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This is, obviously, first and foremost a card denoting strength. It is, however, a quiet, gentle, enduring strength rather than a blustering, muscle flexing type of strength. Note how gently the woman is closing the lion’s mouth. She almost appears to be petting it, rather than subduing it.
The lemniscate hovering above her head indicates that she is channeling the Higher Power and the realm of spirit. This is very much the strength of the Goddess, loving and nurturing to all of her creatures and conquering with enduring love rather than brute force.
This card shows that the questioner will overcome challenges and be successful in the long term. The key to this is quiet perseverance rather than an all out frontal assault on the problems. The urge to fight – represented by the lion – is overcome and supplanted by the loving strength of her higher nature. So, too, the questioner should approach problems with loving kindness rather than aggression and will win out in the end.
On a simple physical level this card may show an individual who has been ill for some time but is slowly recovering and gaining strength.
REVERSED – A lack of strength and resolve. The questioner may be overcome by foes and enemies because he or she isn’t strong enough to stand up to them. If conflicts arise try to delay and retreat.
This may also show a person who is chronically ill or fatigued and is failing to get better. A long term, serious illness.
A FEW MORE THOUGHTS ABOUT STRENGTH:
Strength has some of the most cliched definitions attached to it of any card in the Major Arcana. It’s a woman closing a lion’s mouth. So the lion is an animal, right? And the woman is, well, a woman. And, hey, she’s got the symbol for eternity floating over her head! So . . . um . . . it must be about using our higher nature to control our animal instincts, right?
And, of course, the second someone mentions, “animal instincts,” being the good little puritans we are, we immediately think of . . . you know . . . S-E-X. And somehow this rather interesting portrayal of a woman quietly closing the mouth of a lion morphs into a morality play about being more spiritual and less sexual because, of course, sex and spirituality are opposites.
It’s my belief that Strength is actually about a state of being called, “Ahimsa.” For those of you who aren’t familiar with it Ahimsa is a phrase which basically means, “being harmless,” or, “doing no harm.” It’s practiced in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism and is mentioned prominently in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. And, yes, it’s usually described as a practice but it’s also a state of being. It’s a state of projecting absolutely no harmful or aggressive vibrations at all.
Let me give you an example. My life partner Carol had an old Persian cat who liked to lie out in the sunshine during the summer. I glanced out the kitchen window one day and was astonished to see this large, white cat stretched out on the ground and completely surrounded by birds. They were strolling around, pecking at the ground, grooming themselves, and literally within inches of one of their worst predators, a cat.
They had absolutely no fear of the cat because they somehow knew that the cat had absolutely no interest in harming them. The cat was practicing kitty-ahimsa and the birds were responding in kind.
You find similar scenarios in the tales from India. Ferocious tigers and snakes who become completely docile in the presence of a master practicing ahimsa.
Here’s what Swami Kriyananda said about it: “Ahimsa, rightly understood, becomes the ultimate weapon; it turns one’s enemy into one’s friend, thereby banishing the possibility of further conflict.”
You could call it the ultimate weapon, as he did, or the ultimate STRENGTH.
I told the story about the cat and the birds to a conservative friend of mine. He sneered and said, “Well, it’s a good thing that cat has someone to feed it or it would starve to death.”
He didn’t get it. The cat was fully capable of killing those birds in seconds but the cat chose not to. Instead of spreading blood and gore all over the back yard the cat chose to enjoy the sunny day and, perhaps, the songs of the birds. He projected peace and peace is what was projected back at him.
Violence, aggression, anger, fear, those are all ultimately choices that we make. If we put out those vibrations the beings around us respond on the same vibrational level. If we put out peace and harmlessness the beings around us respond with peace and harmlessness.
Ahimsa can be a difficult concept for Westerners to grasp. We tend to think of strength as something we’re doing, some positive action, or at least the ability to endure something unpleasant. Ahimsa, on the other hand, is not-doing. It’s a deliberate withdrawing from any actions that might cause harm, anger, or fear. It seems totally paradoxical: you are ARMING yourself with peace. And thus you overcome violence.
This card calls for taking a good, deep look at what we mean when we use the word, “Strength.” Is it aggression? Dominance? Walking over people who disagree with you? Or is it quite the opposite?
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Just the Tarot 