The Lovers
The Lovers card symbolizes union and connection in all forms, from marriage and partnership to friendship and sexual relationships. It draws on mythological ties to the Garden of Eden, highlighting themes of self-knowledge and the mingling of pain and pleasure. This representation underscores maturity and vulnerability in love, featuring explicit trans bodies to subvert heteronormative standards and illustrate the fluidity of gender roles in tarot symbolism.
Keywords
Union in All Facets
The Lovers is a card of union in all its facets. Marriage, partnership, friendship, and sex are all aspects of love, and I wanted this card to capture that. Albrecht Dürer's Adam and Eve was a visual inspiration for this card, which is already traditionally imbued with the Garden of Eden mythos. The trees and the fruit symbolize self-knowledge, virility, and the fecundity of a rich companionship. The arrow and the burning heart stand for pain, pleasure, and the intermingling of the two.
Maturity and Vulnerability
While all of these strong elements can indicate a tumultuous kind of love and point to a lot of sexual energy, I wanted the body language and the nudity of the couple to hint at a maturity of feeling and vulnerability as well. The Lovers are handfasted with a red ribbon, and though they are bound together, they are there by choice.
Representation and Symbolism
Finally, these are the first explicitly trans bodies in the deck so far. I had considered making the couple ciscgender homosexual or lesbian, but decided against it for two reasons. Firstly, I just wanted a positive and beautiful romantic representation of trans bodies. And secondly, I still wanted the card to read as queer and to subvert cisgender heteronormativity. Though the tarot frequently deals with binaries on the surface, it constantly reminds us that masculine and feminine aspects of its symbolism are interchangeable and applicable to persons of all genders. I felt that painting a trans man and trans woman would apply to couples (or triads, or any variation of romantic and sexual partnerships), as well as reflect my own lived experience in my creation of this deck.
Fyodor Pavlov tarot
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