Tarot's The Lovers and the Two of Cups: A Moon Water Ritual for Attraction
- Meredyth
- May 23
- 7 min read
Gemini Season | A Full Moon Ritual
We are in Gemini season, whose tarot card is The Lovers.
It is one of the most recognizable cards in the deck and one of the most misunderstood.
If you've spent time with my post on what The Lovers is really inviting you into this Gemini season, you already know that this card is far less about romance and far more about the radical act of coming home to yourself.
This post is a companion to that one. Here, we take the cosmic medicine of The Lovers and bring it down into the body with a gentle, practical ritual: making Moon Water anchored by the Two of Cups.
If there are cards, questions, or topics you'd like to hear more about, please reach out. Your feedback is always cherished.
Gemini, The Two of Cups, and The Lovers
The Lovers is all about self-acceptance on a cosmic scale, which can be beautiful to understand and genuinely difficult to practice. That is where the Two of Cups comes in. As a Minor Arcana card, the Two of Cups offers gentle and practical instruction on how to receive love in everyday life.
We will be anchoring this Full Moon ritual with the Two of Cups to help attract more love.
The constellation Gemini tells the story of twins with different fathers made immortal by Zeus.
That story speaks to the inherent duality of being a spirit in a body, which is the very heart of The Lovers.
Gemini and The Lovers are both ruled by Mercury, the master communicator and connector. When we are in this energy, we are excited by external tangible things: relationships, transactions, and the pull toward what is just out of reach.
When most people see The Lovers card, their first assumption is that it promises a romantic ideal of love.
Instead, The Lovers card acts as a mirror to help us integrate our soul's highest wisdom with our human experience.
In a reading, this can prove challenging. The Lovers once showed up for a client with career concerns. She was quick to assure me it meant her boyfriend would propose and take care of her so she wouldn't need to worry about the promotion she felt she deserved.
Whenever we think it is someone, something, or some external situation that needs to change in order for us to find peace, that is when The Lovers steps in to say, "No, my love. You are the gift."
It is always our internal orientation that we see manifested in the external, not the reverse.
We live in a world that teaches Do to Be. We hear, "You must do X to be Y."
This motivating logic is great for the egoic mind. For example: "I need to do my homework to get into college to get a good job to make enough money to be happy."
This line of thinking inevitably leads to comparison. "Ted is able to sit down and focus in a way that I just can't. If only I could get better at studying, then I might be able to enjoy school."
Most of us received a version of the message from some figure of authority: "If you would just behave the way I want you to, I wouldn't have to be so hard on you."
And if you miraculously avoided that from others, there is likely still a voice inside that says, "The only reason you're getting approval is that I'm here to push you."
I once got to spend time with a friend's twins who were about to turn twelve. I asked them what advice they would give an eight-year-old. One sweet little boy said, "Be yourself, but not too much."
His sister agreed.
My heart sank.
I remembered hearing that advice throughout my entire childhood.
When I pressed him on why younger kids should learn this, he said it was because "not everyone will like you, so you have to tone yourself down."
That kid logic is what drives most of our adult fearful behavior patterns. The threat of social exile is very real at that age. We are hard-wired for love and connection, so we try to identify which parts of our authentic selves we will set aside in exchange for the appearance of safety in other people's good opinions. We all do this, and it never works.
Brene Brown's research on shame speaks directly to the duality of Gemini and The Lovers:
"Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging but often barriers to it.
Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance... No matter how separated we are by what we think and believe, we are part of the same spiritual story."
The Lovers is here to remind us that we can never be in exile from our highest selves, and our highest self is not some better version of who we are today. Whatever qualities we label as "too much" become our shadow twins, receiving the blame for any and all disappointment.
The work of The Lovers is to reintegrate our whole selves, and it is the Two of Cups that can show us how.
Tarot's Two of Cups
In the Two of Cups, we see a maiden and a youth before a pastoral background. They stand beneath a winged lion head atop the snakes of a caduceus. Both excitement and fear are visible in their expressions. The Cups are ruled by water and represent our heart center, our feelings, and our emotions.
Carrying water requires a vessel. We cannot hold more water than our vessel will contain. As we add more cups, our capacity to give and receive grows. While this card can certainly describe a romantic relationship, that is only a fraction of its truth. We all know how vulnerable a first meeting can feel, so it is easy to read this card within that narrative.
But the deeper truth is this: the only limitation on the volume of love we can attract is how much self-acceptance we bring to ourselves.
It takes courage to stay present when we are in the experience of fear and self-criticism. The Two of Cups is here to demonstrate how to take the first step toward the grander message of The Lovers. The Two of Cups says: "All your feelings and all your parts are valid."
My own version of this shows up around math. I carry a real sense of shame in my inability to do mental math, and a lot of stories tell me I would be better able to accept myself if I could only "get" numbers.
Zahara Efan specializes in helping women and their relationships with finances. When she challenged me to embrace my anger toward math and all the crappy math teachers I had to endure, it was a revelation.
She mirrored back to me that I am brilliant, creative, and artistic, and that no part of me could ever be devalued, diminished, or improved by memorizing multiplication tables.
This is the Two of Cups in action. In this kind of work, we become vulnerable enough to embrace the parts of ourselves we wish we could remove.
When we release the pressure we put on ourselves to be better, to be other than exactly who we are today, we can receive more love. This is the antidote to shame and the elixir of attraction.
The Strawberry Moon Water Ritual
The Farmers' Almanac calls the June Full Moon the "Strawberry Moon," which can lend your practice some extra sweetness.
To work with the Two of Cups and the Full Moon, we will be making Moon Water. The Full Moon falls during Gemini season each year, making it the perfect time to bring this ritual to life. You can make Moon Water at any Full Moon, and you can return to this practice year after year.
A Moon Water ritual is exactly as it sounds: water left out to absorb the energy of the Full Moon. Water is receptive by nature and holds onto the energy of the Moon and your intentions. The closer to the peak of the Full Moon, the stronger the charge.
To Begin
Find a clear vessel that you can cover. A glass jar with a glass lid is ideal, though plastic wrap will also work. You want to keep bugs out while still allowing the moonbeams through.
Take some time to set your intention. Ask yourself: what is the part of yourself that you have been more inclined to cut away and ignore than to get curious about and accept?
Remember that there is no better version of you out there waiting to deserve love. You are complete and completely deserving of your own love, just as you are in this moment, and always.
When you feel ready to open into that self-acceptance, fill your container with purified water. You may also add a crystal, like quartz or amethyst, to be charged alongside the water.
Place the container outside under the moonlight, or on a windowsill where it can gather the light. If you want to keep the energy of the Moon Water pure, bring it inside and transfer it into an opaque container before sunrise.
If you forget and your water receives sunlight, it is okay.
It simply becomes celestial water instead. Remember, the purpose of this practice is to embrace what is, exactly as is.
From the Full Moon through the Summer Solstice, keep your Moon Water nearby. When you notice the pull toward self-criticism, know it is actually a call for love and acceptance. Quench that thirst with your Moon Water.
There is no rush and no wrong way to do this. The medicine of The Lovers is not a destination.
It is a practice of returning, again and again, to the truth that you are enough, right now, exactly as you are.
I am sending out all the feels for you as you move through this brave work of The Lovers and the Two of Cups.
xoxo Meredyth
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