The Lovers card makes the bold proclamation that love is our birthright and that it flows from a divine source.
It’s right there in the card. The couple—presumably Adam and Eve—stand naked in the Garden of Eden. Eve looks upward to the angel as the source of their love, and Adam looks at Eve as the channel of that love.
OH, NO YOU DON’T!
As soon as we declare that love is our birthright and the natural order of our being, the “realists” will arrive to laugh at us.
“Look around you,” they’ll admonish us. “Do you see a lot of love happening? What about the bombings and the shootings and the genocide and the casual cruelty? How can you possibly say that love is our birthright?”
And they have a powerful point, of course. All of that IS happening in our world and has been happening for many centuries.
But coincident with that, there has been much more love than there has been horror. There is a powerful love that flows from every mother of every species to her children. There is a constant urge in the human soul to aid those who are hungry or sick or wounded. There is compassion and caring and nurturing.
Still, there’s that dichotomy in human experience. There has been great love, and there has been great cruelty.
Which do we choose? Which one do we want to live with? Which one do we want to change?
THE LOVERS AND THE DEVIL
The Devil card is inextricably linked to the Lovers. It’s the same couple. They both have a supernatural being hovering over them. They both stand naked and unprotected. But one couple is living in paradise, and the other is living in chains.
And the difference, I would argue, is one of choice: choosing to live in love rather than cruelty.
The Devil card is contained WITHIN the Lovers card. It’s the snake in the tree, right? The snake is supposed to be the Devil tempting Eve, but what is he tempting her with? He’s tempting her with choice.
The Devil is saying, “You don’t HAVE to live like this. You can CHOOSE to NOT love if that’s what you want.”
We can choose to live in love, or we can choose to live in hatred and cruelty. We are the only species on the planet that can choose to live in opposition to our basic nature.
THE CHAINS ARE LOOSE
When we look at the Devil card, one of the first things we notice is that their hands are unbound and the chains around their necks are very loose. They could, at any moment, CHOOSE to lift the chains over their heads and walk away.
But they don’t.
Now, you can flip that coin one of two ways. You can say that they’ve chosen to live in hatred and evil. Or you can say that they’ve chosen to NOT live in love.
Because the two energies can’t coexist.
You cannot be loving and compassionate AND be cruel and hateful at the same time. One energy drives out the other. Period.
This is the source of the old Buddhist adage that we don’t drive out the darkness; we bring in the light. Hatred cannot exist in the energy of love, and love cannot exist in the energy of hatred.
IS IT LOVING OR IS IT NOT?
That’s not a complicated question. With the exception of a few sociopaths and malignant narcissists, we all KNOW when we’re being kind and loving, and we KNOW when we’re being shitheads.
Put another way, for normal human beings, love makes us feel good and hatred makes us feel bad. That’s wired into us. It’s natural. It’s our birthright.
But it’s also our choice.
We can—and do—invent a million reasons for choosing to NOT be loving.
He hurt my feelings.
She looked at me wrong.
They talked about me behind my back.
Nobody understands me.
Even—Goddess help us—his skin is the wrong color.
And when we make those choices, we KNOW that they’re wrong. We know because they make us suffer, and they make other people suffer. It’s not rocket science—we know it in our hearts.
THE ANTIDOTE
Buddhism puts it in very simple terms: hatred and anger are the poison, and love is the antidote.
If you were out taking a stroll in nature and a rattlesnake bit you, would you argue with the doctor about taking the antivenin?
“Well, gosh, doc, I just don’t really know. I mean, it’s my choice, isn’t it? I’ll have to think about it and figure out what my best course of action is here.”
Meanwhile, the poison is rushing through your system, you’re getting sicker and sicker, and you may lose your leg.
We need to approach the choice between love and hatred with that same urgency.
Because the hatred is killing us.
The Devil is the poison, and the Lovers is the antidote.
Choose.
