The Conscious Compass: A Lovers New Moon

by Sanyu Estelle

The Lovers is a fitting Tarot card for this Gemini New Moon during a Lover’s year! Gemini is the Zodiac sign associated with The Lovers, and it makes sense: both of these archetypes resonate with the themes of choice, creativity, kinship, perspective, fluid embodiment, and reflection. There are many kinds of pairings. Not all lovers are romantic, intimate, or sexual. Regardless of the stereotypical use and understanding of the term, lovers are any decided companions of particular intention. Etymologically, “lovers” comes from love and finds its origin in the Proto-Indo-European root word leubh: “to care, desire, love.”

Let’s unpack our conceptions of Major Arcana 6, and thereby expand what love is or can be for us too. There are infinite ways of embodying The Lovers archetype. I write “embodying” because, regardless of whether or not we are romantically companioned, we agree to be companionable to those we allow to partner with us romantically, familially, professionally, platonically, communally, creatively, etc.

Acceptance of our circumstances, staying in situations we don’t prefer, maintaining structures that a past iteration of ourselves decided to enter, choosing to rely upon certain systems of socialization, having trust in certain bonds—these are things to which we agree from our current states of consciousness. To have a lover, one must also agree to be a lover in return and in real time.

The Lovers is the embodiment of an agreement between multiple parties. Archetypally, it is also a spectrum of actions, thoughts, and behaviors that inhabit certain frequencies that we might call “the realities” of The Lovers archetype. The Lovers spectrum is completely made out of Lover archetypes. The negative frequency or polarity of The Lovers spectrum is not hatred. Hatred has its own spectrum and there is a higher polarity of understanding that the hatred spectrum can offer. Those who ascend the hatred spectrum into the positive polarity are those who understand sorrow thoroughly. Hate and love may live side by side, but they are not inherently intertwined. Negative or positive, The Lovers spectrum is total.

From this perspective, we can use The Lovers card and archetype as a permission slip we give ourselves to more intentionally be in the act of loving as a lover would—regardless of the particular relationship we are engaging with. That embodiment must come from within us first.

We are our own lovers first and foremost! We are the ones granting all the permission slips and having all the ideas about what is worthy of being permitted into our existences and lived experiences. This can be influenced by those outside of us, but that influence is determined by what that which is outside of us can convince us of. We are the gatekeepers of consent for our conscious awareness.

We decide what our reality is in relation to everything else we perceive to be around it. In reality, we may not choose all of what happens to us, but we do choose the meaning of what happens to us. The meaning we choose for our experiences becomes what we believe about our reality and reality-at-large, to which we are forever connected as an extension of existence.

You can be an archetypal lover of anything to which you give care, desire, or love consensually. Including yourself, your life, another person, art, an activity, a way of life, a place, a community, a culture, or whatever else you can think of that helps you consciously choose to be a carrier of this archetypal energy.

Each of us embodies every single card of the Tarot. We contain everything from the Fool to the Lovers to the Tower. Each suit is within our character arsenal as well, and we embody these archetypes in accordance with what we decide our experiences mean. These meanings then solidify and become what we believe about our reality.

Essentially, you’re dealt the hand of cards that you are dealt. The paradox is that we are all dealt all the cards. Our work is to determine the proper order of those cards for each of our lived experiences. We are all already co-signed into existence by Existence (“The Universe”). We are each totally and perfectly complete as we already are.

To get access to Sanyu Estelle's exclusive New Moon Tarot spread, download the May Guide or grab a copy of the 2022 Many Moons Lunar Planner.

Sanyu Estelle is a Claircognizant (“clear knowing”) Soothsayer (“truth teller”) that is also known as “The Word Witch” because of her deep love for word origins (etymology) and word culture (philology). She identifies as a pigmented (82%), womoonist (as constant as the tides; word to Alice Walker), cissy (femme but hetero-ish), flexible asexual (it’s a spectrum, seems unwise to call it), travel-apt (Earth is a country) and fashion forward (Funk Flag Flyage) SSJW (Sarcastic Social Justice Warrior).

Website: sanyuestelle.com | IG: @sanyuestelle | Email: sanyu@sanyuestelle.com