The Lovers is one of the tarot cards I find most confusing. On the surface, its meanings seem to have very little to do with each other. Communication, choices, personal values, sexuality, partnership, harmony, balance, and then, just to keep things interesting, a strange association with The Devil card. Phew! That's a lot.

 What I want to know is, what is this card actually about?

For me, the answer starts with its number. The Lovers is Major Arcana VI, and the way I read tarot, the number of a Major Arcana card influences every other card in the deck with that number. That makes The Lovers the head honcho of the sixes.

Six in tarot represents harmony and balance. The sixes in the Minor Arcana explore the restoration of balance after the disruption of the fives. The Lovers carries that same question into the big, complicated areas of life, challenging us to approach major life decisions with self awareness.

That is why The Lovers is not simply a card about romance. It can describe a partnership, but it can also point to a meaningful decision, a meeting of minds  or the moment when your actions need to line up with your principles. Sexuality belongs here too, not as a fatalistic prediction, but as part of the card’s wider interest in attraction, intimacy, desire, and the choices we make with them.

The Devil’s connection makes more sense when you look at the pair together. Both cards can involve desire, attachment, and temptation. The difference is that The Lovers asks whether a connection or choice is conscious and aligned with your values. The Devil asks whether you are actually choosing, or whether something else has taken the wheel.

So perhaps The Lovers is about alignment. It is the harmony created when what we think, say, want  and do are not pulling in four different directions. 

This series of blogs probably exposes my ignorance about tarot as much as my understanding of it. I am always learning something new about these cards, which is exactly what makes them so interesting to me. If you would like to explore The Falling Card Tarot, you can find the hand-drawn tarot deck here, or take a closer look at the complete 78-card tarot set.