The Lovers At A Glance
Keywords: Love, platonic, romantic, self love, accepting love, rejecting love, closing off self, falling out of love, sex, lust
Season: Spring
Zodiac/Planet: Gemini
The Lovers Tarot Card Description
In the major arcana, The Lovers is the seventh card and is usually numbered with a 6. Within the first tarot system RWS (Rider Waite Smith) system which most modern day tarot cards are based on The Lovers card depicts two lovers standing naked in a field.
An angel (sometimes the Devil) blesses their union as the Sun’s rays fall down upon them. The couple appear to be Adam and Eve, with the tree of knowledge and the snake behind Eve and the burning bush behind Adam.
These things combined symbolize the possibilities and polarities within love. How love can be good and create a beautiful life of prosperity and happiness but also how love can be destructive if not reciprocated. Also how love within a toxic relationship could destroy all those involved. The message is clear: love is powerful and we should respect it.
The Lovers Upright Meaning
When The Lovers card is turned over in a card reading and is in its upright position (the art work is right side up) it generally means a new relationship is on the horizon. This can be platonic or romantic. It could also be a deepening and growing of the love within a relationship.
It isn’t about marriage, ceremony or external declarations of love but rather the very private and intimate workings of the relationship, only known to the people inside it.
This card specifically means the sensual, sexual and vulnerable side of love and how it feels as the person within the relationship from their first person point of view. It can also be speaking of how we love ourselves, or sometimes the lack of and our own complicated relationship we have with our insecurities.
“You always gain by giving love.” - Reese Witherspoon
The Lovers Reversed Meaning
If The Lovers card appears reversed (the artwork is upside down) then it carries a slightly different meaning. The Lovers card, even when reversed, is still about love but its darker side: toxic love, withholding love or love not reciprocated. In this case the card is saying we have been burned by love and may currently be feeling very unloved.
This is often about times we were hurt in our past and the card is asking us to come to terms with this pain and to heal from it by trying to let it go. Holding on to the pain is keeping us trapped. We feel it over and over again.
It can also mean we are the ones holding back out of fear of being vulnerable. We all crave love and yet we often deny ourselves this by not allowing anyone to see who we really are.
“How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” - Rupi Kaur
The Lovers: Yes or No
The Lovers card is difficult to categorize absolutely as either a yes or no card because of its nature of being the card of duality and relationships. Because this card talks about the joining of two or more people in a relationship, family or group it means they have to decide as a collective and not the individual reader if a situation is a yes or no.
So in this case if we have asked a yes or no question and receive The Lovers card then it is suggesting that we are not able to make this decision on our own and we should consult with our loved ones because the outcome will affect them so they will be integral to the decision making process.
However if we get The Lovers reversed with a yes or no question then it means yes. We must not deprive ourselves of the things we desire or wait for others to decide for us. We must seize this decision for ourselves.
Let’s Break Down The Lovers In Our Lives
How The Lovers card related more specifically within the different areas of our life.
The Lovers In Love
If the reader has asked a question about love either romantic or platonic and The Lovers card appears then it can suggest we have hit the ultimate love jackpot. If we ask a question about love and get the very card within tarot which symbolizes love then we are receiving a very clear confirmation from the universe of what we suspected. It is like love squared. We can expect big positive changes to happen within our love life very soon.
Reversed The Lovers in love can mean that we are over focusing on others, to the point of obsession. We need to cool off and take time to come back to selves. It’s easy to get lost in the heady romantic feeling of a new relationship but we need to remain ourselves, in our own lives.
We have so many aspects to our lives and all of them are important. We need to reset our guiding compass back to ourselves and not the other person.
The Lovers With Money
If The Lovers card appears when a question about money has been asked it is suggesting shortly we will have a period of giving without the expectation of receiving. This can mean charity, giving to good causes. Giving simply to benefit someone else and not ourselves.
This can be not only money but any resources we have like our time and energy. This is not coerced or manipulated out of us. We are very happy to give these resources freely simply because it feels good.
Reversed The Lovers with money means we currently have the instinct to hoard our resources. This is usually done out of fear of scarcity. We hoard everything because we fear one day we will be without and desperately in need. We must learn to trust in the universe that when we require something it will be provided for us. So we can let go and relax.
The Lovers At Work
When asking a question about a situation at work or about our careers The Lovers card can mean we enjoy the work we do and do it for this enjoyment as well as the money. This is very lucky and very few people’s situation. But there are always things we can do to maximize the amount of enjoyment in our work place.
When we see this card we are being asked what would it take to change this for us: work from home? Reduce the commute? Change the schedule? The Lovers card says have the courage to speak to the boss and get the gripes can figured out.
Reversed The Lovers at work suggests we have been giving way more than we have been receiving for far too long. We either need to speak up and make changes or find something new. This card says we must lean into the self-respect and love we have for ourselves and either demand more or up and leave. The Lovers says to remember your worth.
The Lovers With Others
If we are asking about our external world, either our immediate world of people we know or the world at large and we get The Lovers card as an answer it means we need to be vulnerable and open up and that we will be loved and accepted when we do. We can be fearful to put our true selves out there but this card says it’s time to accept who we are and others will too.
Reversed The Lovers with others can signify we are giving way too much to our families, friends and other responsibilities. We have forgotten to make time for ourselves. We feel exhausted every day and trapped. It’s time to claw back time and energy bit by bit so we feel whole and happy again.
The Lovers With Self
The Lovers card relates to our internal world by suggesting we are starting to love ourselves. This can be intentional with a daily self-love practice or just generally as we heal from our past and begin to treat ourselves better. This card says stop and see hoe far we have come from the hurting person we used to be and congratulate ourselves for all the work it took to get us here.
Reversed The Lovers card with self can symbolize we have very little self-love for ourselves at the moment. We feel very negative and insecure about our bodies or other ways we wrongly believe we are lacking. To remedy this we could begin a self-love daily practice (say positive affirmations about ourselves in the mirror).
Also journaling could be very helpful. This card says there may be a problem right now but we can and will fix it. Our insecurities are not true and we can change how we feel.
The Lovers As Feelings
Heady and romantic bliss is how this card feels. The overwhelmingly beautiful feeling of falling head over heels in love. Mostly falling in love with people but also the contended feeling of being comfortable in our own skin and our self-esteem rising along with our confidence.
It can feel like heightened sexual desire, increased libido or a new found a love for life.
