Hello All!
And so to the wonderful LOVERS card in Tarot. Just the word THE LOVERS conjures up lovely feelings of love and intimacy. If you were going to a clairvoyante and wanted to know about your love life and got this card you would probably be beaming! Ha! The amazing thing about Tarot is...it is always MORE than that! not always obvious either!
I am continuing the JOURNEY OF LIFE series with this card next The Sixth card. The Lovers. Again this card can be pictorially depicted in various ways. So many decks and styles but intriguing to see how the artiste may have designed them. I personally always work with Raider Waite. They are probably the most severest looking Tarot cards out of those more regularly used or known. I like Raider Waite because I feel it doesnt pull any punches. If it wants you to feel an 'ouch' - you will! It isnt a deck to soften the blows. It is what it is and I respect that kind of severity element within it. On the other hand, I find it a very honest deck.
All that being said onto the Lovers. Again there are a million things I could think of to tell you how this card comes across to me. In readings remember, it will depend where it appears and what is being focused on but I am looking at it from my philosophical point of view. My own view of how this card fits into the JOURNEY OF LIFE. We have a path from the Fool and stages. This is the Sixth stage. Often it is thought of as a Summer card - sixth month. June. Some may not see that way. Irrelevant to what I want to talk about anyway. On this card we have two naked people, an Angel in between and a mountain. We look at this card and automatically think LOVE but in fact this card is not really about just Lovers. It also can represent FAMILY. When you see this card do you think of the Garden of Eden? you should! that is what you are looking at. That is where biblically mankind was made. Whether you believe the Bible or not we have the Adam and Eve story attached to that. It simply suggests that men and women were made there. Of course , if you want to delve there are a lot of contraversial matters and possible suggested hypocritical elements. On a religious level everyone would be entitled to what they felt and that is individual choice. I am not here to put forward a biblical story at all. Merely, I point out what it could appear to be in this card.
So what is it about? philosophically according to my own thoughts? we left the Heirophant and you may have read my thoughts on that card. We had lessons, we might have married, we had to take advice but still follow what we thought best..and then we land up in this card. At this stage of life we might be married, we might have a family, we might be part of a group , we might have our social element in place by now. We may feel we BELONG somewhere in society. We might simply have a group of VERY good friends. This card shows that there is a kind of nakedness. We are naked because we are around people that we can be ourselves to. If its our partner family friends or other organisation or group that we are comfortable in, then we feel we can be ourselves. We dont have to be anything other then that, we dont have to put on a mask we feel confident enough to just show ourselves and whether or not people take us the right way is up to them. We are grown up enough now to be who we are and those around us who are close to us accept that we are who we project. There is no need to put on a false front. What you see is what you get. You are developed. You are a personality.
We get to that stage in life where this really happens. Even if you are not particularly a socialiser or enjoy attracting attention or are particularly quiet, you still are who you are. People have to accept 'this is you'. One of the things that might not be apparent is that this card is also about LOVE over DUTY. There is a nice fruit tree in the Garden of Eden after all. We like nice things and we would rather be able to choose those over the not so nice things. Duty is sometimes a dull choice over what you love. Two people is CHOICE. The Lovers card is a two person card and represents Choice and BALANCE in its own way. Its almost being given the odds. What do you choose, something you really want to do but know that its going to cause a real problem if you do that or do you do the right thing? imagine if its a family matter. Do you do what is right for the family or go the route that pleases you? There is a mountain there. Nobody looks dressed for mountaineering do they? that mountain sits in the middle too. It kind of suggests that it sits in between those two people. Does it actually stand in the way? can you get around it? maybe this card is actually asking you a question?
Look at that Angel above. He is ordaining the coming together of the people in the card, its almost as though the cloud formation is some kind of trick being performed to bring this couple together because it was meant to be. So many things to say about this card and of course its true representation and meaning is more apparent when a reading is given and you are able to discern how/where it lands in a spread. There is a fork in the road with this card. There may even be two roads, two choices which do you take. Do you really want to be with this person? do you want to ignore what is obvious a pairing? are you with someone and find it difficult to bridge the gap that mountain is making. Do you feel you cant really please them because you feel that you have your own way of expressing feelings than they do. Is there actually a blockage in this card? think about that. This card does show love, it does depict family, married people, ordained commitment but it does not come completely smoothly. There are hurdles, there may be choices which might mean you putting aside selfish thoughts and doing what is best for your partner or for all if a family.
There is nothing sneaky here in this card because the parties are naked. You cannot hide anything when you are naked it therefore represents a kind of honesty about what you feel. In life you may reach this stage where any of these scenarios have come up or faced you. Its a beautiful card because of its honesty. There is a kind of realism about love here because it allows the two people to be separate but together. It allows them their own identity because the mountain is standing there and they are given choice. They can decide to do things with love and duty or have the choice whether going to that football game is ok away from the wife for a couple of days partying it up with the boys while she holds the house together (slight amusement here) or whether that is not really fair if their partner would prefer them not too. Either way, being naked here means BEING YOURSELF. Someone is going to be honest in this card. Love can win of course because it is the strong element here. Maybe she loves him enough to know its just an innocent football match and even though she thinks he could be home helping with things, she knows he prefers to go and spend a bit of time with his friends. She knows through his nakedness what he really feels if given a choice!
That Angel keeps this union together - but they still have free choice. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Bible story) had the choice too. Eat the fruit/dont eat the Fruit. Actually they were told not to but human beings? they have the choice to obey or not. In Adam and Eves case the orders were not obeyed and they then had to suffer the consequences of that. We have FREE CHOICE in this card. We know a lot of whats best, what is duty, what is the right thing to do. We have to address our feelings about how we handle things, what we pick to do, the right thing or what we would REALLY LIKE. Ie Love over Duty. In this card we often pick what we WANT rather than what someone else wants. Hence the fruit in the garden of Eden was taken and eaten. It was wanted. Deed was done. This card in its reverse state will show infidelity and/or stalkerish type issues, there the 'known snake' sneakiness can become truly apparent. Its always there you know, its just whether you ignore it or not. Lets stick with the upright card, reversal elements will just complicate matters but clearly the people in this card KNOW what they want. They are NOT going to hide it, whether its right or WRONG they are going to do and have what they love. That mountain might be there just to make them think...a slight block...a think before you do but still they are going to do what they want.
There are various different scenarios that I could discuss in this card. What have we learnt from these few thoughts about the LOVERS card in this particular stage of life? Once more, it tells us we are who we are. We are not going to pretend to be anything else. Our persona is formed. We are naked to the world because we dont have anything to hide, in that, this is US. People accept us this way. We have close associates. We are still a bit Selfish or can be prone to still want the personal choice..or even 'the single life'. The guy who is married but still thinks hes a batchelor kind- of- thing. Not necessarily but its simply an acceptance of how another is. The Angel is the good guy and will try always to keep the family together or the couple together - a kind of protective element, protecting what has been ordained, or keeping together a family or reminding a family hey...dont forget you are all related...stick together? thick or thin regardless of anything that might threaten that. The mountain is not really in between this couple of standing in the way of anything but it is symbolic to me that LOVE/FAMILY CHOICES are never easy. Mountains are things some people CLIMB they are pretty much symbolic of that. To get a love, to achieve a balance in relationships you do have to overcome some issues, we could call those mountains...its just striking a balance, making good choices, fair choices even though at times they can be selfish choices that want to win out....but Im sure you have the gist of what I am portraying here.
Theres a lot of beauty in this card so there are lovely elements here. Love is a beautiful thing. It does make the world go around. It does not have to be about a couple it is simply about any relationship. It could even be people who ADORE nature...or even a naturists camp. Hows that? after all are there not naturist camps. Who agrees with those? some people think its madness. But those that go to them dont feel that way do they? they might know that its not accepted by many so they would be aware of that but they are just going to be who they are...naked!
You will choose your own path in this card. You might have chosen it. It might have been a hard choice, a selfish choice, an easy choice, it might have involved others in having to make that choice. It can represent many things but to me, its is getting to the stage of life where you will be WHO you are. Thats it. I AM WHO I AM is the very saying that comes to mind. You may have lost your virginity, experienced your first love, had an affair, be with a family, be close to your own family. It is a card of comfortable love. Not to forget Choice Love and Duty. They all come along at one stage and in this card - you are there.
I will come back and add more information but I wanted to impart that for the moment. The next card we will move onto will be THE CHARIOT.
Join me for that write up in THE JOURNEY OF LIFE series.
Empathy.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment