Episode 178: Indigenous Wisdom Archetypes: The Lovers

What if the Lovers were never about who they see, but who they've forgotten to look at — themselves?

In this month's archetype episode, Julia Carmen sits with the Lovers — and the first thing she does is set down the assumption. When people hear "the Lovers," the mind runs off in one direction. This archetype isn't about romance. It's about unconditional love — for self and for others. The entanglement of the self in unconditional love.

A Lover is always balanced, Julia teaches, made up of a divine heart and a soul — an alma. They know how to self-soothe, and they know what they want, always. A Lover can be felt the moment they walk into a room, carrying love from the heart and from the soul.

The teaching moves inward from there. This love isn't something to obtain — it's already inside. Archetypes, Julia explains, come from the nonphysical realm of being, where there's no right or wrong, only frequency and vibration. Like fish that don't know they're in water, we often don't recognize we're already swimming in this unconditional love. What stands in the way, she says, is judgment — the judgment we hold of ourselves. Discernment goes both ways; turn it gentle on yourself. Soul work is remembrance, not reinvention — this love was never something to chase down, only something to remember.

The companion for this episode is the Kissing dragonfly, and her message is playful, a little cheeky: Yes is the answer. Kiss me once, kiss me twice, then kiss me once again. It's been a long, long time since you did that. Julia lingers on the tenderness of it — not seriousness, tenderness — and asks the ones who lead with this archetype, who pour unconditional love out to everyone else: does it ever reach back to you?

"Kiss your own life again."