Post by Senbecc on May 7, 2007 3:01:09 GMT -5
The Lovers
This is the most powerful card in the pack for many and varied reasons. Love is the strongest emotion we know and it can literally move mountains. The desire to be with your special person can overwhelm you and override all logic or other sense of clarity. However, if you are ever going to experience true love, then you may as well feel it with every part of your being. If you are unattached and you deal out this card, you are being guided towards that special someone who is about to walk through the doorway of your heart and leave its indelible mark on you forever. You will feel the blood rushing through your veins and the passion and desire to be with your lover so deliriously wonderful, that all else pales in comparison. This may be your soul mate, your one true love of your life, so make sure you are there and you are ready. If you are already in a relationship, another passing attraction may cause a disturbance in your feelings and you may be swayed to have a secret liaison. The Lovers card always brings choices. You can choose to love, or choose not to love. If you find yourself in a triangle situation, at some stage you will have to make your final choice. This card can also symbolise that your creativity is developing and you could start to produce some great works, whether that be a painting, a song, a poem or even beautiful new furnishings for your home such as curtains, tapestries etc. The emphasis will be on elegance and pure luxury.
www.newagestore.com/research/TarotReference/Default.asp?Card=7
The Lovers tarot card sits at number 6. It is not a card concerned with earthly love and which lover we might choose. It is a symbol of spiritual love and our love for the truth. It represents discrimination.
It is said in the Vedas that discrimination is a new faculty of mind which comes about at age 16. It is the first stage of individuating away from our elders to become a responsible person in our own right.
We have the ability to choose what is right or wrong for yourself. How our elders guide us during this crucial stage of development is of paramount importance because it will colour our entire life and either validate us as a discerning human being or make us prone to follow the lead of others.
The two paths offered are either *The World of Earthly Delight* or *Higher knowledge*. This is beautifully depicted in Botticelli’s La Primavera. Here we see the options illustrated as the physical world in which Zephyr, the mighty wind, lusts after mother nature in the form of Flora; or the three graces, symbolising truth and higher forms of love.
In our own lives we might recognise this as chasing physical sensation in the form of money, sex or goods versus the delights that can be acquired through taking time to smell the flowers or enjoy activities which appear not to have any gain.
If we persist in pursuing any activity for material or sensual gratification alone we will eventually find it tedious and thus require more and more of it to gain any form of satisfaction. I have seen many businessmen, standing at the crossroads of the Lovers card, not knowing whether to continue working long hours or slow down in order to actually enjoy time with their wives and children.
Discrimination also falls within the realm of relationships and often choice is between freedom or commitment. After all commitment is much harder work than flitting from one sensual high to the next; yet commitment offers a deeper love, which although enriching, can to many be an extremely challenging concept.
Where the Lovers is placed within the reading will show whether there is a choice to be made or whether the card describes the individual’s decision making capacity. Often I see the card for widowed women who have married young and never had to make any important decisions in life. Someone else has always chosen for them and suddenly they are alone with no concept of how to choose correctly for themselves.
When the card is reversed it symbolises either not wishing to make a decision or an inability to do so. The individual does not know which way to turn and therefore stands still, afraid to choose in case they make a mistake.
Often people under stress are unable to make correct choices, so for them the reversed card is valid and will highlight how debilitated they are. However, it may also show that the questioner is giving their power away to others by avoiding the issue.
www.toniallen.co.uk/thelovers.html
Basic Card Symbols
An angel or cupid, a man and a woman, two trees (in Waite, it is Adam & Eve with one tree having a serpent and apples) - in some decks one tree is flowering, but the other has fruit. Also in some decks there is a man standing between two women.
Basic Tarot Story
The Fool comes to a cross-roads, filled with energy, confidence and purpose, knowing exactly where he wants to go and what he wants to do. And comes to a dead stop. A flowering tree marks the path he wants to take, the one he's been planning on taking. But standing before a fruit tree marking the other path is a woman. He's met and had relationships with women before, some far more beautiful and alluring. But she is different. Seeing her, he feels as though he's just been shot in the heart with cupid's arrow, so shocking, so painful is his "recognition" of her. As he speaks with her, the feeling intensifies; like finding a missing part of himself, a part he's been searching for his life long. It is clear that she feels the same about him. They finish each others sentences, think the same thoughts. It is as if an Angel above had introduced their souls to each other. Though it was his plan to follow the path of the flowering tree, and though it will cause some trouble for him to bring this woman with him, to go somewhere else entirely, the Fool knows he dare not leave her behind. Like the fruit tree, she will fulfill him. No matter how divergent from his original intent, she is his future. He chooses her, and together they head down a whole new road.
Basic Tarot Meaning
Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that's actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can't understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. In interpetation, the card indicates that the querent has come across, or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that they will fall in love with. They will know instinctively that they must have this, even if it means diverging from their chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it they will never be complete.
Thirteen's Observations
The Lovers is a confusing card as it is ruled not by an emotional water sign but by airy Gemini. The original trump featured a man and a woman with a cupid above them about to shoot his dart. Later this became three figures, the interpetation being a man choosing between two women, or a man meeting his true love with the help of a matchmaker. Still later, with Waite, we have an Angel above Adam and Eve. The Angel stands for Raphael, who is emblematic of Mercury and Air, planet and element of Gemini. Gemini is the communications sign. It's all about messages and making contact; also, as it is the twins, about finding your other self. In this regard, you can see that the Lovers begins to make sense. Especially if you change it back to "LOVE." Here is a card about perfect communication, about finding something your soul requires. In this regard, its most common interpetation about being "A Choice" makes sense. When this card appears, you are being told to trust you instincts, to choose this career, challenge, person or thing you're so strongly drawn to, no matter how scary, how difficult, irrational or troublesome. Because without it, you will never be wholly you. It's sudden and unexpected, and it means a compete change in plans; but this is LOVE. True love. Go for it!
www.aeclectic.net/basics/lovers.shtml
