VI – The Lovers Tarot Card

So far, the tarot deck has dealt with spiritual concepts and the higher calling to great leadership. With The Lovers tarot card, we come back down into the flesh, and more worldly concerns and passions. This is a card of choice, from Adam and Eve in the garden choosing to eat the forbidden fruit, to choosing one lover over another, to making a choice between a more spiritual or more carnal path. The Lovers traditionally represents this great temptation at the crossroads.

Perhaps another interpretation of this tarot card is a melding of the two opposites into a middle path. The middle bowl of porridge, so to speak. Not too hot, not too cold, just right. While it’s only human nature to try to choose one extreme or another, The Lovers may be suggesting trying to blend the two into another whole.

“Love rests on no foundation. It is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end.”

Rumi

And so it would seem we can find our bliss right here in The Lovers tarot card; stopping the turning of the great wheel, the cycle of ups and downs and highs and lows, and just staying here in Eden in ignorant bliss. But if you look at the tarot deck as a great journey, we’re very young and the path is still green so close to the beginning of the journey. Without the wisdom that comes from following through the entire journey, we are likely to choose one of the other of the opposites. That’s not saying the choices are wrong, it’s simply saying we aren’t wise enough yet to realize the beauty of the middle path at this point and often choose to pursue the more physical and carnal pleasures.

This works out great for some people, but for others, not so much. The Lovers is card number six, but as The Fool is card zero, this is the seventh card in the tarot deck which places us for approximately one third of the way through the hero’s journey. Whether for better or worse, this card often represents the end of innocence and the true emergence into the trials and tribulations of adulthood. Or, as we are about to see in the next third of the cards, the dark night of the soul.

That may sound scary and sound like something you want to avoid, but remember without the fall, there can be no redemption or grace. That’s the price we pay for not living in a protected spiritual bubble with no challenges, no suffering, and no chance to experience the deep joy that comes after our greatest hardships and suffering.

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