THE LOVERS

Most people assume that drawing The Lovers ensures the sort of enduring romantic connection they've always dreamed of. If only my job was that easy! Instead of a marriage, or even a tryst, the card points to a departure from the familiar world we've grown accustomed to, and the magnetic pull toward some great Other. Two opposites meeting for the first time may fall in love, of course-- but they may also misunderstand and dislike each other. The card is associated with the astrological sign of Gemini, fittingly enough. Are these two separate entities who are cosmically linked, or merely two halves of the same person? Think of the wonder and confusion of a person encountering themself in a mirror for the very first time. Do they like what they see? Do they understand which version of themself is real, and which is the reflection? It's in this spirit of longing to explore this Otherness that we grow up and leave our family, hoping to meet and share our life with someone yet unknown.

Isabella Rosselini explores the strange familiarity of this alien territory in her charmingly bawdy short film series Green Porno. Dressed up in home-made insect costumes, she explains the ins and outs of insect reproduction in rapturously plain speech, physically wooing the opposite sex (or the same sex, in cases where the creatures are hermaphroditic) and apparently enjoying every minute of it. In the animal kingdom, just as with humans, you never know exactly what's going to happen to you once you give in to passion. You may ultimately preside over an entire hive; you may just get your head bitten off.