Reflections on The Lovers year
At the beginning of the year, I naively mused “I wonder what this Lovers year will teach me about love?”, supposing that I might stumble upon some grand romantic takeaway. Of course, had I been focusing on correspondences, I would have spent a lot more time thinking about what to use the sword for.
2022 has been a year of parting ways. Some unexpected, some by design. Some able to be anticipated through magical praxis. I started to get a bit cranky whenever The Lovers ruled the altar in our Shem HaMephorash working at 22 Teachings, as it reliably forecasted a separation to occur in the coming week. Cranky, until I realized that each separation, whether with a person, resources, or convenient but ultimately stultifying beliefs - all of which I assumed I “couldn’t afford to lose” - was divinely ordained.
The Lovers card corresponds to the Hebrew letter Zayin (ז), or Sword. It represents the act of cleaving. “To cleave” has a dual meaning: to separate, or to adhere to.
Its definition simultaneously stresses division along a weakened grain AND the strength of attachments reinforced by faith.
Gemini, ruler of The Lovers, holds space for this duality. It celebrates contradiction and paradox. We create our reality through choice. What we refuse to change, we accept through passive engagement.
Each expulsion from Eden is an opportunity to world-build. When we build out of curiosity rather than expectation, that is when things get interesting.
The Lovers year DID teach me important lessons in love, because it revealed how to use choice as a tool to create the kind of life I desire.
Responding to disappointment with gratitude has opened my heart.
Choosing people who choose me has reflected the ways in which I choose myself.
Refusing to work for those who undervalue my labor has aligned me with proper collaborators.
Consciously applying my focus has advanced my esoteric studies.
I will take all of these lessons with me into the Chariot year (the year in which I was born, one of my personal significators, and also, serendipitously, the year of my second nodal return). I will not muse “I wonder what the Chariot year will teach me about chariots”. Though I am much better equipped to determine the materials I will use to build my fence (ח).