"Gemini’s astrological correspondent is the Lovers card, as the two of them focus greatly on the power of communication and what it can create between not only two bodies, but between all humans.
This card also depicts the union of opposites, and the possibilities when what dual-natured entities create a greater whole.”~Labyrinthos Academy
Ahhh June! Spring is in full bloom and on its way to summer. Here in Santa Barbara, weddings abound at this time of year, lovers come together from all over the country and the world in the western hemisphere to celebrate love and make that holy commitment of marriage.The lovers tarot card is not only a symbol of the union of two people into a holy communion of one entity, it is also a symbol of the “hieros gamos”, the inner mystical marriage in the realm of alchemy. The sign of Gemini, the twins, is a symbol of the 2, siblings born at the same time, and also the two sides of one person.In the Jungian perspective the lovers represents the individuation process, the way, via the internal union of those opposing selves, that we become more ourselves and offer our individual gifts to the world, not just children, but also the reason we came to the planet, the gift we decided to bring when we incarnated.
The Significance of Gemini
“Ruled by Mercury, the planet of communication, Gemini is often depicted as Twins -- who are always on the go. Intelligent, curious and bored easily ... this inquisitive sign knows how to keep things interesting…The Lovers card represents having two strong options. Two people, two choices, two sides…two halves of a greater whole."
"The Man’s gaze is going forward as he represents physical presence. The woman is looking upward, representing an intuitive presence. With the combined forces of body and mind, they create one whole. This brings us back to the Gemini twins who are actually NOT identical twins but two sides of the same person! (www.Tarot.com)
The sign of Gemini (May 21 - June 20) is also an air sign, the element of thoughts and communication. It makes sense to me that the lovers is the tarot card for Gemini for this reason as well, as communication, I have learned, is truly the cornerstone of a good romantic relationship."Every Gemini is blessed with a dual nature represented by [their] Tarot card, The Lovers...This card encourages [us] to weigh [our] options carefully and follow the path dictated by [our] personal integrity. Air is the element which rules the Lovers, and we should therefore expect the majority of its meanings to be associated with the mind and spirit…""This card tells us to consider all consequences before acting. The situation could be as simple as a fork in the road with two paths to choose between, or a much more complicated decision by which all of our strongest beliefs and ideals will be tested. Two people, two choices, two sides... "(Love By Luna)I remember as a child I once said to my mother that when I got married I wanted to marry a man I could fight with; she was upset by this and told me that was not what I wanted. And yet it was, because in my mind what I meant by “fight with” was that I was able to be my whole self, and disagree and still love and be loved.I do not want to hide my thoughts or feelings or any part of myself from the man I marry, I want to be able to be me and be fully accepted and loved, just as I fully accept and love him in his entirety, even if I don’t openly agree with him about some things.
Romantic Relationships and the Hebrew Letter Zayin
The most difficult of my own challenges in romantic relationships has been to stand in, to sit back in, to firmly ground into this reality of mine, wherein I am able to always be utterly myself. In the past, when I'd first meet a man I was interested in, I wanted so much to be liked that I didn’t know how to be myself, I didn’t really know or love myself, and so I would attempt to be something I thought they wanted me to be.I have learned through the years that really what those men were attracted to in me was me, and in my confusion I’d often push them away by trying to be someone or something else. Currently, I am very much myself, approaching 50 years of age and less willing to be anything but myself; and having worked for years on being authentic, vulnerable, transparent and self reflective, I can be quite a force to reckon with.Another thing I have been committed to, without realizing its origins until preparing for this specific article, is, and always has been, an entirely different perspective on sexuality than my culture/society have been socialized to understand or even comprehend, much less enter into with consciousness.Which leads us to Zayin, the 7th letter of the Hebrew Alphabet:
"Shaped like a sword, the Zayin represents all movement. It represents the struggle between opposites, the struggle for existence, the struggle for sustenance (מזון)…It is the power within a person that causes them to speak, initiate, live. Interestingly, Zayin is also the source of rest. It teaches us to harmonize between the spirit and perfection related to the 7th day of rest, and the matter of the 6 days of work." (www.WalkingKabbalah.com)
The above is from the first article I read about Zayin, and it seems quite simple and symbolic, this Hebrew letter. It is shaped as a sword, and so represents air, and in another article that sword, with a specific head or tip, is also representative of the penis:“This word can mean either 'weaponry' or 'penis' - and also happens to be the seventh letter of the Hebrew alphabet…Feminism has helped make the world aware that rape is about violence, not sex, though the same instrument is used in both..."And I found this fascinating that this one letter represents the seventh day of Shabbat, the sword, and the penis. And in this interpretation, it actually takes the sword to the penis "…As the Sabbath follows six days of labor, the dash which turns vav into zayin is a crown, the head of the male member, which is revealed in all its glory by the act symbolizing the covenant, the circumcision, cutting the foreskin that covers the head…"(www.Haaretz.com)
Bringing Back the Divine Feminine
[caption id="attachment_19111" align="alignleft" width="300"]
The Shabbat Queen, painting by Elena Kotliarker[/caption]I know so very little about the Hebrew language and Kabbalah, but as I’ve started to look further I’ve noticed that even some of these keepers of sacred and esoteric knowledge have been affected by modern culture and society and by the last few thousand years of a world and a society that have forgotten the divine feminine. In the next article, I read that the Shabbat, in kabbalah, symbolizes woman, but only in her relation to man:“ 'The Shabbat Queen' who, in general, signifies woman in relation to man–'the woman of valor is the crown of her husband'– has the power to reveal in her husband his own superconscious crown, the experience of serene pleasure and sublime will innate in the day of Shabbat…Thus the 'kosher woman' is she who rectifies her husband’s will by elevating him to ever new awareness of previously superconscious realms of soul." (www.Inner.org)It seems such an easy thing how our modern culture and our language along with our use or misuse, our understanding or misunderstanding, can twist and take the holiness out of things, leaving them at their basest level. They have removed the balance of things, have made it all about the man, instead of maintaining the perspective that we both must take things to a high holy place for each other in order to truly do good work:“…The Sabbath feeds the days of the week, and therefore the letter is calledzayin, to symbolize the food...and this is the glorious covenant: the male body is to be seen in thevav, thezayinbeing the penis erect, its head exposed, andhet, the eighth letter, (like a roof with two legs), is the female…For some timezayinas peniswas used mainly as slang, the Hebrew equivalent of a four-letter word. And as Hebrew is a language which tends to 'verbalize' nouns (to turn them into verbs), the verblezayen, meaning "to use the zayin," became the Hebrew equivalent of "to f--k." (www.Haaretz.com)
The Gnostic Teachings about Zayin
This all seemed to me so mundane, so unenlightened, so just like modern culture rather than the antidote to it. And then I came across the gnostic teachings about the letter Zayin and everything fell into place. The feelings/intuition I've always inherently held about relationship and sex being so much more, and needing to be so much more than just our bodies. My lifelong study of relationships, sexuality, human development and romantic and spiritual love has been informed and validated and is in the process of shifting to the next level.
"…When the androgynous man or Adam was sleeping, Elohim took the two feminine rivers, Zayin, Eve, out of him and he made a woman...thus, originally the two feminine polarities were within him…And (this is why) Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman (Isha), because she (ז the Zayin) was taken out of Man (Ish, the Vav)."
"...Therefore shall a man (the male fire) leave his father and his mother (leave his androgynous state), and shall cleave unto his wife (the female fire): and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. – Genesis 2: 23-25” (www.GnosticTeachings.org)
So for the first time I am beginning to understand what it means that Eve was made of Adam’s rib, that the feminine was actually inside the “first man called Adam” who was initially created in an androgynous template…that makes so much sense, especially when you we look at human development itself.In the womb, up until a certain point in development, the embryo itself appears androgynous; both male and female infants look exactly the same. When the hormones kick in, the androgynous sexual organs differentiate into either the internal feminine framework or the external masculine framework.We are made of all the same materials, it’s just oriented differently. The clitoris contains as many nerve endings as the head of the penis; we both have erectile tissue, the male’s is centered in the shaft of the penis, the female’s is spread out around the vulva; they both fill with blood when we are sexually aroused."That seventh letter, Zayin, is the left side of your sexuality, which is connected directly with the sexual organs, whether you are a woman or a man. If you are using your sexual organ in the wrong way, you are not sanctifyingZayin, but you are sendingZayinto hell…Without the seventh letter,Zayin,Godcannot create anything, becauseGodis male/female…the Divine MotherKundalini…is represented in the letterZayin…”"…Abba, the Father, Jehovah Elohim, did the whole work of Genesis: he did it through his wife (Aima, Eloha) and through his wife he created everything, which is represented in the seventh letter, ז Zayin. Therefore, you have to respect the seventh letter, respect the seventh day. Through the seventh letter, the seventh day, is how you create everything." (www.GnosticTeachings.org)So this isn’t just about respecting Creator, or respecting women, this is about understanding that we are/were both originally integrated wholly in the androgynous Adam until creator separated us into Adam and Eve, and this is the Zayin. This is about respecting, honouring and sanctifying each other and the physical, spiritual and emotional act of sexual intercourse, of sacred union. It is in this holy separation that we are offered the opportunity to come together, consciously, to become whole. This is a powerful symbolism for the lovers tarot card.
Sacred Intimacy
And I don’t believe it matters what bodies we are in for this lovemaking, but more what energies we embody…we can be masculine whether in a male body or a female body and likewise for feminine. It is the energy and the prayer, the intention and the connection to our Zayin regardless of our sexual orientation or the body we use to connect.What’s most important is that we connect with consciousness and love and transmute the lower energies into the heart, into love, into God so that we bring that into the world as our work. This is also about removing the shame from sex that our culture and society holds."…When we use the sexual force in the wrong way, we use the ז Zayin in the wrong way...And this is why we said: We belong to hell. It is not that we are going there; we are already there. We realize that we are in Hell when we start going out of it. The first thing that we have to do is to make the Sabbath holy. But, the Sabbath is not a day of the week, it is your Zayin...""We need the two polarities, and that is the cornerstone that the builders rejected. The builders are those religious people who think that they can reach realization without sex. They ignore that sex is rooted in Zayin, and God made everything through the letter Zayin, through the letter seven, through Sheba. Therefore, if you need to finish your work, your whole work as a creation, as a man you need a Sheba, and as a woman you need a David.""…The problem is that many men do not respect the woman, because they do not respect their own feminine level, their own feminine part, their own זZayin. When you start respecting your Divine Mother in heaven - when you accomplish that commandment that states: “Honor your Father and Mother in heaven,” Adam and Eve, when you start respecting the seventh day, which means the seventh letter, ז Zayin, in your body, by sexually behaving in the right way, then of course you start respecting that aspect that is in front of you, which is your spouse..." (www.GnosticTeachings.org)For me, this is the nuts and bolts of the return of the divine feminine; and it is no accident that it has only been recently that these esoteric truths have been released to the public. It is time. And it requires not only that the masculine honor the feminine in himself, coming into right relationship with that aspect of himself and in the world, but also that the feminine honor the feminine in herself and bring her inner masculine into right relationship as well. From this place, the divine feminine (in whichever body she resides) can reach out her hand to call forth the honorable masculine (in whichever body) in the world so the masculine can bring himself into right relationship and honor her.
Sacred Love in Literature
There are two powerful examples of these in the world; in the meditation and sexual education world we have the work of David Deida who has managed to integrate kabbalah and yoga and articulate it to the world in a way that can be easily understood.Through his books, Dear Lover and The Way of the Superior Man, and his workshops and talks, he is assisting the layperson in Finding God Through Sex (another book he’s written as well), which is where it’s been hidden in plain sight for thousands of years now!And in the fiction world, through her Outlander novels and the Starz channel series based on the books, Diana Gabaldon, has created not only a model of a man truly worshipping and loving his woman, but also how a man and woman are healed and come into right relationship with themselves as they come into such relationship with each other.The way that these two people love each other and use their lovemaking to honor each other and the love between them and how their relationship supports them in offering their true gifts to the world is beautiful. We are not all as handsome and dashing as Jamie Fraser or as beautiful and accomplished as Claire, but we can all be our best selves and love each other in the highest and best interest of each other and all.It’s why I came to this planet, and I’m going to do everything in my power to actualize this reality for myself. Especially if that means honoring my Zayin, sitting back as I connect with the divine feminine and effortlessly call forth the healthy masculine in right relationship, all the while trusting that everything is happening exactly as it should.Come by Paradise Found on the fourth Saturday of the month, June 22nd, and let’s see what holy of holies is in your cards for the Summer Solstice!Much love, many blessings and more gratitude,Kristine Thandeka Marie
