The Lovers
The Lovers is the card of union and choice: love that is freely given, the alignment of values, and the decisions that define who we are.
Major Arcana VI
Upright keywords
- love
- union
- harmony
- choice
- aligned values
- attraction
Meaning when upright
The Lovers shows the first human couple under the blessing of an angel, a picture of love in its innocent, wholehearted form. Beyond romance, the card speaks of choice: committing to a person, path, or principle because it truly matches your values. It points to harmony between partners and between the parts of yourself, the rational and the emotional. When it appears, a meaningful relationship or a defining decision is at hand.
On the card
- great winged angel with arms outstretched
- Waite's winged figure pouring down influences; traditionally Raphael, blessing and healing the union.
- blazing sun overhead
- Illumination and the life-giving warmth that shines on the union from the zenith.
- naked man and woman
- Adam and Eve in the earthly paradise: innocence, honesty, and nothing hidden between them.
- tree with flame-like fruits behind the man
- Waite's Tree of Life bearing twelve fruits, often linked to the twelve signs and to passion.
- fruit tree with a serpent coiled around it behind the woman
- The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: temptation and the choice that brings awareness.
- mountain peak rising between them
- An obstacle to overcome or a shared aspiration the couple may reach together.
- the woman looking up to the angel while the man looks to her
- Awareness rising from reason through feeling and intuition toward the divine.
- cloud beneath the angel
- The veil between the divine and human realms.
In Waite’s words
The sun shines in the zenith, and beneath is a great winged figure with arms extended, pouring down influences. In the foreground are two human figures, male and female, unveiled before each other, as if Adam and Eve when they first occupied the paradise of the earthly body. Behind the man is the Tree of Life, bearing twelve fruits, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is behind the woman; the serpent is twining round it. The figures suggest youth, virginity, innocence and love before it is contaminated by gross material desire. This is in all simplicity the card of human love, here exhibited as part of the way, the truth and the life. It replaces, by recourse to first principles, the old card of marriage, which I have described previously, and the later follies which depicted man between vice and virtue. In a very high sense, the card is a mystery of the Covenant and Sabbath.
The suggestion in respect of the woman is that she signifies that attraction towards the sensitive life which carries within it the idea of the Fall of Man, but she is rather the working of a Secret Law of Providence than a willing and conscious temptress. It is through her imputed lapse that man shall arise ultimately, and only by her can he complete himself. The card is therefore in its way another intimation concerning the great mystery of womanhood. The old meanings fall to pieces of necessity with the old pictures, but even as interpretations of the latter, some of them were of the order of commonplace and others were false in symbolism.
- Divinatory meaning
Attraction, love, beauty, trials overcome.
- Reversed
Failure, foolish designs. Another account speaks of marriage frustrated and contrarieties of all kinds.
Correspondences
- Element
- Air
- Astrology
- Gemini
- Hebrew letter
- Zayin (ז)
- Path on the Tree of Life
- Path 17: Binah – Tiphareth
- Number
- Six is harmony and reciprocity; in the Lovers it becomes relationship and the choice that restores wholeness.
To reflect on
- What do I value most, and do my choices reflect it?
- Where do my head and heart disagree?
- What relationship or commitment is asking for my full yes?
In your readings
Hasn’t appeared in your readings yet.
Ask about this card
Marguerite, the traditionalist, answers from Waite’s text, what is drawn on the card and its correspondences. You can choose another reader in settings.