The Lovers Reversed

In the upright position, the Lovers card is about finding that other half of ourselves. It might be a person, but it can also be anything that completes us, that speaks to us - a career, a cause, a religion. It usually involves us making a choice to go for that something and so feel whole, unified. Reversed....

1) Opposite: The clearest opposite of coming together is being split apart. So one of the simplest and most obvious messages here is a break up. A couple breaks up, a family splits, a fight within a company causes it to be fragmented into two parts...neither of which is as strong as when it was unified and whole. One thinks of famous comedy teams, that chemistry between partners, where magic happens when they're together...but apart, they're just not the same.

Also, the reversed Lovers could be a bad or wrong choice has been made.

2) Blocked: Reading the Lovers Reversed as blocked indicates that there is something preventing the two halves from being united. Likewise, there could be an inability to choose. The intuition needed to recognize the right decision, the one that will lead to unity and wholeness, is missing. The querent does not know what to do.

3) Upside-down: The Lovers card is very interesting when turned upside down. Right-side-up, the Angel dominates. This is important as the card (Rider-Waite style) is dominated by Gemini - which stands for not only partnerships, but communication and the mind. Hence, the card is symbolically talking about a spiritual or mental connection.

Turn it upside-down, and the Angel is grounded. What ends up on top are the genitals of our naked man and woman--and the mountain between them. We get, in essence, a hint of the up-right Devil card, with baser, earthier desires behind the choice.

I would read this as saying that the choice that is being made is being made for the wrong reasons--and therefore, is probably the wrong choice. The querent isn't using their head or intuition; communication between the two halves is not happening except below the waist.

Putting it another way, two things are coming together that may fit, but do not create that unity. In a relationship reading, this would probably indicate that the two were NOT soul mates - that they are together for earthly reasons (a woman wanting a husband or father of her children), not because they were really meant for each other. Likewise with other choices a person might make like choice of career, cause, or religion. They're doing it for practical, earthly reasons, not because it makes them feel whole. That mountain is there between the two halves - they cannot be united as they should be. They will never form a whole.

Onto the next reversed Tarot card, the Chariot...

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