Strength
Strength
Number 8 Fire Leo
A major arcana card: the big weather rather than the daily forecast.
Upright
gentle powerpatiencecourageself-mastery
The lion is not being fought. Strength is the quiet kind: the nerve to stay calm with something frightening, to keep being decent when you have every excuse not to be. It nearly always turns up for people who feel they are barely coping, which is the point: coping quietly is what the card is a picture of.
Reversed
self-doubtforcea short fusedrained nerve
The nerve has gone, or turned into force. Reversed, Strength is either self-doubt loud enough to drown out capability, or the moment where patience gives out and the handling becomes wrestling. Both are recoverable, and both usually mean you are tired rather than weak.
What is in the picture
A woman closing a lion's mouth with her bare hands, wearing flowers, entirely unhurried. The infinity sign floats above her, the same one the Magician has. The same power, held differently.
What it says about…
The line a reading leads with, depending on what you said you were asking about.
A bit of everything
Upright: you are handling this better than you think, and gently is the right way.
Reversed: you are running low, and it is coming out as force or as doubt.
Love and relationships
Upright: patience with someone who needs it. Not indefinite patience, this week's.
Reversed: tolerating something on the grounds that being strong means saying nothing.
Work and direction
Upright: the difficult person or the difficult project, handled calmly. It is working.
Reversed: a short fuse, or a confidence dip that is about exhaustion rather than ability.
Money and security
Upright: steady discipline beats a dramatic gesture. Keep doing the unglamorous thing.
Reversed: money decisions made in a temper or a panic. Wait a day.
Me, honestly
Upright: courage here looks like staying soft, which is much harder than going hard.
Reversed: be as patient with yourself as you have been with everybody else.
A decision I am stuck on
Upright: yes, but slowly and without force.
Reversed: you are too depleted to decide well. Rest first; it will look different.
If this card leads
Handle it gently. Force would work faster and cost more.
As a yes or no
Upright, it reads as yes. Reversed, maybe.
“Gentleness is a form of strength, not a substitute for it.”
Draw it in a reading
The meaning above, applied to something you are actually asking about.
