny little table that I used outside at that time.

And anyway, so the Grand Tableau is you lay out all 36 cards in four rows of nine and most decks they'll have an extra card or two or three because back when this was formalized before it got printed by this publishing house and made into a game the order that these symbols were in and even the types of symbols that were included were different.

(33:14)
But then once that thing was published, it hasn't changed. There's the queen of spades because you remember you got the playing cards as well as the symbols. The queen of spades has kind of swapped cards throughout the hundreds of years that it's been going, but that's it. All the numbers, all the symbols, they stayed the same. And that's like miraculous, right?

But it's probably because it was fairly innocuous compared to tarot. Tarot had biblical stories and it was political. And so how they depicted it and used it was a little different to the Leman because the lineman was just plane cuts. You didn't even have to have the images or you could just have a tiny little thing on the side. If it's the snake, you could just put a squiggle on your regular deck of plane cuts and that's all it was. It was just a deck of plane cuts.

(34:09)
So I think it hid a bit better than the tarot throughout the time. So you've got these 36 cards, and at the time there was men and there was women, and that was all that God created back at that time. But of course gender fluidity and non-binary and multiple genders, and these days we can do that. We can handle that. Our society's good with that.

Mostly I say our society and what am I really saying? The people that I hang out with, that's what I'm really saying. And the laws that I live under the most part, yes, for the most part, yeah, the laws allow it in my country in Australia. And so modern decks will often have, instead of the man card and the lady card that the Lenormand has down the bottom left in this four rows of nine Grand Tableau, the men and the lady card are always position 28, position 29.

(35:11)
So that means if you count the top row is card number one on the top left, ending in card number nine on the top, and then the next serve nine, the row ends on card number 18 like that.

And so the final row, it begins on card number 28 and card number 28 is the man card. And so modern cards will just have person one and person two, or they'll have 20 different types of people in their identification, which is great for polyamorous people or ethically non-monogamous people.

You can give them readings with these fabulous decks and it not be so restrictive with men and women and they're the partners and they're all that is capable and they will get married and if they're not married, they're in courtship or they're very far away from each other where they cannot hold hands without someone watching back then, depending on your level of where you were in society, what the rules were, how they're drawn, it's very much makes me imagine that era with those kind of rules.

(36:24)
The original cards so interesting. But yeah, modern cards are all beautifully different. And so yeah, with the grand tableau, you've got card number one in the top left up there, so that's house number one. So you've got the houses, and so Lenormand has the house system. So position number 36 is always the position the house of the cross, because the card number 36 is the cross card, is always the cross card. It's always number 36.

And so when you shuffle the cards, randomize them, and then you lay them out in these four rows of nine, then any card can be in house number one, the rider or house number six, the cross. And so what house they fall in, it gives a filter to the interpretation of the card.

And so the house system is really important when mastering the Lenormand to know, because then you don't have to look up the book or count the cards out. Okay, it's in the middle. I can just know I memorized in the middle at top row, that's number five, that's the tree. And it has these associated meanings, family or health or the network or growth or slow and strong.

So they've all got a tempo. Each card has a tempo attached to it and a body part and an astrological sign or planet or a pace as well as meanings like yourself.

Ellen (38:03):

So they’re super multidimensional.

Trish (38:05):

Yes. So they're so flexible, they just can go any direction. And the patterns are with tarot, you can make it up or oracle cards, you can make up what the positions if something is close to something or very far away. But with Lenormand, it's very directional, which is built into how most people teach it is with the man and the lady card, you choose which card is you.

So for me, I'd choose the lady card and then where she is and which direction she's facing changes the past and the future. So if she's looking that way, I am pointing to my left. But those things then that's her future. And if he's a man and he's looking to the right, then that's his future. And behind him is the past.

So you can do it that way. You can do it or you can say the upper left quadrant is week one, is this week, the lower left quadrant is week two, the upper, and you can do a month-ahead reading like that.

(39:20)
I learned that with five cards. So I dunno if I'm explaining it. So the other important thing, other than the grant a blow, which I'll see if you want to ask any questions after this, but I'll just say this quick point, that's the next super important thing is pairing.

So the Lenormand cards are always paired. So I said, oh, you randomized the cards, you lay them out and whatever is in house. Number one, say the tree card card number five falls into the first position, the first house. And so it has that influence of card number one of house number one on it.

So the rider has a lot of meanings. They've all got a lot of meanings. But the rider card in house number one has the idea of what's coming up now, what's about to happen, what's about to arrive in your life, perhaps unpredicted, you might not plan it. And it's also got the visitor or the delivery of a package meaning, so there might be a health product about to arrive at your front doorstep.

And so it's the tree card has landed in the house of rider. The house of the rider has given that meaning of a package is being delivered and the tree card has given what type of package, what is the topic? So they comment on each other. One card is the topic and one card is the adjective or the descriptor.

Ellen (40:58):

Okay, so I'm understanding that all 36 cards are part of this grand tableau.

Trish (41:04):

Yeah.

Ellen (41:05):

Okay. So how do you know then, which is the topic card?

Trish (41:12):

Yeah, so people actually do this differently. Most people they'll have the actual card that you shuffled and put in that position as the topic. Okay, I see. And then the road card behind it.

Ellen (41:27):

So behind it, underneath it or beside it or below it or

Trish (41:33):

So if you imagine that you've got an A3 or a big piece of paper, and on that is a printout of all the 36 cards laid out in four rows of nine. And in position one there's a rectangle with one the riderer and so on like that. So you've got four rows printed out. And so when you put the card onto the piece of paper, it's on a particular position.

So see, it's kind of difficult without having visuals. I'm used to kind of being able to wave things around and point at things. Yeah,

Ellen (42:16):

I can see the spread in my head. I'm just trying to figure out how it, yeah,

Trish (42:21):

Good. And so you shuffle the cards and you lay them all out upright where you can see them. It's not the backs, it's not like the cards are face down, you only see the backs. Some people can do it like that. I think it's just very fiddly. It's 36 cards.

So when you're flicking cards over, it pushes all the other cards out of alignment in these four rows of nine. So it's just you don't want to move things about too much.

So I've shuffled, I've laid them all out. First card in the top row is sitting on that piece of paper and underneath the tree card in that first house, I lift up that card and I can see Ryder. So I know the tree card is in house number one, the rider. So I know that the rider is influencing the meaning of the tree card. Does that make sense?

Ellen (43:23):

No.

Trish (43:25):

Okay, fair enough. No, no. Let's do it again. Let's take away the Grand Tableau, where we're aiming for to get at the end, if you've got it all in front of you and I'm dancing about with my card, it's a bit easier to understand. You could then do it with your hands and your cards and do it along with me. And

Ellen (43:46):

I think the one thing that I think is confusing me is when you pick up the tree, you see the rider. So is that a separate card underneath it?

Trish (43:58):

Oh, sorry, that's the printed piece of paper that has, I said imagine a two sheet of paper and it's printed.

Ellen (44:07):

It has the diagram on it, so to speak.

Trish (44:11):

I’ve got one here so I can show you. Maybe you could kind of explain it better, because if you are having difficulty, I'm very sure that there are other people listening and going, no, I want this. Explain. So you could help me. That'd be great. So I'm unfolding an A2 piece of paper.

Ellen (44:35):

Oh, okay. And then just so bring it over toward your left a little bit. Okay, now I see Ryder, oh, now I'm understanding. That makes it totally, did you

Trish (44:46):

Explain it?

Ellen (44:47):

Okay. Yes. So the thing is, so here's this diagram and literally it is laid out so that if you were looking at the diagram- by the way, I just had one of those mechanical, or one of those digital thumbs up from Zoom that I get on own. Hilarious.

So dear listener, if you were to see this diagram, the number one card in Lenormand is the rider card. And so what happens is you have this whole diagram, literally in numerical order, one through nine, top row, 10 through 18, second row, et cetera.

So you get down to the last card on the bottom right is going to be number 36, and each one has what that card is. Trisha's being a wonderful show-er of things. So it literally tells you what that card is. So the thing is when she's saying about the tree, for example, so the tree is actually number what?

Trish (45:54):

In the five middle.

Ellen (45:56):

The tree is actually number five in the Lenormand. But here's the thing, that number five card is actually sitting on top of or in the number one position, which is the rider position.

Trish (46:13):

Yeah.

Ellen (46:14):

So you're saying the rider is now the adjective?

Trish (46:19):

Yes.

Ellen (46:19):

Whereas the tree, which is the card you have drawn in that position is your topic. And so the qualities of the rider are impacting the topic in that position. So that's how then you're pulling together the reading as far as seeing the threads that connective tissue between the two.

Trish (46:46):

Yeah. Okay. That is brilliant. Okay. Can you teach the class that I meant to teach? You're going to be my assistant. No. So then see I've drawn a card and I've put it on this piece of paper in position one, the rider position. Yeah. So I think where I went wrong was using multiple names for the positions. So position one, the rider position in Lenormand, you call them houses.

Ellen (47:14):

Okay.

Trish (47:16):

And I think I was interchanging the house of the writer and the position of the writer.

Ellen (47:21):

Oh, that's so interesting. Okay, so that helps as well. So that it's

Trish (47:27):

A house knocked on the door, three card got shuffled and it knocked on the door and it walked into the house of the rider and there's tree inside the house.

Ellen (47:40):

So then what does that mean? And that's where the weaving comes in then. Alright, that is so cool. Look at it that way and to understand it that way. So cool. Thank you. And so

Trish (47:55):

You are more than welcome and thank you for helping me understand what I was missing in the explanation. And so because of that Grand Tableau where you lay them out and they automatically have two cards in the meaning where it lands, it's a different card, it's the rider card, it's like you were saying, it's almost sitting underneath that card in your imagination.

But like I was saying, when you're starting out, it's good to have literally that printed diagram, blue tack, I don't know, do you guys have blue tack in the USA? That's like elastic plastic-y, sticky stuff that you put posters up on the wall.

Ellen (48:37):

Oh, almost like a putty, but it doesn't leave any, yeah, yeah.

Trish (48:42):

Yeah. We call it blue tack in Australia. So if you blue tack that diagram to your table, get your cards, shuffle them, and literally use that diagram and put the cards on the diagram houses on the positions. So then you can, if you want, while you're learning, you can lift up that card, look underneath it and go, “Oh, it's in the house of the rider. Okay, what are the meanings of the rider? Okay, they're these.”

Alright, so if that's the adjective and I'm looking at now I've picked a different card, it's the child card.

(49:17)
The child card is sitting in the house of the rider. So the child card means literally a child. It can, but it often means something new, playful, innocent, something that is to be protected, something that is vulnerable is often the meaning that I get.

It's also something small. So you've got another card that is the big card, the card that means big, giant, lots and this is the card that means small; just a little bit.

They've got all those different dimensions to them and one of them is size. So the child is in the position of the rider. So if the rider is the adjective and the topic is something new, say for example, we're going to use the new, what's new coming in and the rider is what's about to arrive.

So it could be something new is coming, something fun is coming, an unexpected visitor is coming and they're bringing their kid. So the first position can have that meaning of what's coming in, what's about to arrive.

Ellen (50:31):

And so the thing is the query. Then it could end up that this is an informant saying, Ooh, this is something coming in. Or it could actually validate depending on the query. Right. That's so interesting. Yes. Our time is up, so, oh my gosh. We definitely have to continue this conversation because there's more we need to talk about with this. This is so cool, Trish.

Trish (51:01):

Well, I am going to segue into, I'm going to be doing some group lessons for the first time. I've done some practice group lessons in the past and I've done personal one-on-one, tutoring with it and teaching. And I've done some workshops, but I'm going to do an online course so that people all around the world can join in for the first time. So I will have details up soon.

By the time this is posted, there'll be a free download of this printable so that you can print out this diagram if you want to learn Lenormand. And I highly recommend getting that if you're going to do the online course with me, and there'll be all the details up on my website. You'll have details of all my details with websites and all that sort of thing in your description, I'm assuming?

Ellen (51:54):

Yes, correct. I will. I'll have all the details that you could possibly need to be able to find Trish, download the Grand Tableau information and see what else that she has on offer as well. And there will- I'm not kidding here when I say that there will be a part two to this because there's more I want to know, and I feel like we've just hit the tip of the iceberg. So you can look forward to a second episode with Trish Appleyard talking more about Lenormand and more, because there's always more.

Links

Trish's website

Trish's YouTube channel