Taurus cross quarter 24 (1)

This Saturday (May 4,2024, The Sun will reach 15 degrees Taurus. This brings about the season of Beltane, the most creatively and erotically charged of the 8 sabots in the wheel of the year. I have prepared several essays for this season, one of them a rather long one. for this reason I have decided to release these one at a time. The first of these will focus on The Lovers card. Hope you find it interesting.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

THE HILL WE ARE WILLING TO DIE ON

For the past few months, Susan and I have been reading an historical fiction that follows several generations of characters through the important events of the 20^th Century. A recurring theme in these novels is of people having to make a choice between a person they love passionately and their social role. Duty to causes, country, family and social class force painful decisions. Such themes are familiar from movies and popular song to Shakespeare and The Bible. Love is a powerfully disruptive force. People are often tempted to place valuable things, their reputation, fortune and even their close family and friends at risk to answer Love’s call.

This power, its risks and rewards are on display in The Lovers Card. In The Marseilles Tarot we see a man confronting a choice between two women.

Choice, especially life altering decisions, is one of the standard associations of this card. Hovering above the characters we see Cupid poised to shoot his arrow. Cupids presence here complicates the idea of choice in that one who is hit by his arrow has no real “choice” about who they “fall for”. Love is never a choice. We either love or do not. The only choice is whether we will heed the call of our heart’s desire.

Turning to the Waite-Smith card we see a more stark representation of the situation.

The couple are naked. This represents both the carnal aspect of love and the vulnerability we face when in loves possession. In the background we see what appears to be a volcanic mountain. The very earth becomes tumescent with the rising passion of nature. A volcano can destroy but it also renews the land. We are dealing here with primal forces that are only marginally within our control.

We see two trees. The tree behind the Woman is fruitful and holds a serpent. The serpent is an ancient symbol of wisdom, particularly wisdom concerning life and the way that life renews itself by “shedding”. The serpent is Lunar, its power to endure is its power to transform. Behind the man we see a flaming tree (or maybe just autumnal). Is this the deathly side of love – the part which will face self immolation rather than forsake Love’s call. And should we answer, like the moth to the flame, are we destined to burn? A love that demands a hard choice will force us to “shed” what ever will not feed Love’s fire. And so the two trees are bound.

Above we see an angel. The lore around this card suggest that it is the Angel Raphael who’s name means “God heals”. He is the patron not only of physicians but also match makers. The match maker decides who is right for us. Plato gives an account of love in which the lover we seek is the other half of our self, cut asunder by Zeus that we might not attain God like power. In this sense, a matchmaker is a kind of physician. They locate our other half and bind us to them.

Although we might feel ambivalent about the idea of match makers in a culture which values “free choice”, especially in matters of love, we must admit that the choice of who we are drawn to often seem to be a choice made apart from our will. As Rumi has it: “The way of Love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation”. The right person for us is not right in the way of a mathematical proof, but rather in the way of a well fit garment.

It is It is interesting to note that while the woman appears to be looking up to the angel, the man seems to look at the woman. There might be something here about the notion that men are more “visual” while women are inclined toward a story. This complicates matters by making us think about the difference between masculine and feminine. Here I will only say that to the extent that the masculine looks “outward” while the feminine looks “within”, men and women are both susceptible to both tendencies, as the hermetic principle has it, all things contain their masculine and feminine aspects. Never the less, the woman being on the side of the ever shedding, ever renewing serpent while the man only burns, speaks to another aspect of Love.

The man’s body is used up in love while the woman’s ever renews, he is the seed, she is the earth etc. Love asks us to sacrifice our very life in Her ongoing narrative. Love does not serve us, rather it is the opposite. Perhaps this is what the woman is hearing from the angel.

Although the image on the card leaves no doubt that we are dealing with carnal love (Eros not agape), its meaning extends well beyond the occasion of one human’s desire for another. Indeed, there are many junctures in life when we are willing to risk a tremendous loss to bring about some desired life. The pursuit of art or athletic excellence, even the founding and building of a great fortune may demand that we “forsake all others”. One of the conventional readings of this card is that we are faced with the prospect of loosing other, perhaps equally satisfying options. This prospect may bring about what modern parlance calls “fear of missing out”. And it is true, we might peruse a serious study of music, avoiding parties and dating and many of the things that the young rightly find pleasure in, only to find that we, either through lack of talent or luck, never make it as a musician. All those years of practice will not return and we will have to start again a mile before the starting line. This is a real possibility and one we must go naked before if we are to have even the possibility of reaching our heart’s desire.

Love involves the risk of folly. One of the conventional associations with this card is the idea of temptation. Strictly speaking, temptation is the motive force of love as taken up here. But when people speak of temptation there is usually some odor of corruption in their mind. We associate the word with something which will lead us by our monkey brain into ruin. Words like adultery and addiction might come to mind. This is why passionate love has not always been viewed as an unambiguous good by polite and efficient social order. Be assured that Love is fully aware of this charge and does not care. More over, love often leverages the moral reticence we sometimes show it, to fan its’ own flames. This is the allure of transgression.

But whether Love’s call leads us to Heaven or Hell (note the similarity both visually and thematically to The Devil Card), we only refuse this call, if at all, by the greatest effort of will. Love appeals to the deepest strata of our soul. Sometimes this is sheer animal lust, sometimes it is some emotional need that we might not even recognize we have. What ever the case, reason has only two options – to oppose or to serve. Reason might see the peril and warn us against the fall or, heedless of any danger, rationalize any risk.

Sometimes the danger is real. There is no guarantee that we are not being drawn into an abusive or destructive path, nor even that what seems like an eternal flame might, in time grow cold. On the other hand, to refuse what ever Love demands for entrance to her promised land, our status, independence, or just the possibility that something/one else might be “even better”, is to risk the greatest loss of comfort, pleasure and growth. Love demands promises but makes few of her own and there is no solid math to determine whether the trip is worth the fall.

There is, however, an opportunity to “know thy self”. If the risk of love brings joy and growth, you will learn what it takes to be worthy of such a treasure, and to call this forth from your secret depths in an ever more refined and reliable form. If you crash and burn you will be given an opportunity to learn what it is within you that makes you pray to folly. This second road is obviously harder than the first. But if you can walk it, you will be forced to confront, and hopefully conquer those things. If you do, the next time love calls, it will be calling to what is more wholesome and holy within you..

Love will always always call to the parts of you that are most hidden and most sensitive. Whether these parts be blessed or accursed, you need to know them in order to know yourself and to return love for love. Love heals it is true but it is a powerful medicine. It might purge you before it can bring you to yourself