Strength

This Arcana is considered positive, contains a fairly large amount of energy, and calls for bravely and decisively confronting the vicissitudes of fate. Strength announces a test of endurance and speaks of the necessity of patience and courage.

Strength in a spread is evidence that the person has been on the right path so far, and now they face a test of mindset, a check.

This is a card of inner strength necessary to overcome obstacles on the path and to remain unwavering in the face of difficult circumstances. Usually, this necessity to be strong for the sake of others or oneself implies curbing one's own feelings, be it passion, longing, or disappointment. A challenge has been thrown to the person, and cowardice and weak will are out of place now! What is to be experienced must be accepted calmly, patiently, and without losing self-confidence. Achieving emotional maturity is now the most important task. Raging or pitying oneself will not solve it. Strength often falls when a person feels they have gotten into a rather dangerous situation, and they have to, so to speak, enter the lion's den, armed only with their convictions (recalling biblical prophets and saints' lives).

The traditional meaning of Strength is positive: overcoming obstacles (with manifested strength of spirit), victory over unforeseen circumstances. This is a card of willpower, energy, resilience, and triumph. Its function is to give the strength to subdue an external or internal enemy (e.g., overcome weaknesses). In a spread, it denotes the possibility of achieving success and advises acting gently, unobtrusively, and yet fearlessly. If the spread is made on some crisis situation, Strength clearly indicates that the person has the strength to do everything necessary and cope with it, and quite easily and confidently. The main thing – they must not doubt for a second their ability to do it!

In most cases, the card means success and luck, but with negative Arcana it can change its meaning.

The card clearly shows that true Strength is the strength of spirit rather than body. It is about victory won by righteousness, inner resilience, firm faith in one's values, not by might. The lesson of this Arcana is that with true inner strength, the necessity of applying external force is minimal.

Through the strength of convictions, a person can achieve control over the harshest situations, having no weapon other than willpower, moral superiority, fearlessness, and determination. For those who watched 'The Saboteur': The Eleventh Arcana is operation 'Bare Hands.' It seems to repeat to the querent the words of Chekh: 'Millions of people are hung with weapons, they seem all-powerful to themselves, but they immediately lose all their combat skills before an unarmed person, because the unarmed has no choice. Think about that.' Strength of spirit is the key to victory; show weakness – you will suffer defeat. This is the card of walking on water. The firmer you believe – the further you will go. Do not doubt, do not give slack within yourself, be firm – you can do what seems impossible.

Strength in Tarot is alien to bitterness and violence, and this is the most important thing to remember about it.

'A person in their prime.'

Moral (and often physical!) strength, powerful energy, courage and bravery up to heroism (especially when a challenge is thrown to a person). Vital energy and determination. Passion and fearlessness. Self-confidence, might, influence, great personal magnetism (charisma, ability to influence others). Emotional stability. Ability to manage oneself (and others), but not through imperative pressure, but rather through firm concepts, great internal consistency, and courage. Magnanimity, gentleness, tolerance, humanity.

A distinctive feature of Strength is great consistency, confidence in one's rightness, integrity of aspirations ('I know what I want').

Strength is also an indicator of unusual innate abilities (to what – other cards will suggest). The card of Strength can describe both the state of a person leading a very eventful life and the state of a person who is quitting smoking or another bad habit. The state of consciousness described by the Arcana corresponds with the Nine of Wands – under no circumstances give slack, do not yield to fear by an iota, overcome the temptation to give up. In any case, this is a test of inner endurance and loyalty to one's higher knowledge, the decision made. If the will is strong, you will win; if you surrender – the end of your dreams. Strength of spirit – that is the key to victory. Strength says – you will lose only if you agree to surrender. If not – you will emerge victorious.

In any case, this is the image of a lone individual winning through perseverance and determination. This card indicates a striving to endure, even if it causes pain.

Another aspect of Strength is passion, passionate enjoyment of life, a feeling of its fullness. This is the path of joy of existence, hot blood, strength, and energy. Among its traditional meanings are life-affirmation, pride, passion, joys of life, love of carnal pleasures. A person is so captured by their own emotions and thirst for pleasures that these qualities involuntarily set them apart from the environment, making some admire and others envy. It is believed that among the court Arcana, the Queen of Wands is closest to Strength.

This is a stage in spiritual development where a person must gain inner strength to overcome external and internal obstacles, the skill and determination to control oneself, one's own instincts.

Through Strength occurs a gentle, loving, and yet firm taming of fears, aggression, attraction, as if without visible effort, only by inner spiritual power. The card essentially describes the very mechanism of self-control, managing oneself, one's strong and reckless desires. The cooperation of consciousness and subconsciousness gives a person of enormous power, who knows how to walk almost without leaving traces.

The wisdom of Strength is to act only with firmness of spirit, kindness, and faith, and not to kill, but to subdue. Most decks depict a young woman defeating a lion with bare hands. One way or another, she forces the lion to act according to her will, which logically seems impossible. But it is not for nothing that a lemniscate, a symbol of infinity and knowledge from above, is depicted above the woman's head. She wins thanks to this vibration, alone, without anyone's help. Her only weapon is a higher 'assembly point' of consciousness. The main thesis associated with the Arcana Strength is THE HIGHER ALWAYS DEFEATS THE LOWER. But only – the very highest. The main idea of the card is the superiority of higher vibrations over lower ones without any violence, simply by the nature of their being. It is enough for them to simply be. Thus, medieval knights (by nature very much resembling wild beasts) worshiped the Heavenly Lady. What tames is not roughness at all – the woman on the Arcana, her white garment, and the sign of infinity above her head indicate the nature of the necessary force. The lion, whose mouth the woman closes, symbolizes her own passionate nature, subdued by the force of Spirit, through Divine love. Characteristically, the astrological sign Leo also symbolizes love and will. From Waite's point of view, Strength also describes all deeply religious people who overcome life's troubles and dangers through trust in God, meekness, humility, and love. Softness can accomplish what brute force cannot.

Many tarologists write that if a person has habits that could not be changed, no matter how hard they tried, it makes sense to focus the imagination on the imagery of Strength. Place one's own image in the position of the figure taming the lion. Having created a mental image of one's weakness, undesirable character trait, or bad habit, place it in the place of the lion. Feel one's inner strength, determination, gentleness, power over this problem (and not its denial). If one does not want to get rid of it at all, although one understands one should, it is better to meditate on the XII Arcana. The beast symbolizes external obstacles that have arisen on the path of spiritual development. It is a symbol of the beast within ourselves, a symbol of fears and passions that may prove stronger than us and tear our lives to pieces. It would be a big mistake to enter into battle with this beast, but to completely surrender to its disposal is also not an option. Dictatorially suppressing the deep side of nature can cause a rebellion of unbridled impulses of the same nature, simply destroying the personality. Higher knowledge consists in the fact that this beast can and should be defeated by following the path of spiritual self-improvement.

Through Strength occurs an encounter with the shadow (i.e., accepting even the least noble of one's desires as natural manifestations of one's personality) and its loving, without tension or fear, taming (not suppression and destruction) by an unwavering will, softened by kindness. It must be integrated, not beaten down, and not by cruel struggle, but by recognizing its strength – and the presence of an even higher and more powerful force. Pressure as such should be minimal. Yes, this 'shadow,' instincts and passions, seem to be a much more powerful opponent than the willpower a person has to resist them. Well, this Arcana poses the question – is there something of higher vibration within you? And if there is, then it is stronger. Victory is won not by aggression, but by inner righteousness. What is most amazing on the Arcana besides the woman's fearlessness? The transformation of the lion!

In Papus's treatise, the following statement corresponds to Strength: 'Remember! In order to be able, you must believe yourself that you can. Go forward, armed with faith – obstacles are only a phantom. To become strong, one must silence the weaknesses of the heart.' It is mainly about internal enemies – on the path of spiritual development, one must gain the strength to tame one's lower passions. It is time for your higher Self to gently, with love (not harshly and without anesthesia), but unwaveringly, tame your lower Self.

Ideally, it is according to the image of this Arcana that human culture should master wild nature, interacting with the external world not by brute force, but by the force of love and tenderness.

Regarding the permutations of the VIII and XI Arcanas, here, of course, the point of view can be any. One can indeed consider Strength as the next step after the lesson of the Chariot. The Chariot works on external control, and Strength – on intrapersonal control. Moreover, thanks to the symbol of the lemniscate, Strength logically takes its place in the second row of the Major Arcana under the Magician. Both these cards show calmness and firmness of intentions without aggression. Also, like in it, the extraordinary strength of this Arcana is based on deep inner harmony. If the Magician's power is the result of harmonious interaction between consciousness and subconsciousness, then the vitality, courage, and passion of this card are an expression of the balance that a civilized person finds with their animal nature. This is reflected in myths, for example, about the friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu, who was initially his implacable opponent. This card clearly shows that our goal is not to learn to hide the sometimes archaic and frightening forces living within us, but to learn to tame them with love, gentleness, and persistence. Thus, we gain control not only over these wild natural forces but also over those reserves of energy that we have so far had to spend on suppressing these forces.

Strength can be viewed as the feminine embodiment of the Magician.

This Arcana describes strong and viable relationships in which attraction plays a crucial role.

In love, Strength gives a tenderly taming and simultaneously conquering influence. Someone disables, neutralizes the influence of the Animus and reaches the defenseless Anima in the soul (regardless of gender). One partner, with tenderness and affection, gradually tames the other, and sometimes simply teaches them to cope with their own nature, including sexual, to accept and integrate the energy of passion and instincts. In such a case, they act infinitely patiently, gently, and cautiously, gradually transferring peace, the ability to handle their own body, and enjoy love fully to the other. The card usually describes a physically strong and very temperamental partner, but which of these two roles they play, the educator of feelings or the educated, is unknown.

Regarding Strength, there are dual accents in interpretation – 'Waitean' and 'Crowleyan.' Since Aleister Crowley transformed this Arcana, some authors diligently emphasize lust, instinctive manifestations, and the animal component of relationships. Not that this meaning doesn't work – Strength indeed indicates a powerful energization of the sexual sphere, quite capable of surprising with its primitiveness. The animalistic nature of sexual desire becomes obvious. But somehow the meaning of deep tenderness, gentleness, and spiritual love, which was originally considered dominant in the Arcana of Strength, gets lost.

Strength certainly does not belong to the group of 'platonic' Arcana. At the same time, it indicates inequality of partners, a clear superiority of one of them in level of development, wisdom, feelings.

In Crowley's tradition, the woman descends to the beast, releasing the animal principle within herself; in Waite's tradition, she 'humanizes' it, raises it to her level, alienating it from wild manifestations. So to speak, 'the fire of passion educates the heart.' This is a card of complete and conscious self-surrender in love, thanks to which the most diverse and contradictory aspects of personality are fused into a single whole in a unified experience. There is no longer a need to suppress something, fight with something, because that very the one has arisen. The One. Under Strength, any interaction between partners becomes tantra; consciousness is imbued with the fullness of each moment, accepts every emotional manifestation wholly, rejecting nothing; the art of feeling becomes the art of being.

Strength is a very encouraging card in case of any conflicts and problems in relationships. It symbolizes the victory of love over hatred, human manifestations over inhuman ones.

This is a sign of the viability of the relationship about which the question was asked, and great inner strength – the querent (or partner) is fighting for the creation or preservation of the relationship, despite any obstacles like an uncooperative other half or malevolent relatives. If the Magician is also nearby – 'no pasarán,' victory will be theirs; tireless efforts will pay off handsomely. However, sometimes strength is also required to free oneself from burdensome ties and put an end to it (as in any other interpretation, it is important to consider the context of the situation).

The card also gives sexual zeal, great strength of desire, serious diligence in bed, and strong, lively reactions up to extremes.

Generally, Strength describes relationships to which a person devotes themselves with all passion, but which require great wisdom from them. They bring pleasure but are at the same time a test of human maturity; otherwise, the joy of excitement and union with the beloved degenerates into indulgence of pleasure-seeking instincts, which may be fierce but empty. Under Strength, sexual transformation and initiation can also occur (with corresponding Minor Arcana).

For women, Strength advises to behave smarter in relationships with a partner, responding to everything: 'Yes, dear, of course,' and doing what is necessary, without getting into fruitless explanations of who thinks what is right and why. For men, Strength advises finding such a woman who will help them become self-confident. In any case, it will require transforming some of one's weaknesses (these could be aggressiveness, fears, prejudices) during these relationships.