The way tarot speaks versus the way Lenormand cards speak

I have the 36 "Mystical Lenormand" deck - an absolutely delicious modern rendition of the 36 Lenormand cards, based on Mlle Lenormands famous technique of using telling fortunes with 36 playing cards. For those, like me, to whom the Lenormand cards are completely new: the 36 cards are the regular 52-card playing deck minus suit cards 2 through 5. (So you keep the aces and use 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 of each suit, plus the three courts. Each of the thirty-six cards has a key-word association that is a rather familiar object - clover leaf, ship, house, tree, clouds, book, flowers, cross, stork etc. The various versions of Lenormand decks offer illustrations of these 36 familiar objects, some decks retain the association with the original playing cards, this particular deck does not -- but the technique can also be used with plain playing cards (if you remember the object associations)

It seems to me that the gift of the Lenormand cards is that of simple sign-language. They are in fact language-signs -- almost pictographs. If 22 majors of the tarot depict ancient topoi of human life stages, roles and archetypal situations; the lenormand cards are more basic linguistic constructs. (just as an example, in the Lenormand cards we have a card named "book" - the meaning is "secrets" or "contracts" - the book easily corresponds in part to the Tarot's High Priestess - but without the Priestess part! The pared-down, simple book without the goddess.

Not to say that these pared down symbols are not also archetypal structures of the imaginary, because each sign is profoundly symbolic. But the key words are also such basic parts of language (like tree, flowers, house) that they can easily be combined to create larger concepts.

Just as the famous gorilla Koko was able, using sign language to combine basic words like "white" and "bird" to indicate the more specific "swan", I suppose the Lenormand cards could in the same way enable "spirit" (or our unconcious, or random-nothingness, if you prefer) to speak to us, by combining very basic sign language symbols into greater ones.

I'm already wondering what sort of benefits might come to us by underlying tarot cards in a spread with these kinds of cards. Has anyone done the experiment?

Seaqueen has started a thread in oracle decks to explore the various combinations of key words in the Lenormand. Some combinations are apparently traditional - My LWB - for example says "heart" + "cross" indicates love-sickness. "Book" (secrets) + "sun" indicates the secret is revealed. Yesterday I drew "Cross" and "Bear" (a brown bear) and supposed it was talking of my "cross to bear" (wow!!!) The possibilities, obviously, are endless.

Although the concepts on the tarot cards are much more situational, therefore more complex, we could potentially read the tarot in a similar fashion (and I know we often do). It takes some reductive translating, but sometimes I have used the tarot this way - for example: I have taken Hermit (wintering) + Tower (falling) to indicate - "snow storm" (and been right). Once I combined the Fool (flying) + Knight (horse) and come up with "flying horse". (at the exact apex of a 14 card rainbow spread in form of an arc, this was incredibly exciting).

The possibilities of these simple cards are so stimulating, and much excite me for what they teach me about reading tarot, or just reading, punkt. There are of course tarot correspondances to be made, but they are not perfect. The Lenormand deck includes a "Sun", "Moon", and "Tower" (but the meanings are rather different) - or, to continue my earlier example: the card "Book" could be the HP, but so could "Lady" or even "House" if we associate the HP with the hebrew letter "Beth". The Devil might be represented by "Snake" but also by "Whips" (arguments), "Fox" or even "Mice" (love the mice!!). The "Scythe" (danger) might recall the Tarot Card #13 (our grim reaper with a scythe) but it might, or that honor could go to "Coffin" (end), or even "Storks" (change).

I want to say, the simpler, more specific aspect of the symbols (just a book without a priestess, or just a scythe without the grim reaper) make me think the system is more flexible....

Well, I'd love to hear from anyone who has worked with the Lenormand, any thoughts you have on tarot correspondances, or how it has informed your way of reading tarot, or how you compare the two mediums, or which you prefer, or anything.

Really excited!

Love
Firemaiden

it's a very different method of divination, especially when one lays out all 36 cards and begins looking at combinations and proximity and the locations and how they line up and...

Even for two and three card spreads...I like these guys a lot.

Firemaiden,

Your is a beautiful post that I have enjoyed immensely. Thanks!

I have worked a lot with that deck, and I love it.

I guess the main difference between these cards and tarot is that symbols, as presented on the LeNormand system, have a pre-fixed set of meanings; while each tarot card is a process, always evolving. Of course this doesn’t have to be that way, but it seems to be the tendency, at leats on the way we are taught the system.

I have found that the symbols at the LeNormand deck are present on several dream dictionaries from the 18 Century, almost with the same meanings. More interesting still, some of these symbols, or variations of them, are present on the “Tuphele” the carved figurines that, along with bones, claws, seeds, etc, are part of divination baskets in Central and South central Africa.

I am very found of the LeNormand deck, but for me is more than a specific oracle. I see those cards as training wheels for the comprehension of symbols, that then you can find, and read, everywhere: dreams, nature, the city, a table at a restaurant, a memory... On my view of things, all oracles are models for the human mind, and in that sense, the LeNormand deck is among the clearest ones.

Umbrae said:

it's a very different method of divination, especially when one lays out all 36 cards and begins looking at combinations and proximity and the locations and how they line up and...

Even for two and three card spreads...I like these guys a lot.

Click to expand...

Umbrae thank you for responding to my lonely post. Yes, this is really interesting - especially for those of us who eschew large spreads - if you use the lenormand cards as words, you really need a lot of them to make a sentence.

The technique described in the book (I write this for those like me who are new to Lenormand cards) would have you lay out all 36 cards, and then find the "person" cards within the layout - (the lady, and the gentleman) and then pay special attention to the cards right next to the cards.

I find this fascinating - Imagine laying out all 78 cards of the tarot, then turning them over to find your one significator card, and then seeing how the rest of the cards fall around the significator card --- this sort of technique means you not only shuffle the cards - but you give up control of the spread.

EnriqueEnriquez said:

Firemaiden,

Yours is a beautiful post that I have enjoyed immensely. Thanks!

I have worked a lot with that deck, and I love it.!

Click to expand...

Oh my goodness Enrique, thank you! How wonderful to meet someone who has worked a lot with the deck. (And welcome to AT bye the way!)

I guess the main difference between these cards and tarot is that symbols, as presented on the LeNormand system, have a pre-fixed set of meanings; while each tarot card is a process, always evolving. Of course this doesn’t have to be that way, but it seems to be the tendency, at leats on the way we are taught the system.

Click to expand...

You know, I love the way you put it. "Each tarot card is a process, always evolving" I was trying to say something like that - it's also like a living thing that refuses to be pinned down.

I have found that the symbols at the LeNormand deck are present on several dream dictionaries from the 18 Century, almost with the same meanings. More interesting still, some of these symbols, or variations of them, are present on the “Tuphele” the carved figurines that, along with bones, claws, seeds, etc, are part of divination baskets in Central and South central Africa.

Click to expand...

No way! Now that is seriously fasinating. Wow! I have never heard of the "Tuphele" so I looked them the word up on line, and got this site from the Metropolitan Museum with pictures and an explanation: Tuphele. My hair is standing on end now.

I am very found of the LeNormand deck, but for me is more than a specific oracle. I see those cards as training wheels for the comprehension of symbols, that then you can find, and read, everywhere: dreams, nature, the city, a table at a restaurant, a memory... On my view of things, all oracles are models for the human mind, and in that sense, the LeNormand deck is among the clearest ones.

Click to expand...

Ooooo! Training wheels for the comprehension of symbols. WOW!!! I love this idea. You think this kind of deck, works to that effect even better than tarot? Training wheels for reading everything everywhere... wow! (that reminds me of Umbrae's reading exchange thread where he read spent bullet casings, rain drops, and lisence plates... ) A sort of primer for psychics. I hope it works for me too

My background is in the interpretation of symbols used in poetry, that is what drew me eventually to tarot, and now these cards.

Thanks so much for your post Enrique Enriquez

Hi Firemaiden

The deck I have is the Mystical Lenormand, although I have playing cards and fortune cards which have a similar symbolism and corespondences assigned, the Mystical Lenormand are a deck I have ease with reading - which I thought would be impossible.

Its the pictures, and the simplicity, I think, and the egg tempra paintings that attract my eye - they glow sorta When I received the deck, the only book that came with it was the LWB, and although there is another book which has the explaination of the card combinations, I have found it a little more work, but worth the while to be minimalistic with the interpretations - as it has helped finetune the readings.

I have started reading with them at the cafe for clients. I did a reading last week for the Readings from the Cafe thread, and have used the deck to add to a Tarot reading or to clarify Tarot cards, used with other oracles such as the Sabian Symbols ... and have found the Lenormand speak a simple language of their own - which I dont think I replace with Tarot interpretaions, and thats something which I really enjoy. Sometimes Tarot is not the tool for the job.
Lenormand reading for Al Si'ra

When you have 36 cards layed out on a table it really draws some attention! ... and they are beautiful cards to interpret. And reading 36 doesnt take that long with them - though I remember reading that sometimes it would take Mdmle Lenormand a day sometimes to interpret a reading - so i dont feel inadequate at all

The simplicity of the symbolism and the word association is 'fun'. When I get what feels to be the right words from the deck - theres an AHA moment, and this is one AHA deck - a pleasure to read with.

The more I read with them, the more I enjoy this deck.

Love the thread Firemaiden! Will keep looking in on this one!

Blessings Elven x

Hi Elven! Oh it is fun to hear from you bout this. I'm really really pleased to know someone who reads with this (ravishing little) deck. So you have used the deck to clarify tarot cards. Mmmm. You're giving me ideas here, girlfriend

p.s. Thanks for the link to your reading, very interesting!

I find there is a simplicity in the Lenormand cards not present in the Tarot.

Like Kiama told me once when she was showing me her Cagliostro deck, "Sometimes you just need a 'fortune telling' deck..."

I like the simplicity of imagry and the simplicity of the message.

Tarot sometimes can be too deep, and too cryptic.

Firemaiden,

Thanks very much for your though provoking feedback!

I don’t think that the way we approach the LeNormand deck has to be different from the way we approach Tarot; but I can see that LeNormand cards are taught, or their meanings pass down from person to person, as fixed symbols. Of course, this doesn’t have to be like that. There are also people who has closed, limited, meanings for tarot cards. Yet I feel that it is easier to see a process in Tarot cards, and a symbol in each LeNormand card. And here is why: Tarot is an optic language, while LeNormand cards are a symbolic language. You don’t really LOOK at the Lenormand cards, you work with the symbol you are given. This makes harder to find evolving meanings on the cards (and this is also what makes LeNormand cards so precise). Now, in tarot we can look at the cards, and every time we look at them, we can focus on something different. We don’t just grasp “The Hermit” as a concept; but as a process, or energetic imprint. Sometimes we are the Hermit’s staff, Some other times we are the Hermit’s lamp. Some times we are the old guy who is getting into a cave, and some others we are the master that is coming out of it. It is harder to find a natural tendency to approach LeNormand cards in the same way. It isn’t that we can’t, it is just not that natural. Perhaps, and I am not sure, LeNormand cards are closer to ideas in a Platonic sense, while Tarot cards are a thing by themselves, not a representation of a thing.

Most of the times I just read ONE tarot card to a client. I am not saying this is better. It is just something that makes sense to me. I often think that tarot cards are so rich and complex that trying to focus on more than one during a reading is overkilling. This is of course just my personal opinion; but think on the pleasure you receive from looking at one painting from your favorite artist, and contrast that with how exhausting becomes to look at an entire retrospective in a museum; and how much detail and layers of meaning you miss on each painting, as soon as you are invited to look at more than one of them at once.

So, with LeNormand cards I usually read several of them on a row. With tarot, I may do so, but often I do this:

Take one card selected either consciously or subconsciously by your sitter (defining the pros and cons in each case is up to you), and have her looking at the card.

- Ask her to describe to you what is happening in the card. Pay attention to the way she perceives the card, to the order in which she recalls the entire image, and to the elements she decides to focus on, or ignore.

- When she is done, ask her to close her eyes and describe the portion of the cards she remembers better. Ask her to get into the card, as if the cards where a dream, and to look around for an interesting spot to stay. Instruct her to stay at that specific spot and let her mind drift, letting that spot in the card bring any image, feeling, or emotion to her mind. (Here, you can enhace this relaxing state by drawing from Ericksonian techniques. Notice how your volunteer's body reacts to the experience, and feed back her reactions as a confirmation of she being deeply experiencing the dream in the card.)

This will allow you to do an entire reading using only one Tarot card. Consistently with Tarot's analogical nature, the card would be a doorway, a dream that opens the door to other dreams. (BTW, the inspiration for this comes straight from Arnold Mindell's Process work. You may like to read Mindell’s “The Dreamaker’s Apprentice”. Even when what he describes are techniques for Process-Oriented Therapy, I have found in that book a gold mine of ideas for divination).

Now, one of the reasons I do this, is because I am interested on the idea of Tarot cards being a map of the Universe’s energetic imprint; which may be another way of saying that they represent a structure for our unconscious mind. My objective as diviner tends to be to detect the energetic imprint I get from my client at that given time. Sometimes I am even tempted to imagine that one given Arcana is “possessing” the person, in a similar way African Orishas ride on people. But again, you may be experiencing the process of “finding your own way”; and we may say that this is represented by The Fool. But within that process, you aren’t just The Fool. Perhaps you are now the Fool’s eyes, which are looking ahead. Perhaps you are the fool’s shoes, actively moving forward. Perhaps you are very aware of that dog/cat scratching the back of your legs, since the people you love doesn’t understand your choice of path, and having them gossiping hurts you... Tarot cards are an extraordinaire visual aid to explore in depth the specific energetic imprint of our sitter. In one hand, you can go deeper in the card and find an entire universe of symbolic imagery (and entire LeNormand deck?) in just one corner of it. In the other hand, when you see one card you are seeing part of a process. We can assume that, after your energetic imprint has taken the shape of The Empress, it will mutate into The Emperor, then into The Pope, and so on. This helps us, not to tell the future, but to talk to our sitter about the tendencies that may be modelling the way she approaches her future. I find easier to see this whole energetic structure in tarot, than in LeNormand cards.

But overall, the most important thing I came to realize working and comparing different systems, is that all oracles are models for the human mind. All oracles are training wheels for us to understand the unconscious as an oracle. This isn’t a notion I want to impose on anybody, just the one that works for me. So, one day, while studying an African friction oracle in which you hve to imagine several answers and wait for a signal to point you the right one, I thought: “what if, instead of shuffling cards with her hands, I have my sitter shuffling images with her mind?”

So, now, I rarely use cards. I still keep my Marseilles deck on my pocket, but I see it more as a book I quote than as an oracle, and I prefer to read minds. I don’t mean telepathy as we see it in movies, I mean reading a person’s imagery as if it were, perhaps, a LeNormand deck. Knowing that this segment of that person’s imagery I am reading today is part of a bigger whole, from which Tarot is a map. It is said that Imagery is the Sixth Sense, so I have programmed my imagination to show me symbols around the people who are in front of me. Imagery is the universal language of the brain. So, my imagination uses symbols that represent what is going on in these people minds and lives. Exploring these symbols I can define what is troubling people; but symbols are also a type of message and just as we all intuit that each problem contains it's own solution, these symbols give me a possible answer for what is troubling you. That’s what I do.

Here is something else I wrote for my web site, and it isn’t there anymore, but serves to illustrate my feelings:

Among the many Divination systems from Africa, there is one which captures my imagination like no other. The diviner shakes up a basket filled with small objects and examine those which end up on top. They look for both their specific meanings and at the relationships between them. In the words of anthropologists Filip De Boeck and Rene Devish: "This method of divination consists of an open analogical system in which use is made of a varying set of figures (L: atupeel, atupeedi ) and substances of animal and vegetable origin ( maamp ma ngoomb ). These objects constitute the content of the divination basket. They are tossed up (L: -sukul, -sekul, -eehul ) by the diviner (L: -mwiin kupoong) in changing configurations. The objects thereby function as expedients for the diviner in his search (L: -soot, -eengul ) for the what, the who and the why of the illness, misfortune, or death. The Luunda verb - eengul refers to the decanting of palm wine to separate the good wine from the sediment. In an analogous way the diviner separates the relevant from the subordinate data in his search for all the ins and outs of the affair which is presented to him."

It is precisely this idea of "decanting" what inspires me. I believe that the diviner's basket is a beautiful model of the human mind. Our minds are also filled with 'bones', 'roots', 'figures' and 'claws', that we group under the label of memories, feelings, desires, fears and dreams. By the use of certain processes, either purposeful or accidental, the contents of our minds are reorganized and reoriented, "decanting" those symbols that we need on a given moment, from those we don't.

I see my work consisting of shaking people’s “basket”.

Thanks again for your wonderful thread!

Best,

Enrique Enriquez

EnriqueEnriquez said:

I don’t think that the way we approach the LeNormand deck has to be different from the way we approach Tarot; but I can see that LeNormand cards are taught, or their meanings passed down from person to person, as fixed symbols. Of course, this doesn’t have to be like that. There are also people who has closed, limited, meanings for tarot cards. Yet I feel that it is easier to see a process in Tarot cards, and a symbol in each LeNormand card. And here is why: Tarot is an optic language, while LeNormand cards are a symbolic language. You don’t really LOOK at the Lenormand cards, you work with the symbol you are given. This makes harder to find evolving meanings on the cards (and this is also what makes LeNormand cards so precise).

Click to expand...

Right! and the fixed versus fluid tarot meanings people seem to find a middle ground in the end, but we start from different poles. And of course, since I don't know the Lenormand cards very well, nor have much grasp yet of the specific symbolic language therein, I found myself using these (Urban Trösch Mystic Lenormand cards) in the same way I read tarot, traveling into the artwork. This particular deck is so visually rich...

I used them as an experiment to underlay tarot cards in a reading I did last night. Wow, they really were helpful. Somehow I read the "Owls" and connected it to the field of medicine (and was right). Now I'm totally spooked!

Now, in tarot we can look at the cards, and every time we look at them, we can focus on something different. We don’t just grasp “The Hermit” as a concept; but as a process, or energetic imprint. Sometimes we are the Hermit’s staff, Some other times we are the Hermit’s lamp. Some times we are the old guy who is getting into a cave, and some others we are the master that is coming out of it. It is harder to find a natural tendency to approach LeNormand cards in the same way. It isn’t that we can’t, it is just not that natural. Perhaps, and I am not sure, LeNormand cards are closer to ideas in a Platonic sense, while Tarot cards are a thing by themselves, not a representation of a thing.

Click to expand...

Yes! I have often marveled at how many different possible points of perspective there are on tarot cards. It means, it is a different card every time we look at it! And the amazing thing is, in a context of a reading, it always seems to be clear immediately which perspective to take!

Most of the times I just read ONE tarot card to a client. I am not saying this is better. It is just something that makes sense to me. I often think that tarot cards are so rich and complex that trying to focus on more than one during a reading is overkilling. This is of course just my personal opinion; but think on the pleasure you receive from looking at one painting from your favorite artist, and contrast that with how exhausting becomes to look at an entire retrospective in a museum; and how much detail and layers of meaning you miss on each painting, as soon as you are invited to look at more than one of them at once.

Click to expand...

Yes, yes, yes!! me too! With just one card I can go on for pages and pages. I've always said the first card tells us everything we need to know, and the rest of the cards if there are more usually seem redundant.

I really am excited to read your technique of reading with just one card. I read a book in french once about using the tarot for therapy, (but don't have it in front of me now, and can't remember the title, LOL) where the therapist had the client choose the cards face up, and paid careful attention to how the client responded to the card, and the images.
The image became a catalyst for a conversation, shaking ideas loose from the subconscious by aid of the tarot archetypes. (Majors only), the premise being that the archetypes are all somehow hardwired into deep structures in our brain. This kind of reading - more dialogue than choked up cryptograms from a distant sybll, sounds very therapeutic. Will you journey into the cards with the querant, so it becomes a voyage à deux?

[...technique described] This will allow you to do an entire reading using only one Tarot card. Consistently with Tarot's analogical nature, the card would be a doorway, a dream that opens the door to other dreams. (BTW, the inspiration for this comes straight from Arnold Mindell's Process work. You may like to read Mindell’s “The Dreamaker’s Apprentice”. Even when what he describes are techniques for Process-Oriented Therapy, I have found in that book a gold mine of ideas for divination).

Click to expand...

Ooo! Thanks for the recommendation for "The Dreamaker's Apprentice" this is the first I've heard of it. I'm very intrigued.

Now, one of the reasons I do this, is because I am interested on the idea of Tarot cards being a map of the Universe’s energetic imprint; which may be another way of saying that they represent a structure for our unconscious mind. My objective as diviner tends to be to detect the energetic imprint I get from my client at that given time. Sometimes I am even tempted to imagine that one given Arcana is “possessing” the person, in a similar way African Orishas ride on people. But again, you may be experiencing the process of “finding your own way”; and we may say that this is represented by The Fool. But within that process, you aren’t just The Fool. Perhaps you are now the Fool’s eyes, which are looking ahead. Perhaps you are the fool’s shoes, actively moving forward. Perhaps you are very aware of that dog/cat scratching the back of your legs, since the people you love doesn’t understand your choice of path, and having them gossiping hurts you... Tarot cards are an extraordinary visual aid to explore in depth the specific energetic imprint of our sitter. In one hand, you can go deeper in the card and find an entire universe of symbolic imagery (and entire LeNormand deck?) in just one corner of it. In the other hand, when you see one card you are seeing part of a process. We can assume that, after your energetic imprint has taken the shape of The Empress, it will mutate into The Emperor, then into The Pope, and so on. This helps us, not to tell the future, but to talk to our sitter about the tendencies that may be modelling the way she approaches her future. I find easier to see this whole energetic structure in tarot, than in LeNormand cards.

Click to expand...

Oh this is particularly fascinating. I have been thinking of the tarot cards as akin to strips of glue-soaked newspaper that you lay over an invisible presence, thereby revealing its form with a papier maché. Is that sort of what you mean by reading the imprint?

But overall, the most important thing I came to realize working and comparing different systems, is that all oracles are models for the human mind. All oracles are training wheels for us to understand the unconscious as an oracle. This isn’t a notion I want to impose on anybody, just the one that works for me. So, one day, while studying an African friction oracle in which you hve to imagine several answers and wait for a signal to point you the right one, I thought: “what if, instead of shuffling cards with her hands, I have my sitter shuffling images with her mind?”

Click to expand...

I have thought about this too, and wondered also if we could train ourselves to shuffle and choose for the reader in our mind. Sometimes in half-dream, I have done this. Wouldn't it be cool, if the answers would to questions would pop up in the dream like a tarot card falling out of the deck! Oh but they do, you will say, these are called dreams! I remember reading Erich Fromm on the language of dreams. If we could only learn to read them... perhaps you are right, the cards are the training wheels to learn to read the answers we are already giving ourselves in dreams symbols, always under the protective layer of "just a dream".

So, now, I rarely use cards. I still keep my Marseilles deck on my pocket, but I see it more as a book I quote than as an oracle, and I prefer to read minds. I don’t mean telepathy as we see it in movies, I mean reading a person’s imagery as if it were, perhaps, a LeNormand deck. Knowing that this segment of that person’s imagery I am reading today is part of a bigger whole, from which Tarot is a map. It is said that Imagery is the Sixth Sense, so I have programmed my imagination to show me symbols around the people who are in front of me. Imagery is the universal language of the brain. So, my imagination uses symbols that represent what is going on in these people minds and lives. Exploring these symbols I can define what is troubling people; but symbols are also a type of message and just as we all intuit that each problem contains it's own solution, these symbols give me a possible answer for what is troubling you. That’s what I do.

Click to expand...

aha! perhaps the reason your posts make so much perfect sense to me is you have been reading my mind

The Luunda verb - eengul refers to the decanting of palm wine to separate the good wine from the sediment. In an analogous way the diviner separates the relevant from the subordinate data in his search for all the ins and outs of the affair which is presented to him."

It is precisely this idea of "decanting" what inspires me. I believe that the diviner's basket is a beautiful model of the human mind. Our minds are also filled with 'bones', 'roots', 'figures' and 'claws', that we group under the label of memories, feelings, desires, fears and dreams. By the use of certain processes, either purposeful or accidental, the contents of our minds are reorganized and reoriented, "decanting" those symbols that we need on a given moment, from those we don't.

I see my work consisting of shaking people’s “basket”.

Click to expand...

Decanting the basket of its bones roots figures and claw! oh what a wonderful analogy. I have often thought about how our brain works as a marvelous filtering mechanism. We would not be lucid if we did not constantly filter out all the extraneous stimulai from the environment. The things we don't allow in are like things that escape the radar (a frivoulous example: no sports events show up on my radar) Our mind filter is like the lense of the camera that focusses in on a leaf, and the background grows blurry. While some might see photography as non-artistic because it is simply capturing reality with a machine, the act of framing a subject is an artistic choice, therefore is creation. So filtering, as choice equates to invention and creation.

So you will shake up the basket, eh and pour out the bones and the claws? Mine is fair shook up already by this thread!!