Timing in the Grand Tableau

[Moon-Hermit]

Hey everyone. I have a quick question about timing in grand tableaus.

To give a bit of background, I normally use the houses technique in my GT readings (not the near-far method) and would separate my tableaus into past-present-future segments if I'm not reading for a specific question/ time-frame.

For timing, I've been experimenting with the technique I read about first in Rana George's book, i.e. using time signs. She explains that when you've located the significator, you'll then find a focus card which represents the situation you're asking about and count the spaces between the two; if said card is to the right of the significator, then we're looking at the future, and if it's to their left, it's talking about the past. 

Recently I've done a reading asking about when a procedure is likely to take place. The scythe (which I chose to represent the procedure, the action of cutting away) has fallen three spaces to the left of the significator, the Woman card. I didn't have a specific time-frame in mind, so this would indicate the event has already happened within three time signs in the past... which is not true! I clearly had the intention of knowing when something was going to happen when shuffling my cards and laying the GT. My question is, what would you do in situations like this one, when the method gets a bit tricky to employ? Is there an alternative way to make it work, or would you discard the reading altogether and throw another GT? 99 percent of the time, I'm reluctant to do the latter, since my most accurate GTs are the ones I lay down first. I could use the method of distance and say that, okay, since the Scythe is quite far from the woman it won't be happening soon, regardless of which side the card falls on. But I'm afraid that changing methods in the middle of the reading would muddle things up. What is your advice to approach situations like this, when you can't determine a time frame beforehand and the card falls in an unexpected position?

Thanks in advance, 

Moon-Hermit 🌼✨️

[dancing_moon]

Traditionally, the past/future was determined by where the significator was facing, so if the Woman card in your deck is facing left, this would place the Scythe in your future. More generally, though, if we maintain that the future is strictly on the right side of the significator, the Scythe falling on the left could simply mean the procedure either won't happen in the foreseeable future or will be of less importance than you expect. Sometimes, regardless of what we ask, a more pressing message will be coming through. You might want to look at the cards around the Scythe and the GT in general for more information.

[Moon-Hermit]

3 hours ago, dancing_moon said:

Traditionally, the past/future was determined by where the significator was facing, so if the Woman card in your deck is facing left, this would place the Scythe in your future. More generally, though, if we maintain that the future is strictly on the right side of the significator, the Scythe falling on the left could simply mean the procedure either won't happen in the foreseeable future or will be of less importance than you expect. Sometimes, regardless of what we ask, a more pressing message will be coming through. You might want to look at the cards around the Scythe and the GT in general for more information.

 

Thank you a lot for taking the time to reply, @dancing_moon.

Yes, I know that traditionally the direction the significator is facing affects the time-flow, but personally I don't use it. The Man and Woman cards in my deck don't face each other unfortunately, and I'm also really used to reading from left to right anyway, so I'm afraid reversing the direction would only add to my confusion.

 

That's an interesting view. Maybe I didn’t know what to make of it at the time because of my stubbornness to both keep the tableau and interpret the Scythe in some way. I eventually looked at the cards that were boxing the Scythe and the cards on the same horizon and column as the significator and didn’t see it happening in the foreseeable future, or at least until some kind of obstacle was put behind (The Ship and Clouds were both next to each other above the Scythe and what was between the Scythe and the Woman was the Mountain). I think your advice would be the best way to go about it... again, thanks for reminding me of that fact. Not everything should fall the way we expect it to, sometimes not even in our tableaus. 

[WizardintheWoods]

I read in only one time frame such as present, future or past in a GT.  As I follow Andy B’s book, so my methods are rather traditional as well. This all said I won’t be of much help but do wish you luck. 

Edited 8 hours ago by WizardintheWoods