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Beauty Is Perhaps a Matter of Distance
Skin, hair, shadow, texture. A closer look at beauty, where the smallest details matter and being seen means letting your guard down.
Words by Rashunda Tramble
Illustration by Weicher Umbruch
Opinion
Loving yourself isn’t easy when you’re constantly told you’re not enough. For October, the Lovers card guides you from self-doubt to self-love. ‘You can’t expect anybody else to love you if you don’t love yourself.’
My mom would say that to me a lot, especially after I’d been dumped for the umpteenth time. Thanks, Mom. She meant well. But each time she said that sentence, it stung. I understood what she was trying to teach me as a lovelorn teen. As I found out when I got older though, love isn’t that simple. I realised that television, magazines, films and society overall had fed me a diet of self-doubt. And that was way before social media.
Nowadays, it seems every electronic device within a one-metre radius is screaming at us, telling us we’re not thin enough, our teeth aren’t white enough, our skin isn’t perfect enough, our hair isn’t silky enough. That nothing about us is enough. One of the many issues I have with the ‘you don’t love yourself’ trope is that it doesn’t take into account that we’ve been programmed by society to, if not hate ourselves, then have a strong dislike of ourselves. This means before we can learn how to love ourselves, we first need to unlearn not loving ourselves. This process of unlearning is where October’s card, the Lovers, comes in.
WHAT THE CARD IS TELLING YOU
The Lovers card usually depicts two people facing each other, surrounded by nature’s abundance as an angel looks on from above. Keywords connected to the card include love, romance, divinity, protection, relationships and messages.
In traditional tarot, the Lovers card can signal a new romance on the horizon, or maybe that the stars have aligned for you to get engaged. But there’s a deeper meaning. The Lovers card can signal love for yourself or an aspect of yourself; love for your family; love for a culture. It’s about a love that makes you whole. The Lovers card asks: are you ‘whole’ within yourself? Meaning, are you accepting of yourself and all of your wonderful parts? If not, come with me as we travel back in time to when the message that you were inherently unlovable began to take hold, and think of the two people on the Lovers card as two versions of yourself: past and present.
During our time travel we locate your past self. For example, this could be you as the child who was told they were ‘ugly and unlovable’. We gently take your past self by the hand, and guide them through the years you’ve lived. We show them your successes, your failures, and how you dealt with both. We show your past self who and where you are today, and how beautiful and worthy of love you are no matter what. Then, we continue the journey, walking and talking with your past self through the negative societal messaging you’ve experienced, and moving towards your destination: self-love. Note that you’ll probably have to make this journey more than once.
ASK YOURSELF
Here’s the big question from the Lovers this month: Are you in conference with the bright shiny lights and the beautiful dark shadows of your soul? Cultivating an understanding and a level of shame-free acceptance for all that we may perceive as both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ about ourselves is the key to true self-love. And yes, the Lovers card can reflect the energy of partnership and even marriage. But rather than this being the ‘goal’, it signals that you are open to inviting new relationships and also ready to strengthen your current bonds with others.
The perfect love doesn’t exist, but this month, the Lovers card asks you to enjoy the journey as you discover what true love, what union, means to you. Negative messaging be damned. If you’d like, you can work with the Lovers card this month by writing a letter to your younger self, at the age when you first came upon the idea that any part of you was ‘not okay’. Acknowledge why your younger self came to feel that way and draw their attention to all the different factors at play. What can you say to help them think differently about themselves? Tell them whatever they need to hear in order to heal and remember exactly how lovable they are.
WEICHER UMBRUCH’S NEW TAROT DECK COMPRISES 78 CARDS AND AN ACCOMPANYING MANUAL, AND IS NOW AVAILABLE ON THEIR WEBSITE.
