8 - Strength Tarot Card
Strength is tarot card number 8, although it is the 9th card of the Major Arcana because the 1st of the 22 Major Arcana cards is number 0 (The Fool).
The Strength tarot card is primarily concerned with the balancing
of emotions, and is sometimes expressed in terms of 'taming'.
The Strength tarot card represents strength, courage and determination in many forms, but especially in the context
of 'inner strength', i.e. trusting
in one's own abilities. Strength also represents compassion. It can either indicate
that the seeker is strong and / or compassionate, or that he or she needs
these attributes either within himself or herself, or from others.
Anyone who posseses the form of 'strength' indicated by the
Strength Tarot Card can cope with whatever life deals to
him or her. This is powerful It may be as simple as overcoming a particular obstacle,
or as fundamental as seizing control
of one's own personal
destiny.
Some words and phrases associated with the Strength tarot
card include:
- Strength
- Energy
- Courage
- Conviction
- Emotional maturity
- Ability to help
others - especially with personal and /or emotional challenges
Note: The image of this tarot card shown on the right (above-right) is from an early French tarot deck that has been made available for general use via the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. This shows a distinctly different style of illustration from that of modern tarot decks but is of historical and artistic interest.
More about the Major Arcana
The cards of the Major Arcana are widely considered to be the
most powerful cards in the Tarot Deck. The 22 cards of the Major
Arcana tell a complete story when arranged in upright and numerical
order (beginning with 0 - The
Fool then progressing through the sequence of Major Arcana cards until 21 - The World).
This is a story of personal development and enlightenment
that is sometimes referred to as "The Fool's Journey".
Some texts also include meanings for "reversed
cards". These are for the situation in which the cards are shuffled in both
order and orientation. The theoretical advantage to this is that
it effectively doubles the number of possible "cards" in
the deck from 78 to 156. However, in terms of the calculation
of obtaining results according to chance alone, it is not a simple
mathematical doubling because once a card has been drawn it cannot be drawn again in the opposite orientation in the same reading.
Click here for more Major Arcana cards
