Comparative Tarot 06: The Lovers

[Rose Lalonde]

The Lovers

 

Please see the discussion thread if you'd like some background about the study group.

 

If you post about more than one deck, please add a separate post below for each to make it easier to index. You can write about the same deck someone else did.

 

As a visual start, here are the TdM Pierre Madenie, the RWS, and the Thoth. (You don't have to compare your deck with these, though, if you have another deck in mind.)

 

If you'd like to add a small image of the card you're discussing that would be great. If not we can google it.

 

Feedback on comments about this card are welcome here! For general questions and suggestions, please use the discussion thread.

 

 

Asherah Tarot

Mystical Cats Tarot

Tarot of the Hidden Realm

Transparent Tarot

Victorian Fairy

 

[GreenFaerie]

Ack, another card that, in its standard form, really bothers me. As a queer person, as a pagan, it's really hard for me to look at an RWS-type image and not see all the layers of religion and heterosexual conformity that come out in the Lovers card. All three images that are given above feel like a church wedding, with the blessing of angels or with a priest marrying the couple, sometimes both. So, I am going to post a couple of cards that have a slightly different take.

 

First, the VFT. Lunaea Weatherstone, in her wonderful book for this deck, makes note of all of the stories in which a mortal leaves our world to marry a fairy, or the other way around. When you love someone or something that passionately, you are literally committing to something beyond yourself - you are willing to go to another world for the sake of the vocation, thing, or person you love. Weatherstone also notes that it doesn't have to be a person; the Fairy Bride symbolizes your passions for something, whether a career, an art, a calling, or a person. You are willing to cross realms to join yourself to that thing, whatever it may be, and the Fairy Bride is the symbol of that. Getting this card means your heart is open, and you are willing to endure pain and vulnerability as well as willing to love. Your passion will be transformative.

[GreenFaerie]

This is another card that feels very much about love and transformation to me. The sense of otherworldliness is just wonderful. The figure on the right is clearly not of this world, and while he looks male here, perhaps he can shape-shift. Perhaps, once the woman on the left joins him, she can too. Perhaps, once they kiss, they will both be changed. There are all kinds of wonderful possibilities here that open up, particularly for the gender nonconforming. The passion and commitment are still there in the image, but the sense of being caught in this moment of transformation is so beautiful.

[Onaorkal]

Like GreenFaerie, as a non-heterosexual person myself, I'm really happy when a deck strays from heteronormativity, especially with this card.

 

Unfortunately, most of the decks I own are really similar to the typical Lovers card from the Marseille, RWS or Thoth decks and show a man and a woman in love. At least the religious aspect is not present in most of them.

 

But another deck from Lunaea Weatherstone, the Mystical Cats Tarot, shows 2 cats cuddling together. I don't think we can deduce their genders, so I'm satisfied with this one.

 

Apart from the fact that we're seeing cats and not humans, it's different than the typical Arcana number VI in many ways.

 

No angel, no priest, nobody else, no Sun, no snake...but the mountain is still there in the background! Also the arch may symbolize a more official union and a new beginning. We shouldn't forget that the Lovers card is also about choices, not only love!

 

While studying this card, I also realized that the cats seemed to be placed in a such a way that they represent a yin-yang symbol. Well the Lovers' card from the Transparent Tarot also includes a yin-yang symbol. I think it's a suitable choice for this card, but I wonder if other decks have it as well!

[Rose Lalonde]

You've inspired me with your great posts about non-traditional Lovers cards to jump in with the Asherah Tarot's Lovers, which is about balancing the yin/yang aspects within ourselves. (Onaorkal, you mentioned that symbol, and if you look behind the hands in the middle of this card, there's a hidden yin/yang there.) It''s based on Plato''s story of people once having two souls in one body.

 

Although the androgynous figures look nothing like Crowley's Thoth Lovers except in symmetry, there's a  little thematic similarity behind the scenes, in that Crowley called this card, "The Lovers (or The Brothers)" in the Book of Thoth in relation to Gemini's twins, and he mentions a synthesis of male and female aspects into one in the Alchemical Wedding.

 

Asherah's guidebook says, "The process of healing and enlightenment inevitably involves an acceptance and reunion with the repressed half of our own personality. This is the Alchemical Marriage, the rejoining of the twin souls in one body depicted in this card." (more at SarahWheatley.com)

 

Crowley also has a well known quote, "Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love. There is the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye well!" And we have the dove, day and sun on the left of Asherah's Lovers, and the serpent, night, and moon on the right. (By associating the more feminine looking of the two with the sun and the more masculine with the moon, she's making sure we don't get too caught up in the usual stereotypes like female/yin/dark/moon. )

 

Asherah's guidebook mentions choice as well, "...choice, the Gemini burden, to always see both sides, and so the sword of Zain is rising up to chop through the dilemma."

 

[Onaorkal]

This is a really nice card Rose! I love it!  :o

[GreenFaerie]

I love it, too! Just gorgeous. <3

[sandrang123]

Love that card!