The Lovers

Passion Beyond Flesh

Love, when stripped down to its bones, still pulses with desire. It wants to be felt, to be known, to be met with the same hunger it dares to offer.

For my woodburned illustration, I chose to have two skeletons rising from the ground amid a field of skulls. I feel this is the essence of truth and tenderness. They have no flesh or facades to hide behind, just raw vulnerability. I wanted to explore love through the lens of mortality and timelessness. Not in a “love conquers death” kind of way, but in a way that says: intimacy matters because we don’t last forever. Plus skeletons rising from the grave are just cool!

In the Fool’s journey, The Lovers is the first major turning point. The Fool has passed through birth (The Empress), structure (The Emperor), and tradition (The Hierophant). But now, instead of just doing what’s expected, the Fool starts asking, “What do I actually want?” 

This card marks the place where autonomy and intimacy merge. It’s no longer about what you've been taught or expected to follow. It’s about learning to belong to yourself first, so you can belong to someone else without disappearing inside them.

The Lovers is one of the most iconic cards in the tarot deck, and it's far more nuanced than you might think. Sure, it often represents romance, sex, or the spark of a new connection. But it is not always about finding your soulmate or twin flame. It has more to do with yourself than others. It is about showing up as the one who’s ready to love: with clarity, vulnerability, and presence.

The traditional Rider-Waite-Smith card is very Eden coded. There's an angel floating above, fruit trees on the sides, and a somewhat phallic mountain in the distance. Pamela Colman Smith’s illustration is legendary and beautiful, but I wanted to explore the same core meanings detached from Christian symbolism. I wanted to make something that felt raw, simple, and honest. Here, the two skeletons have been stripped of everything, including life, yet still find one another. Even in a landscape of death, something sacred is happening. As a nod to the traditional card, I burned an angel into the skull of one of them. The divine feeling of love isn’t coming from above, it’s under the skin. 

The Sacred Act of Choosing

The Lovers is a card about sacred choice. Not just who you love, but how. Not just whether you’re in a relationship, but whether that relationship is rooted in truth. Are you choosing love out of fear, habit, or loneliness? Or are you choosing it because it brings you back to yourself?

This card is often presented in very gendered or binary terms, and I want to point out that The Lovers doesn’t care about how you identify…gay, straight, nonbinary, trans, poly, questioning…it’s concerned with your presence. What matters is vulnerability, consent, alignment, and truth. You don’t need to explain who you love or how. Your desire is not something to justify. It belongs here.

Most of the time, when this card shows up in a reading, it is connected to romance. And not just the fantasy of love, but the flesh-to-bones-to-soul reality of it. There’s a lot of ground to cover here, so I’ll try to touch on the most relevant scenarios.

If you’re seeing someone new, The Lovers invites you to check in with your whole self. Is this just chemistry, or is there resonance beneath it? Do they meet you in the little moments, in the way they kiss your shoulder in the dark, or the way they remember how you like your coffee? And are you letting your body speak, or are you hesitant to ask for what you really want?

And of course, this card speaks to sex and desire. To the way your skin responds when someone brushes the inside of your wrist. It asks: do you feel safe enough to be soft? Do you feel bold enough to say, “I want you here. Now. Just like this”? Sex does not have to be cinematic or intense to matter. Sometimes The Lovers shows up to honor the kind of intimacy that feels like a conversation without words. The kind that builds slowly. Where attention becomes its own kind of foreplay, and presence is more powerful than performance. The kind where your pleasure is received without needing explanation, and your body feels not just seen but welcomed.

If you’ve been in a long-term relationship where the erotic has gone quiet, this card is a gentle nudge to turn back toward desire. You do not have to settle for polite intimacy. You are still allowed to want to be wanted. Maybe it starts with one honest conversation, or touching them the way you used to before life got so loud. It might begin by letting them see the parts of you that have changed and daring to be curious about theirs.

Sometimes this card shows up before love has even arrived, and that can be exciting! It does not always mean love is coming tomorrow, but it might mean your heart is getting ready. You could be in a season of clearing space, tending to your own needs, and learning how to choose yourself more honestly. That does not mean you’re hiding from love, it means you’re preparing to meet it from a deeper place. The stronger your self-love, the more confidence you bring into a connection. Knowing how to care for your own heart lets you offer it without losing it. This card can be a reminder that your next great love story might already be unfolding, starting with you.

This card might show up when you're crushing hard. When you're rereading every text and analyzing every glance. When someone is taking up space in your thoughts and you’re wondering if they feel it too. We’ve all been there. The Lovers says: maybe they feel it too. Maybe this is the beginning of something electric. Something soft and spine-tingling and possibly unforgettable. Let yourself savor the thrill of possibility. Bring your full self to the moment and see if the spark has room to grow. Even if it’s just for a season, some connections are worth the risk of feeling everything.

The Lovers is also a card of empowerment. It invites you to make bold choices in love. To be direct about what you want. To flirt without apology and to say no when something feels off. To stop settling for lukewarm just because you are scared of being alone. You can be sexy, soft, intense, playful, and grounded all at once. This card celebrates the version of you that knows your worth and is not afraid to expect the kind of connection that matches it.

It might show up when you're torn between two people, or between who you thought you wanted and who actually fires you up. Maybe you’re dating someone who checks all the boxes, but your body isn’t convinced. Or maybe you’re falling for someone who makes you feel alive and a little unhinged, in the best possible way. The Lovers doesn't shame your confusion. It asks you to slow down and turn inward. Let your heart and your head have a real conversation. Ask yourself what kind of love you truly want, what your body is telling you, and what fears are keeping you from hearing the answer.

Living the Lovers in Real Life

If you’re already partnered, this card invites you to check in. Are you still meeting each other, or just managing each other? Are you still curious, still turned on, still willing to grow? Maybe it is time to have that conversation. The one where you say, “I miss us.” Or, “I want more.” Or, “I have changed. Have you?”

Other times, this card arrives to mark an ending. Maybe you’re grieving someone. Maybe you’re in the aftershock of a breakup, remembering all the things that made it matter. The Lovers does not judge that grief. It honors it. Grief is love’s echo. This card says: you felt something real. 

In a tarot reading, The Lovers might be pointing to someone specific. But quite often, it is pointing to how you show up in a relationship, what you bring, what you hold back, and what you are afraid to admit. It is a mirror held up to the soul, lit by desire and fear in equal measure.

I like to think that when The Lovers shows up in a daily pull, it’s a wink from the universe. Walk with extra confidence and let yourself be seen today! Flirt if it feels fun. Compliment someone whose energy lights you up. Be on the lookout and open to surprise encounters, unexpected chemistry, or observe how good it feels to love your own body.

This beautiful card turns the world into a place of possibility. Every glance, every smile, every little thrill is a chance to remember you are deeply lovable and worthy of connection.

The Lovers encourages love of any kind. Romantic, platonic, self-directed. This card invites you to stay open to the kinds of connections that may not follow the rules, that may surprise you, or arrive in unexpected forms. It’s an invitation to be curious with your own body, your own longings, and to let intimacy unfold from that place of deep listening. You don’t need to define it, just allow it to be real and honest. A connection that lasts for one electric night is just as worthy as one that lasts a lifetime.

Like the skeletons in my image, love endures not because it escapes time, but because it finds meaning inside it. When everything else is stripped away, people always reach for each other. That’s the magic of The Lovers.