This One's for The Lovers!
When I journal about the Lovers Card, I almost always skated right over exploring my own initial impressions. Why? Because when it appears for a client, my first impression isn’t what you think. Even for myself, when the Lovers Tarot card appears in my own spreads and pulls, I don’t immediately start planning a hot evening with my husband of 26 years. This gorgeous card is one of the most multi-layered and textured cards in the deck, and within it buried so many different messages, revelations, and even a gentle warning.
Rolls Eyes Aggressively 🙄
So I usually hesitate and feel a little wary upon first seeing it, because I know that a querent who’s interested in love relationships, I must take extra care and time to break down the card so that my clients (or friends, daughters, etc) understand their responsibility and to-do list so that they can fully grasp the nature of this titillating Tarot card and reap all of the benefits of its messages. I want to give them the full skinny behind this card and it's not going to be quick. And sometimes it means having to pierce a client's initial excitement.
Welcome to 2022! 🍾🎉
But here’s some very, very good news: The Lovers Card VI is the official Tarot card of the Year 2022 (2 + 0 + 2 +2 = 6). That means that we have a unique opportunity to zoom out and explore what it means for us as a collective! So let’s jump right in with a breakdown of the meaning of the card, what it may mean for us in the new year. And here's a little hint: this is an excellent omen for the year ahead and the Lover's Card means that there's an over-arching message and promise of happiness, blessing and good fortune attached to how we form and enter into love relationships...if we do the work!
The Lovers VI: the Tarot Card Meaning & Breakdown 👩❤️👩
Some of my favorite words and phrases to describe what The Lovers mean are: “perfect match,” "a great love," and "I'm my own soulmate" are a few of the phrases that come to mind. One way or another the appearance of The Lovers card means that the universe’s sending something big your way as far as relationships and emotional connections are concerned. Perhaps a new child is being born, or perhaps a new person is joining your family or friend circle. One of the cutest times ever pulled The Lovers was for a family that was looking for a new dog or a new dog 🐕 and they were wondering if this rescue was the right one. And when I saw the Lovers, I was like "Yep, you got the perfect match right there." But perhaps more than, perfect match, the more useful and practically descriptive phrase for the Lovers Tarot card that I never cease to use is “the right choice.” Because that is what the Lover’s Tarot card enjoins us to do: to make the right choice about our emotional and relationship decisions. And what is the right choice? The one that is in the best service to our highest good.
Well, Well, Well! What do we have here? 👀
What is happening in this beautiful little tableau of the major arcana card, The Lovers VI? What do we see? What does that look like? What's going on? Who were the main characters who were the players? What is the deal? Now in the depths that almost all of us will have or that we're familiar with. This looks really familiar to us. For those of us that
grew up in a Judeo-Christian tradition (which, as a southern girl, I definitely did) we know this scene. In traditional RWS decks, we see Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Eve is standing in front of the Tree of Knowledge, and per yoosh, the Snake (which really a symbol of transformation and equanimity in growth), and Adam stands in front of a tree that's on fire. And of course, dominating the scene we see a blindingly bright sun shining behind a resplendent, ethereal angel Raphael, which represents healing and blessing over the entire scene. A lot of times in different hoodoo shops that people are selling or putting together different kinds of condition oils, will include a depiction of Raphael.
CHOOSE, BUT YOU MAY NOT REFUSE!
But the reason I say that there is a deeper meaning about choice vs. fate is because of the older, forgotten images of L’Amoureaux in the Tarot de Marseille or older Lenormand cards that originated in 15th century Italy and France. The scene in those cards was not of Adam and Eve, but that of a young noble like a young prince who must choose between two women (one is nubile, young and blonde and very, you know, very second very pretty who arouses his loins and the other is an older, wiser and wealthier woman) and unseen in the background is Cupid with his arrows preparing to shoot and make the decision for him if he doesn’t hurry and pull the trigger himself.
And THAT is where the older message of choice and the message to make the best and the wisest choice in matters of love originates.
🗻 The Mountain in the Middle 🌋
The most important symbol to me in this card, and that represents so much of what this card means for us as a collective in 2022, is the gorgeous mountain that rises in-between the Adam and Eve figures in the Lovers Tarot card. It's sitting right there between the two figures, and of course, represents the phallic, heat-intensive nature of passion that attracts and binds the two together. But to me, the mountain represents the challenge and uphill journey that we as women or women-identified people MUST make to establish a foundation of self-love, self-respect, and self-esteem in order to give any love relationship a snowball’s chance in hell of being healthily established, much less flourishing.
To me, it is the most important part of our journey and dance with the Lovers’ Tarot card in 2022. Have we done the work, which sometimes means completely relearning what self-love even means to us and creating entirely new rituals and practices to keep small, daily promises to ourselves? That is the bedrock, the work, the glue, that we build the promise of The Lovers (hope and success in a strong, blessed, major love relationship) in 2022.
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