Vav Tarot Tree of Life Correspondences: The Lover & The Hierophant

The Hebrew letter Vav has the shape of a hook or a peg. In Tarot Tree of Life correspondences, that shape tells the whole story: Vav exists to connect. It makes a relationship possible between levels of reality that would otherwise remain separate.

This letter’s connective power unfolds differently in the two systems we are looking at today. In the Tarot de Marseille current, Vav resonates with The Lover as a supernal bridge between Keter and Binah (and vice versa). In the Hermetic/RWS current, Vav resonates with The Hierophant as a bridge between Chokmah and Chesed. Same letter. Two distinct stages of connection.

The Work of Vav: Constellations, Not Chaos

Vav does not join things into sameness. It joins them into a pattern. Lawrence Kushner describes the work of Vav as “to join us all into a myriad of constellations.” That phrase lands perfectly here because a constellation is meaning created by relationship. The stars do not merge. They become intelligible because they are held together by a pattern the human soul can read.

Vav as the Supernal Connector: The Lover Between Keter and Binah

When Vav is placed between Keter and Binah, we meet connection at its most rarefied level, where it becomes about choice. This is not “choice” in the everyday sense. It is the moment where the spark of pure being (Keter) meets the womb of understanding (Binah). The connective act here shapes what reality can become.

This is why The Lover can sit here in a Marseille framework without shrinking into romance or moralising. At this height of the Tree, “love” means alignment with what is true, before personality turns it into preference.

“The Lover reminds us: true knowledge is born when we authentically choose what the soul loves.”
— Michel Perez Rizzi

That line becomes a supernal key. It frames The Lover as a threshold where essence meets discernment, where the soul’s yes becomes the beginning of intelligibility. Vav links the crown to comprehension. It joins the unspeakable to the first true capacity to know.

Vav and Thought Coloured by Emotion

Rizzi notes that Vav is made to “reign over thought,” yet he clarifies that this is thought “coloured by emotion.” This belongs to both placements, but it reads differently depending on where you stand on the Tree.

Between Keter and Binah, “thought coloured by emotion” points to a kind of knowing that is not sterile or detached. It carries warmth, while resonance with inner truth remains intact. It is perception that already contains value.

At this level, Vav teaches that knowledge is relational. Even the highest discernment seeks meaning through form.

Vav as Wisdom in Society: The Hierophant Between Chokmah and Chesed

When Vav moves to Chokmah and Chesed, the connection shifts downward into the world of lived structure. Chokmah brings dynamic wisdom. Chesed receives it as mercy, stability, generosity, and social order that can actually hold human life.

Here, Vav does not simply join essence to understanding. It joins wisdom to a container that makes it shareable.

This is where The Hierophant becomes a clean expression of Vav. He represents transmission — meaning that can be taught, carried, safeguarded, and lived across time. Not because he is authoritarian, but because wisdom needs vessels.

In other words, Vav is still building constellations — but now those constellations become communities, ethics, lineages, and frameworks that support the evolution of humanity.

The Lover and the Hierophant: Two Stages of the Same Joining

If you place The Lover between Keter and Binah, Vav describes the soul’s first true alignment with what it loves, before identity. If you place The Hierophant between Chokmah and Chesed, Vav describes what happens when wisdom must take responsibility for shaping life, culture, and conduct.

One is a supernal joining: essence to comprehension.
One is a worldly joining: wisdom to mercy, so wisdom can endure.

Neither cancels the other. They describe different moments in the same connective function.

Vav asks a question that becomes sharper the more honestly we sit with it: What are you joining yourself to, and what does that joining create? The Lover names the deep alignment. The Hierophant protects and transmits alignment as lived wisdom. In both cases, Vav insists that real knowledge is relational.

Vav Tree of Life Paths

Vav (ו)

TdM: The Lover — Keter to Binah

RWS / Hermetic: The Hierophant — Chokmah to Chesed