The Lovers in Miller's deck is all about choice, but not necessarily choices of amour or eros. Rather the choices, and the relationship depicted in this card are personal and interpersonal: Miller sums it up succinctly, "The better we know ourselves, the bettor or decisions. Look carefully at choices."

The tableau is of a ritual alchemical wedding: a wedding not on two people, but of the reunification of the male/female aspects that is our dynamic and biological heritage. With this union come knowledge, and with knowledge comes the ability to broaden our horizons and venture beyond the confines of what we see in the mirror.

In the lower right-facing corner is the six-pointed star composed of overlapping equilateral triangles, one representing the elemental Air, the other elemental Earth, coming together to form a hexagram, i.e. a six-pointed star is an ancient symbol.

The Hexagram represents, esoterically, the juncture where the male and the female are joined in perfect union and the material and the spiritual realms intersect. The circle represents a boundary or an attempt to control the power of the symbol.

In the lower left facing is the glyph for Gemini: Miller points out that "this is the Gemini of sociability rather than the Gemini of indecision."

Just piercing the alchemical flacon is a broadsword, the means to intellectually and rationally examine choices ; the arrow within the flacon "Cupid's arrow which points downward at the Lovers is pure spiritual intellect. An arrow can have only one target." The target in this instance is the heart, but not the saccharine heart of greeting cards, but the heart of spiritual insights, spiritual sentiment, and self-love.

The egg guarded by the snake and the alchemical flacon represent that most mystical of processes, the combining of male and female. Within the alchemical egg we see the masculine/sun female moon recombining to create awareness.

As a Daily Card the message is obvious: do you remain unaware of who you are and why you are, or do you choose to become, to become aware.

It's in the cards. HH

The Universal Tarot
Concept & Art: Maxwell Miller
Copyright 1995 Maxwell Miller
First Published in US 1996 Samuel Weiser, Inc.
Published in arrangement with Findhorn Press, Scotland
ISBN 0-87728-840-2