TEMPLE artefact #27
#6 THE LOVERS final version, art by Rian Hughes 2024
VI. THE LOVERS
KEY WORDS – UNION OF OPPOSITES, HARMONY, LOVE
The Hebrew letter attributed to this card is ZAYIN – the sword. The planetary association if Mercury.
The card traditionally depicts a robed figure officiating over the marriage of a royal couple.
In its esoteric meaning, the Card depicts the alchemical reunion of all that was sundered when Nothing and Something separated to make the Universe of opposites – This and That, Here and There, Up and Down, Push and Pull, You and Me. In this card, the binaries that push and pull against one another to turn the engines of being, are being brought back together in some imagined paradisical primal state of unity and union.
Alchemists attempt to combine contradictory qualities (‘fusing symmetries’) to create transcendent wholes, and we see that process occurring first here (it continues in the card ART).
Our version takes an unusual, elevated POV where we’re looking down at the couple below, over the hooded head and shoulders of the Hermit figure who stands with outstretched arms directly below us, bestowing their blessings on the alchemical pair! The Hermit holds a CANDLE in each hand. The candle in the left hand is WHITE with a RED flame, the one in the right is RED with a WHITE flame.
A long, scarf-like SASH or unrolled SCROLL hangs draped across the Hermit’s arms. The design of the scarf is based on the image below from a human genome sequence. Pick one of the bottom four so that it looks like a tartan scarf almost!
The position of the Hermit’s upraised arms creates the rising curves from the point of a virtual LOVE HEART as suggested by the negative space, making a kind of virtual frame around the couple.
The Hermit wears the same purple robe worn in the Hermit card.
The Hermit here is another form of the Magician as evidenced by the connection with Mercury. They are what the alchemical couple will become when their marriage is consummated as the perfect androgynous fusion of opposites. He is organizing all the contraries into harmony. Masculine and feminine, high and low sacred and profane. All are held poised in perfect balance for the wedding photo!
The couple stand on a checkerboard floor of alternating black and white tiles. The QUEEN is on the left, the KING on the right. Like the characters on the SUN card, they resemble superheroes, albeit odd alchemical mediaeval superheroes!
His skin is deep red gold, almost black, hers is white. On the chest of his golden superhero suit, a stylized red LION’S HEAD emblem. On her silver suit a white EAGLE symbol.
He wears a GOLDEN CROWN, she wears SILVER. The sci-fi crowns resemble those John Byrne Kryptonian head-dresses!
Both wear RED CAPES with ermine collars.
His right hand holds her left.
His left hand holds a SPEAR – she has the HOLY GRAIL in her right.
Little fluttering imp versions of the royal pair hold up their capes like two bridesmaids holding a wedding dress train (reminiscent of Batmite and Mr. Myxyzptlk from the comics) A silver costumed light-skinned female imp holds the man’s cape, a gold costumed, dark-skinned male imp holds the woman’s.
At the top of the design, a soft grey-coloured winged egg looks down. A single lidded eye. The egg has angel wings and a sperm-tail flagellum dangling down.
Theres also a GOLDEN BOW reminiscent of the MOON card, here it’s drawn with the arrow pointed downward. The arrow is fletched with KINGFISHER FEATHERS.
happy birthday to you! were not quite in as much of a dionysian ferver as we'd hoped-- closer to a Nemsis/Hypnos kind of night really--but nonetheless you are still in our celebrations! thanks for existing at the same time as all of us here in the chaos!
Jolly Birthday, Gideon!