The Spiritual Meaning of the Lovers Tarot Card

The Lovers tarot card is a happy one to receive, especially if we’re coming to the tarot deck asking questions about our love lives. Classically, it represents the divine marriage, perfect harmony, and complementarity between two people. But the spiritual meaning of this card is much deeper than that surface reading.

The Fortunate Fall

The Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck depicts a naked man and woman standing in a garden, a mountain behind them, and an angel above them, blessing their union. Clearly, these two are meant to be Adam and Eve, the original lovers, from a Judeo-Christian perspective. And yet the snake is here, too, wrapped around the fruitful Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil behind Eve, reminding us of the fall from Eden, the exile that happened to these two lovers shortly after their union.

In the myth, Adam and Eve are given the perfect garden, a place where everything they could ever need is provided for them. They are warned to follow one rule: not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The snake tempted Eve to taste the fruit, and she shared it with Adam, at which point the two were cast out of paradise, condemned to suffer need for the rest of eternity.

It’s a tragedy in a way, but also, perhaps, a fortunate fall. There is nothing to be learned in paradise. When everything is given to us, when nothing is worked for, we have no opportunity to grow and learn; there can be no knowledge of good, evil, or much of anything else. Leaving paradise was the beginning of humanity’s growth and evolution. Some spiritual traditions believe that we choose to spend time in flawed human bodies so that our souls can grow, evolve, and know love and connection. When we are purely spirit, purely One, we cannot know what it’s like to be Two, to be with an Other—to love.

Love is the whole reason we suffer in our flawed human bodies. Loving another—whether it’s romantic love, parental love, or some other kind of love—can be wonderful and joyful, but it can also be a rich source of suffering. Love can bring insecurity, fear of loss, grief, and the terror of seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes. Committed love is one of the most spiritual practices out there (along with parenting) because it reveals us to ourselves in such powerful and often painful ways.

The Need for a Blessing

The image of the angel standing before the man and the woman with one hand raised is a visual echo of the Hierophant card, which immediately precedes the Lovers card in the tarot deck. In both cases, there is a mood of learning, looking up to someone who knows more, with an implication of choice and authority. The Hierophant questions who stands between ourselves and our spirituality, and whether we need someone else in order to move forward spiritually.

With the Lovers, we may also consider whether we need a blessing, and from whom, in order to connect to the people we want to or to follow the path we desire for ourselves. Eve disobeyed God, and she was punished for it. But was her choice fundamentally wrong? Would it have been better to stay in paradise forever, never learning, never growing, never changing at all?

A New Relationship or Big Decision

The Lovers tarot card may indeed indicate that you are about to enter into a romantic relationship. It might also speak to something new and meaningful that has entered your life that will change you for the better over time. It can warn, too, that something that feels really good now may show you a new path that could challenge you.

If you’re facing a choice, remind yourself of what really matters to you, what you want to learn in this lifetime, before you choose to act (or not).

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