Up: [[Tarot]] Created: 2022-11-03 Updated: 2025-03-02 > [!leaf] In Brief > It’s a toss-up for me whether the primary keyword would be Union or Choice. Union is about union with Self, others, and the Divine. Choice is the choice to accept myself, the choices made in relationships with others and the responsibility taken for those choices. ![[Lovers My Art.webp]] > [!Leaf] My Art I have zero interest in the Lovers card as a romantic relationship. My interest is in the inner marriage of [[Symbolic Masculine]] and [[Symbolic Feminine]]. Ultimately there’s a union, but for me, right now, this card is about choice. The background was made intuitively using Fonda’s [[Down Deep]] process. From the beginning, I saw the gold figure reclining. I’ve written on it, “I’m letting thinking take a break.” On the silver at the right, near the arm with the ball in its hand, I have written, “Feeling with discernment rules the day!” And down at the bottom by the circle of gold and silver, I’ve written, “Ultimately, the Inner Marriage. Two becomes one. Or three?” Three because of the idea of transcending the opposites. > [!leaf] Actions to Take 1. Make conscious choices. In the best of all worlds, choices come from a place where opposites within are balanced and integrated. To get there, look to see what the opposing aspects are in you and how they are affecting your external life. And when making a choice, ask yourself the James Hollis question, *Does this choice enlarge me or diminish me?* 2. Practice discernment. Be careful to not give yourself away in any relationships, from acquaintance-level to intimate ones. Look at all aspects of a situation, not just the obvious, but the hidden and the possible. 3. Work on self-love. It’s a necessary prerequisite to authentic love of others. 4. Journal or freewrite responses to any of these questions: - What do I love? - How would I describe my ideal friend or ideal romantic partner? - What did I learn about relationships from my family of origin? - How do I honour my Self? ![[Lovers RWS.webp|400]] > [!leaf] Symbolism #### Two In every tarot image of Lovers, there are two. It’s not always two bodies. I have cards that show, for example, two trees intertwined or two candle flames uniting. But in most images the two are male and female, meant to represent the Logos and Eros sides of [[the Self]]. Archetypes of the Lovers include: Adam and Eve, Osiris and Isis, Eros and Psyche, Perseus and Andromeda, and Shiva and Shakti. #### Angel *Spiritual Tarot* says this is the archangel, Raphael. I prefer *Fearless Tarot*’s suggestion that the angel is my higher self, looking at different parts of me with acceptance and compassion. #### Gaze *Spiritual Tarot* makes the interesting observation that the female is looking up at the angel, creating a direct link to the spiritual source of inspiration. But the male is looking to the female. Reasoning looking to the passionate female side of Self to confirm insights. This suggests that consciousness (male) gets its direction from the unconscious (female). #### Trees The tree on the left is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The serpent is the female serpent of kundalini energy. The tree on the right is the Tree of Life. The twelve leaves represent zodiac energy (*Spiritual Tarot*), vitality and external awareness (*Fearless Tarot*). > [!Leaf] Connections to Other Cards [[5 - Hierophant]] and Lovers have a similar structure: a spiritual figure with two people below them. I wonder how the spiritual figure’s advice might differ? There is also repeat symbolism of the nude male and female figures in [[15 - Devil]] > [!leaf] What Matters This card can be taken literally as physical and sexual lovers. But it is also the relationship with self, the inner union of masculine and feminine, and personal recognition of and union with the Divine within. If the Lovers archetype is experienced solely as an external reality, this can become the shadow side of the card as the lover seeks wholeness exclusively from an endless series of liaisons. *Spiritual Tarot* offers that the card “depicts the [[Tension of Opposites]] we all have to wrestle with and the unity that can occur when we recognize opposites can survive in paradox.” See also [[Writing into Paradox]] “Love” in this card is a verb, a choice and an action, not an ideal. It can be love for anyone or anything. What matters is that you love that thing or person for what or who it is, not for what you want it to be, and you allow yourself to be sometimes overwhelmed with passion. That “all in” kind of love marks a turning point in our life’s development. It is experienced as fate and it moves us away from a purely ego-centred life. > [!leaf] Quotes > [!Orbit] [[Rumi]] > Your task is not to seek for love > But merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. > [!Orbit] [[James Hollis]] > Who in their right mind would seek out someone and say, “I want you to repeat my childhood wounding. I will love you because you are so familiar”? But we do this all the time…. What is known is sought, even if what is known is wounding. > [!leaf] Related Topics — Eros Oftentimes, including in the symbolism “Two” above, you’ll see Logos listed as masculine and Eros as feminine. But Eros, says [[James Hillman]], is masculine and the imagery in various cultures confirms this: Kama, Cupid, Frey, Adonis, Tammuz. Also the “incarnations of enlightened love — Krishna, Buddha, Jesus — all masculine.” Eros is a winged pre-Olympian figure as shown from this sculpture in Piccadilly Circus, not the chubby Cupid we see on Valentines Day cards. ![[Eros.webp]] Sallie Nichols, author of *Tarot and the Archetypal Journey: The Jungian path from darkness to light* says that Eros is “active and aimed” but more ambivalent than our modern day Cupid, *akin to Fate, symbolic of the fatal power of attraction which brings opposites together…. He is the spirit — the incarnation of the life impulse.* Jung explains the opposites coming together as the sexual instinct and spirit. > [!Orbit] [[C. G. Jung]] in *Collected Works*, Vol. 7 > Eros is a questionable fellow and will always remain so, whatever the legislation of the future will have to say about it. He belongs on one side to man’s primordial animal nature which will endure as long as man has an animal body. On the other side he is related to the highest forms of the spirit. But he only thrives when spirit and instinct are in right harmony. If one or the other aspect is lacking to him, the result is injury or at least a lopsidedness that may easily veer towards the pathological. Too much of the animal distorts the civilized man, too much civilization makes sick animals. (paragraph 32)