6: The Lovers

 The lovers card in the major arcana is full of vibrant symbolism and meaning. While it is clearly a card of love or union, it stands for so much more than that. Let’s take a look

Here we see a man and a woman standing in what appears to be a garden, with a bright sun shining above them and a tall mountain in the background. While that all seems fairly normal, there are some unusual sights here. Looming above the two people is the archangel Gabriel, presumably there to share a message as Gabriel is the messenger of god. It’s also valuable to realize that this is very clearly the garden of Eden in the picture, as we see the snake climbing up the fruit tree, located behind the naked woman. While the woman is in front of the fruiting tree, the man is standing in front of a burning tree. Additionally, if you look closely, you see the man is looking at the woman, while the woman is looking up at the angel. The man is eager to experience carnal knowledge while the woman is eager to experience spiritual knowledge, and it is through the woman that a man can obtain spiritual knowledge

This card is the hope of something powerful and beautiful blooming in love, while also being a card of creation and change. It is also a card of union, but not just union of two people, but also the union of the masculine and feminine inside of us. While material romantic unions are and can be rewarding, there’s truly nothing like unifying your inner polarities in order to have a more whole and possibly higher perspective of oneness. This card also embodies Gemini energy that says the unification of the two is better than the energy of one. 

While the lovers card is about partnership, it is more importantly about unification of opposites. The scene in the background is showing us that these lovers have reached some heights as a result of their union, but they have even higher to go on their spiritual journey.