LENORMAND LILY: FEATURES & KEYWORDS

The Lily is the 30th card of the deck, it is associated with the King of Spades, and it is generally neutral.

POSITIVE / NEUTRAL KEYWORDS  Career, experience, expertise, virtue, wisdom, maturity, peace, tranquility, longevity, life path.

NEGATIVE KEYWORDS  Coldness, stagnation, lack of direction, health less than ideal, possibly hidden issues beneath a calm surface.

LENORMAND LILY: DESCRIPTION

This imagery is symbolic of purity, long-standing wisdom, and maturity. It immediately conveys the importance of one's life path, vocation, and ethical conduct. The card signifies tranquility and peace, suggesting that matters require a long-term perspective and the rewards achieved through consistent, disciplined effort.

LENORMAND LILY: CARD MEANING OVERVIEW

The Lily card has a number of references including one’s life path, career, virtues, and sometimes health. While various combinations determine which area is emphasized, its main theme is our career, vocation, and the path we’re committed to. It Is generally positive, suggesting growth, progress, or reaching a major milestone.

The Lily is fundamentally a card of time and maturity, and its influence is always slower so that matters can develop deeply and without shortcuts. Any situation affected by the Lily suggests it will need time to come to fruition, so it teaches us wisdom and patience. Whereas we sometimes want to interfere and fix things, the Lily knows better and allows them to play out on their own for a while, trusting the long-term process.

It encourages us to assess our trajectory, focus on virtue, and recognize that success is built on a foundation of experience and consistent, sustained effort.

The Lily is traditionally about sexuality but through its association with chastity and its virtues, and not so much through the excitement and bubbliness of, say, the Flowers. Many authors today still associate the Lily with sexuality, but it is not my personal preference.

LENORMAND LILY: POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE

The Lily card anchors a reading to themes of longevity and high standards, which are usually positive.

In its most pronounced positive context, the Lily confirms success, growth, and major milestones achieved through patience and expertise. It assures the querent of enduring happiness, wisdom, and virtue. It signals a positive trajectory in one's career or life path, suggesting one is on the right track and will be rewarded for long-term commitment. It encourages tranquility and peace, often advising a period of rest or vacation to maintain health and perspective. It signifies maturity, suggesting the querent is ready for a senior role or a deeper understanding of their path.

When paired negatively, it can suggest a compromised reputation, poor health, a lack of direction or stagnation if one is far from the path.

LENORMAND LILY: CORRESPONDENCES

The Lily is the card of maturity, experience, and the long-term life path. It governs ethics, peace, and the accumulation of wisdom.

• Work & Career: Signifies career and work experience, often relating to a seasoned professional, senior, or specialized role, or someone nearing retirement. The environment is typically calm and peaceful or involves a prestigious and well-respected organization. Professions include: mentors, life coaches, counselors, advisors, board members, judges, arbitrators, mediators, those working with the elderly, holistic health practitioners, and doctors. It also touches on family business and crafts.
• Money & Finance: Relates to long-term investments or accruals, pensions, retirement funds, term deposits, trusts, property, and property under construction. Financially, it is stable, predictable, conservative, and low risk. Advice is to plan for your long-term future, discipline yourself, save regularly, and manage wisely.
• Love & Relationships: Represents a settled, well-established relationship, often signifying growing old together, or finding a partner later in life. It emphasizes companionship beyond just love, sincerity, and understanding. Negatively, it can indicate a relationship that is divorced, widowed, restrictive, or conservative, possibly suggesting sexual temperance or waning passion.
• Health & Wellness: Relates physically to the genitals, especially male organs, sexual health, the eyes and ears, hearing and vision, the nervous system, and the aging process. Issues can include aging challenges like senility, Alzheimer's, arthritis and aches. The advice is to focus on long-term wellness and stable health conditions.
• Spiritual & Personal Growth: Focuses on our values and integrity and our alignment with them. It involves consolidating our life experiences, getting rid of anything unwanted, resetting, and taking stock. Practices include yoga, meditation, and breathing exercises, promoting inner peace and tranquility.
• Character & Personality: Often represents an older family member (father, mother, aunt, uncle, etc.), an elder, or someone senior and experienced. They are well-mannered, older, mature, established, settled, calm, peaceful, spiritual, generally happy, and relaxed. The shadow side can be conservative, dull, set in their ways (e.g., "You can't teach an old dog new tricks.").

In summary, the Lily is a profound card that confirms the rewards of patience, ethical conduct, and maturity on one's vocational path. It urges you to take the long view and establish a foundation of peace and respect in all aspects of your life.

LENORMAND LILY: ADVICE

When the Lily appears as advice in a Lenormand reading, its core message centers on patience, long-term vision, and developing expertise.

The general advice of the Lily is to allow things to unfold without unduly rushing them. It’s a slow card, and things take time under its influence, so we must allow ourselves to learn and grow, and prepare to be patient.

Because the Lily is about becoming seasoned, we should focus on getting experience through practice, not just theoretical knowledge. It reminds us that success doesn’t happen overnight but through consistent effort spent on the right disciplines. Finally, it advises us to take a step back or a vacation to have a more objective perspective on things, suggesting a need for rest and reflection.

LENORMAND LILY: IN THE PORTRAIT

When the Lily appears on a key position of the nine-card Portrait spread, it confirms that one's vocational path or health is central.

In the first or central card placement, the Lily tells us that our career, sometimes our health, or other important life matters take center stage. It invites us to assess our lifestyle and direction. We are encouraged to think things through and take stock of our achievements, failings, strengths and weaknesses, so we can build on them and plan our next phase in life.

Taking a vacation or resting is also well-starred under the Lily in this position. The central Lily demands that the querent relax, calm down, and take a step back to have a more objective perspective on things before committing to a long-term direction.

LENORMAND LILY: IN THE GRAND TABLEAU

In the Grand Tableau, the Lily's position relative to the querent's significator (Man or Woman) reveals the proximity of maturity and peace.

The Lily near the significator tells of wisdom, virtue, and maturity as well as enduring happiness. This suggests the querent is established and enjoys professional and personal peace.

But when far, it suggests that we’re shaken and don’t have a good sense of our life direction. However, because it’s neutral and can represent various life areas, nearby cards must be examined for their influence. A specific rule applies to its vertical position: when above the significator, its virtues prevail, but when below, difficulties and sorrows could plague the querent and put into question his or her own virtues.

LENORMAND LILY: IN SOME CARD COMBINATIONS

The Lily With The...      Means...

LILY + ANCHOR  Career foundations, sticking with our current career path. Long-term, security, professional success, sound health.

LILY + CLOVER  Bliss, enchantment, or a profound sense of security. Long-term happiness or a pleasant career period. Letting go, trusting life more.

LILY + CROSS  The big questions; pondering our life direction. A major, karmic burden related to ethics or career.

LILY + FOX  Skill, stealth, or job success. Cunning used for professional advancement or ethical issues at work.

LILY + HOUSE  Lifestyle, from housekeeping to fitness. A home-based business, or a respectable, established family.

LILY + KEY  An important career; being on the right track. A destined or successful life path. Resourcefulness, self-reliance, independence.

LILY + RIDER  Mission, ambition, or direction is clarified. News or progress regarding one's career path.

LILY + ROAD  Lifestyle or career changes, or maturing. Decisions concerning one's long-term path. The proverbial fork in the road.

LILY + SHIP  Productivity, rewards, success. A business trip or long journey related to one's mission. Adventurous phase.

The order of the cards (or directionality) often matters. Here are a couple of examples:

LILY + BOOK  Writing and research, or personal development related to work and skills or health. A high-level, hidden matter in a professional context of otherwise.

BOOK + LILY  A career, job, or phase of life not yet fully known or is in the making. Hidden knowledge is key to long-term success.

LILY + MOON  A peaceful and gentle state; tranquility in one's life and emotional life. Slow-moving romance, or emotional rewards.

MOON + LILY  An offer of work or a promotion based. Appreciation, hones. An invitation to settle or find emotional rest.