Strength and Gentle Courage

Something is said in a meeting, or at the kitchen table, or in a message that lights up your phone, and you feel it arrive before you have a single thought about it. Heat in the face. A tight jaw. A sentence already forming that would end the conversation. And then, for reasons you could not fully explain, you don't say it. You breathe out. You wait. A little later you say something truer and quieter instead.

Nobody claps. From the outside, nothing happened at all. But many of us know that a moment like that can take more courage than anything we have done in public.

There is a card in the tarot for exactly this kind of bravery, and it is called, simply, Strength.

A woman and a lion

In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, Strength is card VIII. (Some older decks number it eleven and give eight to Justice; Waite's deck swapped the two.) The picture is one of the gentlest in the whole Major Arcana.

A woman in a white dress stands in open country, a crown of flowers in her hair and more flowers at her waist, the garland looping loosely around the neck of a great golden lion. She is bending over it, close enough to feel its breath. Her hands are on its mouth. Not gripping, not prying: resting there, one above and one below, as if she were closing a heavy book. Far behind them rises a blue mountain. Above her head floats the sideways figure eight, the sign for infinity.

Waite's own description is a single sentence:

A woman, over whose head there broods the same symbol of life which we have seen in the card of the Magician, is closing the jaws of a lion.

Broods is such a good word for it. It is the word for a bird sitting over its eggs: warm, still, patient, in no hurry at all. The same sign hangs over The Magician, who raises a wand toward the sky. Here it hangs over someone whose hands are empty. Whatever power the card is about, it doesn't come from a tool.

And look at the lion. It isn't cowering, and it isn't wounded. There is no chain of iron, no whip, no cage. It stays quietly under her hands, as though this is something it agreed to.

The lion is not the enemy

It is easy to read the lion as the bad part of us: the temper, the panic, the hunger for more. And then to read the card as a lesson in keeping that part under control.

But the woman is not standing over a defeated animal. She is standing beside a living one. The lion is still enormous, still golden, still wild. Nothing about it has been made smaller. What has changed is that it is no longer alone with its own force.

Most of the wild parts of us have something to say. Anger often arrives because something we care about has been crossed. Fear shows up because something matters and might be lost. Appetite, in all its forms, is frequently a sign of a need that has gone unmet for too long: rest, comfort, company, food. A lion that roars has its reasons. Strength doesn't silence the roar by force. It comes close enough to hear what the roar is about, and then, very gently, closes the jaws.

Three ways to be strong

Strength sits right after The Chariot, and the two make an interesting pair. The charioteer stands armored under a canopy of stars, a black sphinx and a white one lying before him. He holds no reins; he keeps those opposite forces moving together by will alone. That is real strength, and some seasons need it.

The Nine of Wands shows another kind. A figure with a bandaged head leans on his staff, eight more staves standing behind him. Waite saw him "as if awaiting an enemy", and wrote that "The card signifies strength in opposition." Tired, guarded, still standing. That is strength too.

The woman in Strength has neither armor nor a palisade. She has her hands and her patience. Both of the other cards are about meeting something out in the world. This one is about meeting what lives inside: the fear that wakes you, the anger that rises in your throat, the craving at the end of a long day. And that work, almost always, happens where no one can see it.

Courage that looks like nothing

We tend to picture courage as something visible: a leap, a speech, a stand. The courage in this card looks more like a pause. It looks like staying in a hard conversation without raising your voice. Like letting yourself be afraid of a doctor's appointment and going anyway. Like feeling the old urge to snap at someone you love and choosing, this once, to say "I need a minute" instead.

It may not even feel brave while you are doing it. It may feel like shaking. Nothing in the picture says the woman feels no fear. It only shows that her hands stay where they are.

Small things for this week

Notice your own jaw. The card is about closing a lion's jaws, and many of us carry our lions right there, in a clenched mouth and tight shoulders. A few times a day, check. If your teeth are pressed together, let them part, and let your hands open on your lap the way hers rest on the lion.

Ask the lion what it wants. The next time anger or fear rises, try one quiet question before you act on it: what is this protecting? You don't need a full answer. Even a guess ("I feel unheard", "I'm scared of being left out") changes the feeling from a roar into a message.

Feed it, kindly. A lion that is hungry, tired or lonely is harder to calm. If you notice your temper is short this week, check the simple things first. Have you eaten? Slept? Spoken to anyone who is glad to hear from you? Sometimes strength is just a sandwich and an early night.

If the anger or fear in your life ever feels unsafe, for you or for anyone near you, that is not a lion to calm by yourself. Please reach out to a doctor or a friend; the safety page lists free lines you can call today.

Open hands

Perhaps that is why the infinity sign floats over her head: this is not a battle won once. The lion will roar again tomorrow, and the day after. Strength is simply the habit of coming back to it, gently, each time.

Two pieces sit well beside this card: our essay on The Empress, about looking after yourself as well as everyone else, and a gentle guide to tarot for self-compassion. You can also read the full meaning of Strength.

Most real courage looks like this: an open hand resting where a fist could have been.