TAROTStrength
Upright
Overcoming challenges with calm assertiveness and understanding.
Self-discipline and balance between assertiveness and compassion.
Exorcising your own ghosts.
Handling difficult situations with inner resilience. Positive outlook when faced with adversity.
Intuition
The beast is not an external monster; it is your own fears, and this can get larger and more dangerous than anything else because it is inside you.
It is the Nemean Lion, and it is moon-colored because it was created by Selene; Goddess of the moon. It is intuitive, understanding you better than you understand yourself, making it particularly hard to beat.
Reversed
Misuse of real or perceived strength in a situation. Confusing gentleness with weakness.
Lack of self-control in difficult situations.
Lack of action and placating rather than asserting
Astrologia
Warm and generous leader with ambition and drive. Courageous and resilient against obstacles and willing to fight. Can have issues with pride and ego, leading to overreaction.
Strength
The previous card in the Major Arcana, The Chariot card is about exerting strength outwards to achieve goals and gain enlightenment. The Strength card is about controlling the raw emotional power because allowing it to surface would be disruptive. It is about controlling inner demons and negative emotions through strength of character and a cool head, rather than allowing them to guide or control your direction
The strength card represents a person’s inner strength of character during times of adversity. It shows a woman in a cave, calming down a large beast through understanding and compassion. This avoids a display of brute force, argument or a fight to the death.
Note though that this is not a meeting of a woman and a domesticated pet or noble beast. The beast is untamed and in its own environment. There is a balance here but it is not through love; it is closer to a mutual respect between two warriors.
The beast has a front paw raised in a typical feline ‘ready-to-swipe’ position; it is ready to defend, but has chosen not to.
The woman wears armor. She has a shield and spears by her feet. Although one of her hands is raised to the beast as a sign of peace, the other is down and close to her weapons, ready to defend at a moment’s notice.
This is not therefore ‘compassion as a weakness’ nor appeasement or fear. It is a perfect state of peace between equals who know and respect the strengths of the other.
Athena and the Nemean Lion
Athena
The woman is Athena, Goddess of wisdom, war, prudent restraint, and the crafts. Although she is a Goddess of war, it is not of brute strength and bloodlust on the battlefield, but war as strategy, tactics and winning through planning, organization, and knowing yourself, your enemy, and choosing the time and place.
Athena is a patron Goddess of heroic endeavor, and often appeared in images of mythical heroes as an unseen watcher, helping those she held favor with, and usually causing success through understanding, guile and skill. A quotation from Marcus Aurelius perfectly encapsulates her methods;
What obstructs the way becomes the way.
Real strength comes not from turning every disagreement into a pitched battle, but a stepping stone to growth, not least because each encounter will now make you stronger.
Like most mythical deities, Athena probably originated from the animal and domain associated with her. For Athena, the animal is the owl. Owls are both skillful predators and associated with wisdom. Birds are a very common animal seen in early Neolithic temple-structures, plus early images of Athena shows her as winged.
The Nemean Lion
The Nemean Lion was a fearsome beast. Depending on the myth, it was either the offspring of two other beasts (Typhon and Echidna), or by the Goddess of the Moon, Selene. The card shows the latter, which is why the lion is the color of the Moon. A beast that is strong is one thing, but one intuitive enough to know your strengths and weaknesses is the worst beast of all; you might as well be fighting yourself… which because this is a Major Arcana, you probably are!
Thus, the Nemean Lion represents not a lion but perhaps the beasts within; the ones that stop you succeeding and holding you back, and they can get quite large over a lifetime. You succeed against them like Athena does; put down your weapons and understand the enemy, perhaps realizing that the things you hate and despise in others are often similar to the things you hate in yourself but hide deep inside. They are defeated by understanding what they are.
Athena never fought the Nemean Lion. A God cannot undo something another God does, so she would not be able to kill a beast created by Selene. The Nemean lion also had a hide impenetrable to swords and spears, so it was invulnerable anyway.
Instead, she helped someone else who could kill it; Heracles (Latin: Hercules). After killing it, Herakles took the Nemean Lion’s pelt as a cloak, making him invulnerable. So Athena’s champion becomes far more powerful for later battles and trials; what obstructs the way becomes the way.
Description and Symbology
The card is set in a dark cave, implying the setting may be either a dark location where a trial must take place, or the inner recesses of the mind, or both. A fearsome lion, the Nemean Lion stands over a woman. The woman is unafraid, and instead touches the head of the lion as a gesture of peace or understanding. The woman is the Goddess Athena.
Although both characters look to be at peace with each other and perhaps even friendly, a closer look suggests both the lion and Athena are also poised for battle should it occur. The lion has a paw raised ready to swipe, with its back legs down for a rapid pounce. Athena has her shield and spears close to hand and her helmet on her head but not yet over her face for battle.
The resulting image is a moment of perfect balance. Neither is afraid of the other, and both are uniquely powerful. Instead, there is a mutual respect and understanding for each other; the balance of equals.
Symbol for Strength
The Symbol for strength represents Athena’s weapon of choice; the spear and shows a spearhead. It also looks similar to the symbol for the feminine.
Dark Cave
The classic battlefield for a trial where the hero is at a possible disadvantage. The cave takes them out of their comfort zone and into the dark unknown. Also a location associated with the deep recesses of the mind. The beast in the cave is either a trial or a hidden part of the person representing a challenge, emotional injury, or previous failing. It could also be both.
The Nemean Lion
Neither a tame animal nor a friendly noble beast. Moon colored because it was created by Selene, Goddess of the moon. This makes the lion particularly dangerous as it comes from intuition; you have to understand it, but it already knows and understands you.
Athena
Athena represents the tactician-warrior that does not give in to emotion but also knows when to fight. She takes the time to know both herself and her enemy because that is crucial to strategy and tactics.
Opposites in perfect balance
Both the lion and Athena show respect and understanding, but both are also prepared to fight. Compassion and understanding is not unwillingness to fight, but rather looking for a better way out that suits all parties. This is true strength.
Tips for Readings
The following table shows the upright and reverse meanings for general questions. The last row ('Yes/No') is useful when you are picking a single card to decide a yes or no decision.
Upright
Reversed
A relationship built on balance, compassion and understanding between partners.
It represents complete equality whilst maintaining a healthy assertiveness.
The possibility of bullying, causing fear and disharmony.
Power imbalances causing one-sided relationships.
Misuse of power.
Success through leadership and ability to make tough decisions and gain agreement with competitors.
You will have a period of success despite a number of difficult situations and setbacks.
This success comes from a newfound inner strength and tenacity, and ability to face-down and address problems.
You may show a lack of leadership and timidity in decisions, which may cause you to be passed over.
To fix this, you need to reflect on the real underlying problem, which will be to do with something current or in the recent past that is either occupying your mind or preventing you standing up for yourself.
You must face this beast to solve your behavior, noting that this does not necessarily mean beating it; you can simply move on from its grasp.
Health will come through an awareness of your own abilities and weaknesses, and understanding that you should not ignore (nor run away from) any troublesome symptoms.
Now is a good time for anything involving creating a long term health plan or making decisions for the future; taming future problems early is the way forward!
You may be setting yourself up for future illness through ignoring problems and symptoms today. Face your health demons before they develop real horns!
There is the possibility of weaknesses in certain parts of your body causing repeated injuries. Look to solving this once and for all, rather than concentrating on the day-to-day effects.
Remember; you can have compassion for yourself as well as others!
There will be growth through inner strength and compassion for others.
An ability to be able to walk in other people’s shoes and understand their problems will go a long way.
Beware of being open to believe anything, or lack of strong personal beliefs.
Wishful thinking fixes your problems, but only for the moment. It makes the future worse by allowing the real beast behind the lie to grow!
Forming your own beliefs and red lines, then standing up for them would be the ideal. Waiting until you feel stronger to make decisions may be the more practical way forward for now.
You will have a good control over financial matters. This will come through an ability to address problems early.
Be wary of hiding problems or weakness in addressing major issues.
Pause and try to find problems in the small print or hiding behind the sales pitch, because there is definitely one there!
Yes, through inner strength and an acute awareness of problems, and the backbone to address them head-on.
No, through lack of self-control or misuse of strength.
Reading the Card
The upright Strength card is not as some assume, about taming your emotions; that is repressing yourself. Instead, it is realizing you are a being of two halves, and you need to respect your inner emotions but realize they are not helpful at all times. More than taming, the message is do not let your negative emotions grow into uncontrollable beasts inside you.
The Strength card signifies you will meet a challenging situation that brings up inner emotions that are powerful, destructive and will grow over time unless checked. Your best route is to channel that energy away from combat and into moving forward without fighting, but also without just placating and letting go. After all, this is a Major Arcana card, so whatever is causing this is important and not just an argument of the day or a bad meeting at the office.
The upright card
The upright card signifies you can succeed and get past the beast in front of you. Other cards around the Strength card or the question asked will tell you something about the situation that brought this beast to stand in your path. Options to progress beyond it may include:
- Respect works better than hate. Both get returned, but only one of them is received as a gift. Especially true when the beast is an old version of you trapped in a previous situation. The gift is often telling yourself something as simple as ‘You did all that anyone in the same situation could have’.
- Understanding goes a long way, and you may find yourself understanding yourself because parts of the beast are you. Perhaps the problem is you just don’t want to do something because it takes you out of your safety zone or is uncomfortable for you. Get to understand the beast before you fight it. There may be no real battle there other than making a decision requiring true inner strength.
- Sometimes you need to give failure the option to succeed. Let it go despite knowing the probable outcome but protect yourself from it. Everyone has their own path and has to learn by walking it, even if that path takes something (or someone) away from you. Space is the only way some injuries heal.
And finally, labelling anything big with the word ‘inevitable’ raises more emotion and requires more inner strength than you ever thought possible, but better now instead of at the last moment. No matter who you are or how successful your life, you will always have to do this on occasion. Save your energy, accept and then start to fix it rather than fighting it.
The reversal
The reversed Strength card suggests something will happen that will knock you emotionally.
You may be blocked by conflicts with others resulting in out-of-control emotion. This may be because you cannot find common ground or someone has done something that seriously hurt your inner self.
The Strength card is not about the other person; it is a Major Arcana and these cards are all about you. When they involve another person, the Major Arcana cards are not talking about them, but the effect on you, and this is the thing to be careful of. Everyone tells you the Strength card is a balance but they don’t really say what that means in the reversal; it means your energy is not just going out to hit your opponent, it is also training another beast to rear its head inside you later. When you lose it, the beast gains it.
When you lose it, the beast gains it.
Balance in the reversal is not about winning or losing. It is about maintaining your true self when others are raging or hurting. It is about staying true to your own values, because that is your real strength and that forms your true armor.
More than many other cards, the reversed strength card is not a prediction. It is a warning; look at the beast on the card. This is what you are in danger of creating inside yourself if you don’t take care.
In psychological (Jungian) terms, the beast may represent the potential for unresolved issues within your self to fester until they become part of your shadow-self. This is the part of your psyche that constantly undermines and represses your actions, and is the part of you that Tarot readers try to read when they perform a shadow reading.
Card Design Process
Recalling other Tarot decks, it became obvious that the lion was rarely fearsome; it was often dog sized or appeared tame. A lion on a strength card should not look like a dog. It should not look like a lion either. It should look like a monster.
The Nemean Lion was a monster. But what should it look like? It should look like ancient statues of lions; less like a lion and more like a towering, giant bear with a smaller than expected head but oversized paws. And that’s what you see on the card.
The source material for the Nemean Lion’s pose was actually the author’s cat, originally taken in as a stray. A particular trait of this cat, Bertie, was raising one paw and growling, ready to swipe if he didn’t like what was happening. The raised paw was slowly turned into a friendly handshake over time, a story that goes very well with the Strength card!
Final Words
The Strength tarot card symbolizes the power of understanding, patience and compassion over inner thoughts of brute force or verbal aggression. It encouraging calm assertiveness and strength of character to maintain your true self.
It does not suggest people-pleasing, placating or ignoring situations to avoid conflict. If it is time to fight, do it with rationality, patience and always showing your true face rather than an angry and uncontrolled beast.
Finally, sometimes it is better not to let emotions rise, and instead walk away. Choose patience to form a better strategy to fight another day and on your terms.
