Every day, I get my daughter to pick a Card from the Major Arcana of the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck. Disregarding traditional interpretations and sceptical of ‘professional’ Tarot readers, I draw instead from my Hermetic background and psychological focus on Mythos and Archetypes. I'm exploring an experiment to deeply understand each card's archetypal meanings, delving into both its overt and covert symbolism while remaining open to the conversational nature of signs. This process embodies the concept of "Signal" as "Emergence," where being in tune allows for the unfolding and proper demodulation of universal, multifaceted messages, highlighting the pervasive relevance and context available to all.
The Invitation is to consider all the implications and let them form a constellation of context, from which you might derive some Meaning.
VI. THE LOVERS
This card represents Union, Beauty & The Pathway of Desire
The number is VI (6), and is the 7th Card in the Major Arcana.
HOW TO CONSIDER THE TAROT
To appreciate Tarot, you don’t need to subscribe to anything mystical or arcane, and you most certainly do not need to consult the booklets and the types of interpretations we encounter on the internet, which is no deeper than a typical lifestyle magazine for young women. You just need to appreciate how symbols and archetypes are windows into expansive maps of meaning.
Each card is a window into a holographic map of meaning.
Each card is a window into a holographic map of meaning, holding a trove of symbols, archetypes and other even less visible aspects such as numbers and geometry. When seen as a whole, considering all the subtle aspects, including the body language, the colours and the arrangement and the constellation of connection and meaning they imply, we begin to understand the true power of Tarot.
We begin each time with the abstract, so that our subconscious minds can be primed with that which is most essential about the card, which would be overlooked by our human nature to scan for visual cues, recognise forms, faces and objects at a more literal level.
In this respect Tarot becomes less of a tool for the kind of divination we associate with pop-astrology, and more a meditative guide for understanding more of the invisible aspects of ourselves, the world we belong to and the manner of that belonging.
The further invitation is to consider how the convergence of seemingly disparate elements which appear initially obscure and random, unfold to reveal not only an emergent essence of each card but also an undeniable, deliberate web of meaning. This intricate orchestration underscores a genius in design and composition, hinting at a profound interconnectedness and the thoughtful intent behind each card's creation and the wisdom human beings have access to.
Each post, and the series as an emergent ‘Whole’, challenges the reader to view the Tarot through the lens of personal exploration and intuitive understanding. The synthesis of diverse disciplines provides a scaffold for interpreting each card's symbolism, inviting a deep, personal dialogue with the archetypes it embodies.
NUMEROLOGY
Numerology is the study of numbers. If mathematics is the language and the grammar, geometry is the syntax and poetry, and numbers are the base letters.
The number 6 is considered to be the embodiment of the heart, associated with beauty.
According to Pythagoras, 6 was the first perfect number—a number where all the divisors excluding itself equals the number itself. 1+2+3=6.
6 is arrived at by 2 x 3. 2 and 3 are Primes.
Six is regarded as the number of perfection or completion, whereby according to Judaic and Christian mythos, the world was created in six days.
Incidentally, the Numerology of pop culture considers 6 to be the number of the Lover.
GEOMETRY
The number 6 in terms of geometry can be presented in many related ways.
The hexagon is recognised as the optimal structure in nature for strength and space optimisation. Hexagons can tesselate, or fit together without gaps or overlaps, in a two-dimensional plane, a property unique in polygons.
A cube is actually called a hexahedron, a platonic solid with six square faces.
These allude to the encoding in the Christian and Judaic mythos that the world was created in 6 days.
The star of David is comprised by the intersection of two triangles, representing the the union of masculine and feminine and also the alchemical union of the 4 elements. The triangles pointing up and down, are symbols of masculine and feminine respectively. The elements of Fire and Water in alchemy are represented by triangles, pointing up and downward respectively.
The triangle itself is the most stable, and balance shape in geometry, the internal angles adding up to 180 degrees which is a flat surface.
In sacred geometry, the seed, the germ and the flower of life are all constructed by the natural intersection of the circle into six equal parts of 60 degrees, corresponding to the six symmetries of a hexagon.
ETYMOLOGY
Vertical shallow Etymology finds the nearest root words and leaves it at that. Deep and Wide Etymology reaches down and laterally, to explore the full essence of meaning that is related to the word.
Love comes from the Germanic root languages, with meanings “praise”, “joy” and “beloved”.
Love is a word that describes the feeling of love, but refers also the subject of someone’s love as in “my love” or “his love”. Lovemaking refers to sexual union where a sense of intimacy and emotional connection is prevalent.
APPEARANCE & ARRANGEMENT
The card has a yellow background. A radiant golden sun shines from the top centre lighting a scene of an angelic being emerging from the clouds, with wings unfurled, in a posture of benediction or blessing, presiding over a pair of naked lovers. The woman on the left beside a fruit tree, with a serpent, and the man beside a tree of flame, and between them a single mountain peak rises in the distance.
EGREGORE
Egregore is an esoteric concept representing an emergent archetypal thought-form that arises from collective thoughts.
THE LOVERS card represents true Union which is facilitated by Beauty which is itself the pathway of Desire. Depicted are the Feminine and Masculine aspects in all creation that merge to create an Emergent “third”, an act of union and creation presided over by the divine favour.
In one and the same fire, clay grows hard and wax melts.
Francis Bacon
THE UNFOLDING
A closer look at the unfolding symbolism of that card reveals the archetypal Adam & Eve. Each is naked, that is to say, prior to the eating of the fruit, standing beside a tree. The Feminine has a fruit tree and a rising serpent. The Masculine tree has flowers of flame at the end of blackened branches.
Between them in the background a single mountain, and above the mountain an angelic being emerging from cloud, purple robes, red wings, with eyes looking down and arms raised in blessing. Behind the angelic being, a radiant sun.
The mountain peak has two ridges that may be climbed that meet at a single summit. The mountain is the axis mundi.
Adam looks at Eve and Eve at the Angel, and both have their hands down, palms open. Adam is able to encounter divine unity only through Eve.
The fruit laden tree with 4 apples, is the Life of Nature (Soul), which requires the Knowledge of Good & Evil to ascend. Tree of Knowledge. The serpent is the Kundalini.
The 11th sepiroth Da’ath (Knowledge) is activated only through attainment via experience (exile).
The flaming tree is the Life of the Spirit. The Tree of Life with 12 flames, and one extra below, enshrining the 10 sephirot. The lower flame is also as Adam’s tail in THE DEVIL card.
It is Eve’s destiny to bear fruit. It is Adam’s destiny to carry the sacred seed of Life. The sacred seed of Life seeks unity with the Divine through Earthy Union, to fulfil its purpose of Masculinity and Fathering progeny.
The Angel represents the principle of Beauty, which is the essence of Invitation to relationship and Union. The angelic being is associated with Raphael, which in Hebrew means “God cures/has healed”, indicating the nature of healing the wound of separation between the masculine and the feminine through divine union.
6 is the number of alchemical Union of Fire and Water, of Masculine & Feminine, Star of David, also the Cube, and ultimately the Merkabah.
The Archetype of Man is driven by Fear (of consequences) & Desire (for Beauty) which are The Devil & The Lovers cards.
SYMMETRY WITHIN THE DECK
Within the deck, there are symmetries and connections between the cards, some defined by the relationship of the numbers, others by the relationship of their symbols and essentialities.
THE LOVERS is the 7th card. THE DEVIL is the 7th last card. The two cards have an integral symmetry in the arrangement and the archetypes present.
The number presiding over THE LOVES is 6. The number presiding over THE DEVIL is 5 as indicated by the inverted pentagram, the card’s number is XV(15), 3 x 5. 15 numerologically tally up as 1+5=6, representing a distended, rather than the stability and balance of the union of the number 6 which is underwritten by the number 3 (triangle).
THE LOVERS (Raphael) is one of three cards that feature Angels. The other two cards are TEMPERANCE (Gabriel), and JUDGEMENT (Michael).
THE LOVERS share a symmetry with several other cards in the Major Arcana, where either two pillars are represented such as THE HIGH PRIESTESS and THE MOON, but more specifically where a trinity of characters define the scene of the card. These are THE HIEROPHANT, THE CHARIOT, THE DEVIL and in a certain way THE TOWER, THE MOON. Another triangle of focus is found in the card TEMPERANCE.
KABBALAH
In Kabbalah, the 6th station, or Sephirot, on the Tree of Life, is Tipareth: Beauty. Tipareth is a central station, in between the two pillars, but also at the heart of the tree, midway between the upper and lower halves, and is considered the essential gateway to the upper part of the tree. Tipareth is the Sephirot that holds the boundary between Yetzirah, the World of Formation and Beriah, the World of Creation. Tipareth, Beauty, is considered as the foundation of the World of Creation and the Crown of the World of Formation.
Genesis 6:2
“And the sons of Elohim found the daughters of man beautiful, and they took them wives of all which they chose. ”
Elohim is a plural name for God.
Depicted on the card are the two pillars Boaz and Jachin, represented by trees, and the mountain between them, depicting that the path of worldly ascent, the path to union, is via Beauty (and desire).
ALEF-BET & GEMATRIA
The number 6 corresponds to the Hebrew letter Vav (ו), which means Hook (or peg as in tent peg), meaning “that which forms union from above”.
6 is arrived at by 2 x 3. The Hebrew letters for 2 and 3 are Beit (ב) and Gimmel (ג), which mean “Shelter” and “Giving or Walking Towards” respectively.
These two meanings are incorporated in the meaning for Vav which is 6, and thereby deepen the meaning of THE LOVERS card and the notion of Union and Beauty as the pathway of desire being depicted.
ASTROLOGY
The number 6 is ruled by the planet Venus.
The nature of Venus is allure, attraction, Desire and a love of aesthetic beauty.
The two lovers also represent Venus and Mars. THE LOVERS card also represents the relationship between Venus and Mars. Mars symbolises cutting, decision, decisive action, and cleaving of which conflict is only a part of the expression.
Cleaving is a contronym or a ‘Janus word’, a word that can mean its own opposite. To cleave means both to split apart and to splice together. Everything in astrology has two ‘faces’, active and passive expressions, exulted and shadow expressions.
For union to occur, in a more symbolic, alchemical sense, always needs to involve penetration, separation and receiving. This is how the egg is fertilised, how atoms are ionised with charge. THE LOVERS card represents the pathway of desire, and therefore the pathway of union.
In mythology Venus and Mars are secret lovers, so opposite in nature and thereby attracted to each other.
Union of the masculine and feminine, the gender principle is how everything within creation can create. Two parts come together to form a union which gives rise to an emergent third. The union of masculine and feminine is what generates creative energy as a combination of the insemination nature of the masculine and the ‘gestative’ nature of the feminine.
MYTHOS & LOGOS
VENUS
In Greek mythology, Aphrodite (Venus) is the goddess of love and beauty, and in a way older than the other Olympian gods being born from the seed of the primordial Ouranos, the sky father, after he is castrated by his son Kronos. The genitals and seed are flung into the sea, and Aphrodite (Venus) is born from the union with the foam of the sea. This alludes to the nature of quantum foam from which atomic matter and forces are born.
Although Aphrodite is married to the graceless Hephaestus and is courted by many suitors, both mortal and divine because of her sublime beauty, but is found time and time again in bed with her true love Aries (Mars).
RAPHAEL
In Judiac and Christian mythos, the Angelic being is associated with the Archangel Raphael, whose name means the Healing power and nature of God, alluding to the power of union. Incidentally, Raphael is considered the patron angel of the blind.
INNER REFLECTION
The interplay of Union, Beauty, and Desire we encounter at both the profound and the elemental. Beauty acts as both medium and attractor, through which this union is catalysed and realised, an aspect of harmony that appeals to the deepest parts of our being, guiding us towards a more profound merging that is seminal to Emergence.
Beauty, in its most esoteric sense, is the harmonizing principle that draws us towards union. It is the divine spark that illuminates the path of desire, guiding us through the visible and invisible landscapes of our existence. Beauty acts as both the magnet and the medium through which disparate elements find resonance—not only an aesthetic attribute but a fundamental force of attraction and integration, revealing the underlying order and coherence of the universe.
Desire, often misconstrued as mere longing or want, is reinterpreted here as the force that moves us through the pathways of life, driving the quest for union—not as a mere fulfilment of longing but as a journey towards completeness of Form and Purpose. This dynamic interplay serves as a reminder of the intricate balance necessary for growth and the realisation of potential. It is through this lens that we are invited to view the world, recognizing the unity in diversity and the creative energy that arises when opposites merge, and how their desires can be complimentary even if not directly aligned.
This is an invitation to a deeper engagement with both the essence of life, where the merging of the masculine and feminine principles embodies the alchemical process of ongoing creation itself and also with the deeper meaning of the words Beauty, Desire and Union, far beyond our trivial and literal interpretations.
Emergence is a prevailing theme contained within and expressed on various level by the Tarot. Here we are led into a deeper understanding, a union as it were with the notion of union, beyond the literal. The notion of union is how two opposites can attract and more, how a third force of divine intentionality is always at work, which we experience as beauty. Of deeper relevance is how Union is not the temporary culmination of desire and an end in of itself, but seminal to becoming, to an emergent form being brought into being through desire which originates below in the human and animal drive, but also from above in the divine will, to bring about the fulfilment of the intended Form and Purpose. The two poles of desire create a circuit, the current of which is Movement towards Union.
The title image includes a symbol of the twin serpents, snaking their way up the central staff or axis, which is central to the Cadeus. The two serpents are Kundalini (vital awakening of life force and body ) and Nous (vital awakening of consciousness and divine presence). Kundalini literally means serpent. Kundalini is considered a latent Feminine energy in the human body. Nous is considered a latent principle in the human mind that has both penetrative Masculine as well as ‘gestative’ Feminine aspects. The symbol is also reminiscent of the DNA double helix, which is the pathway of evolution, which in the Hermetic sense is the pathway to union with the actualised form or Telos.
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