Arcanum 6: The Lovers
A conscious choice
Every choice gives you something and takes something away, and you can accept both.
On the card, two people stand beneath an angel’s wings, with two trees behind them. It is an image of choice beyond love too: choosing one path means giving up another. What matters is whether your decisions match what you believe.
Gifts and potential pitfalls
- Gift
- You build deep bonds and speak directly about what you want. You choose thoughtfully, so you can stand behind your decisions.
- Shadow
- You may hand a difficult choice to someone else or put it off. A postponed choice is still made, but time or someone else makes it for you.
- First step
- Divide a page in half: on the left write what you choose in an important matter, and on the right what you give up.
In a pair
When this arcanum is at the centre of a shared matrix:
Under one sky you look in slightly different directions, and your relationship lasts because you choose each other anew every day.
In the karmic tail
When this arcanum appears at one of the three points below the centre:
You choose one thing but remain mentally attached to the other, comparing what might have been. This makes it hard to commit fully to what you have chosen. Put the sentence “I choose this because…” somewhere visible and read it when you begin comparing again.
Where this arcanum appears in the matrix
The centre and other points are sums, so this arcanum can appear for many different dates. Three points depend directly on the date:
- Point A (personality): birth day: 6, 24 (2 + 4 = 6).
- Point B (birth month): June.
- Point C (sum of birth-year digits), 1900–2026: 1959 (1 + 9 + 5 + 9 = 24, 2 + 4 = 6), 2013 (2 + 0 + 1 + 3 = 6), 2022 (2 + 0 + 2 + 2 = 6). Number of such years: 8.