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| The Lovers. From the Divine Tarot. |
When talking about my life, I frequently use a deck of tarot cards as a point of reference. As rich repositories of symbols, both mundane and arcane in nature, the cards supply an abundance of ideas for anyone to relate to. Love, vengeance, solitude, socialization, sin, redemption, obstacles, victories.... All of these concepts and more are in the cards. I identify with various cards, depending on my mood and what's on my mind. My general personality? That's the Queen of Swords. My best quality? Strength. Something I shouldn't do? The Tower. A reminder to stay strong, be social, and try new things? The Knight of Wands. My main interests in life? The Lovers.
Many people with so much as a passing familiarity with the tradition of tarot recognize the Lovers card when it appears. Lay it out on the table, whether on television or in a real life reading, and the conclusions are instant: Love! Marriage! Happiness! These conclusions aren't necessarily incorrect; there is simply far more to the Lovers than popular culture implies.
Most often, the Lovers represents relationships and communication. The implication is usually romantic, but not always. The relationship can be friendly or familial, and the communication can be taking place between any given set of people. From a young age, I have been fascinated with the way people relate to each other - or fail to relate to each other. I struggled to divine the reasons for social dynamics in my writing, with stories about love, friendship, and social hierarchies. I strove not only to understand interpersonal relationships, but also to communicate that understanding to others, a drive that has informed my career goals.
The Lovers also represents opposition. To cite a cliche, "opposites attract;" to clarify a cliche, "opposites interact." Male and female, yin and yang, light and dark, reason and romance, yes and no - all these dichotomies and others beside are suggested by the Lovers. This card notes the co-existence of opposites, the attraction opposites hold to each other, and the way opposites rely on each other to create a harmonic whole. Frequently, I find myself thinking in such terms, turning my experiences and knowledge to resolving (or at least acknowledging) the conflicts and compliments inherent in both relationships and human nature. "Duality," "balance," and "choice" are all words I am fascinated with.
One of the most frequently overlooked facets of the Lovers is the emphasis on learning through experience and the corresponding ascendence to a higher plane of awareness (or, alternately, the corresponding fall from grace). The mythos of Adam and Eve is heavily linked to this card, and it is almost entirely up to interpretation how that Biblical tradition bears on the meaning of this particular facet. I acknowledge this duality, not only for the sake of the interpretation of the card, but for the sake of the interpretation of my interests. I believe that knowledge and experience (listening to the snake or biting the apple, if you will) lead to progress and betterment of myself as a human being, a concept in which I firmly believe. I am interested primarily in positive growth, both for myself and for the world. However, simultaneously, the very things that I believe to lend themselves to upward motion, to ascendence, can be interpreted by others as contributing to a downward spiral, to a fall.
My interests lay in the Lovers: in the dynamics of relationships, in the act of communication, in the concepts of duality, choice, and balance, and in knowledge, learning, and upward motion - and in the controversies inherent in all of the above.
