WHAT DOESN’T SEEM TO WORK
I tried to use these cards in the Grand Tableau spread, but for me, that lay-out pattern simply didn’t work. Any meaningful effort to draw associations between these cards fell apart with that spread. The closest I could come to it with any helpfulness was the Marie’s Table layout I mentioned above. Your mileage may vary, however, so you may want to experiment with the Grand Tableau. If you do, you may want to make the Grand Tableau spread larger, say five or six rows of nine cards each, rather than the four-by-nine rows of the traditional Grand Tableau, because there are a lot more cards in the Wood Cards deck than in the LeNormand, the Sibilla, or the Kipper decks.
A MEDITATION EXERCISE
Sometimes I like to sit on the floor, randomly lay out some of these cards in a multi-layered ring around me, go into a meditative state, and pretend I’m in a forest, or a sacred grove consisting of these trees. Science now tells us trees in a forest actually carry on a very active ‘conversation’ with each other through their roots, and distribute energy where needed. So I try to imagine conversations between them.
What would the Pink Ivory tree and the Cherry Tree have to say to each other? Or either one of them to the Black Locust tree? Or all three of them to the Bolivian Rosewood tree? It’s interesting to speculate. Which trees feel like they’re trying to connect their roots to each other beneath me? Or, I ask myself, ‘which of these trees seem to be calling for my attention? And why would that be? Which directions do the call-outs seem to be coming from?’ This exercise can yield interesting insights.
A CONCLUDING CAVEAT
These xylomancy (wood) cards are still very experimental. I’ve tried to work out all the bugs (I swear, I’m not striving for a pun here), but there may be a few. If you see any, let me know. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy them!
EXERCISES
- Choose one of the spreads shown above and do a reading for yourself. Did the reading reflect your life situation with any degree of accuracy? Did it yield any useful insights into your situation?
- Choose one of the spreads shown above and do a reading for someone you know. Did the reading reflect what you know to be true about their situation? Did it reveal anything about them or their situation which you hadn’t known before?
- Choose a spread I haven’t shown above; three-card, six-card Hungarian, horoscope spread, some other lay-out pattern, and do a reading on a subject of your choice.
- Consider the answers you received from these three different readings and answer the following questions: Did the degree of usefulness and insight you received from the three readings you did, depend on the particular spread/lay-out you used? Was one better than the others? Would you use these cards as a primary divining deck, or mainly as a clarifier-deck?
- Try the meditation exercise I discussed in the lesson. Did you gain any useful insights?
- EXTRA CREDIT:
- Try the Grand Tableau spread anyway. Did it work for you?
- Find a local tree, sit down under it with your back against the trunk. Go into a meditative state, then open up to receiving from the tree. It could be a feeling, an impression, a gut-hunch or an actual image. What did the tree tell you?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
One source which influenced me in the devising of these cards appears below. It is another ‘tree’ deck and a lovely one:
Murray, Liz and Colin. The Celtic Tree Oracle: A System of Divination. Vanessa Card, Illustrator. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. ISBN:0-312-02032-5.
This set comes with its own set of 25 lovely, woodcut-style cards, a particular lay-out to use them in, with an explanatory diagram of same, a note pad for recording spread-results, and a wonderfully-informative book. This deck once memorably revealed the infidelity of one of my siblings. Oops.
*Sadly, the stepsons of another one of my siblings still think I’m nuts.