The Lovers tarot card meaning
The Lovers is the card of union, choice and values. A bond, and the choice it asks of you. The Lovers reflect alignment between heart and values, in a relationship or in a decision that defines you.
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The Lovers upright
A bond, and the choice it asks of you. The Lovers reflect alignment between heart and values, in a relationship or in a decision that defines you.
Drawn upright, The Lovers is the card at ease with itself, and union, choice and values sit comfortably side by side. The image of two figures standing in a garden beneath a great winged angel in the clouds holds the whole of it. Read it as a mirror, and ask what in your own life it is showing back.
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The Lovers reversed
A choice made against your own values, or a connection out of balance. Ask what you are agreeing to.
When The Lovers falls reversed, many readers take it as the card’s energy turned inward. The union it stands for has not gone; it is waiting, or it has been overused. Ask which, and the card has done its work.
What the card shows
The plate shows two figures standing in a garden beneath a great winged angel in the clouds, a tree of flames behind one and a tree of fruit with a serpent behind the other, a tall mountain between them, a radiant sun above.
In the tradition this deck follows, the plate’s details are read this way: wings as messages from above; clouds as what is uncertain or still forming; ripened crops and fruit as abundance and reward; and the serpent as temptation and renewal. Together they are why The Lovers is read for union, choice and values.
The Lovers in love
In love, The Lovers brings union into the conversation. Upright, it can reflect a bond where choice has room to grow; reversed, it may show where values has been held back or pushed too hard. As a trump, The Lovers speaks to the larger pattern in how you love rather than to a single evening.
The Lovers in work and money
At work, The Lovers reflects union, and with money it asks about choice. Hold it against a real choice in front of you and see where values fits. As a trump, The Lovers speaks to the direction of a working life more than to one week’s accounts.
As a question to carry
What choice would you make if you were fully true to what you value?
Carry it through a day with The Lovers in mind and notice where union turns up.
Its place in the Major Arcana
The Lovers is trump VI, card 7 of the twenty-two in the Major Arcana.
Read as the Fool’s journey, the trumps tell one story of a life, and The Lovers stands in the first stage of the story, where the traveller meets the teachers and powers of the outer world. It follows The Hierophant and leads to The Chariot: union after the lesson of tradition, and before the lesson of drive.
Draw your own cards
Reading about The Lovers is one thing; drawing it in answer to your own question is another. Members draw from the full deck in the Almanac tarot: the card of the day, three cards, or the ten-card Celtic Cross, each card read in its place.
Tarot is a tool for reflection, not a replacement for God, prayer, Scripture or wise counsel.
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Common questions
What does The Lovers mean in tarot?
The Lovers is read for union, choice and values. A bond, and the choice it asks of you. The Lovers reflect alignment between heart and values, in a relationship or in a decision that defines you.
What does The Lovers mean reversed?
A choice made against your own values, or a connection out of balance. Ask what you are agreeing to. Reversed, it keeps its theme of union, seen from the side where it is blocked or overdone.
What does The Lovers mean in love?
In love, The Lovers brings union into the conversation. Upright, it can reflect a bond where choice has room to grow; reversed, it may show where values has been held back or pushed too hard.
