Strength

Symbols

• The LemniscateThe lying-eight above her head — a crown borrowed from no external source. The same sign the Magician wears, but here its infinity is turned inward.+

  Waite calls it 'the same symbol of life'; it hangs over the Magician too. There it floats above a figure whose arm is raised to the sky; here, above a head bent down toward the beast — the same sign above the opposite gesture.

• The LionThe red-maned lion — her instinct, heat, and unnamed desire. Closing the jaw is not killing it but walking along its spine.+

  In the Golden Dawn system this trump belongs to Leo, and Book T titles it 'Daughter of the Flaming Sword, Leader of the Lion' — leader, not slayer. Waite adds that in one aspect the lion 'signifies the passions'.

• The Flower CrownA crown of flowers, not of metal — sovereignty drawn from vitality rather than from office. The flowers will wilt, but the moment was true.+

  The flowers are not only on her head: a garland of the same blooms circles her waist and runs on to the lion as its chain. Crown, belt and bond are one material, so what she wears and what leads the beast cannot be told apart.

• The White RobeShe wears white — a color with no defense in it. To wear white before a lion is to say the body is not the line of defense here.+

  Set against a yellow sky and a red-orange lion, the white robe makes her the palest shape in the card, so the eye finds her first; only the flowers at her head and waist interrupt it.

• The Hands Upon the JawsThe hands are not fists but open palms — the jaw is closed by temperature, not by grip; trust precedes obedience.+

  Waite is precise about the moment: she 'is closing the jaws', and the one change he claims from the older designs is that the beast is already subdued. Whatever struggle there was happened before the picture; the card shows what comes after.

• The Distant Blue MountainBehind her, open green ground and a single blue mountain — all the gold is in the sky. Her force borrows something of that gold, though the light is not hers.+

  Painters render distance in blue — the aerial perspective Leonardo described — and the mountain, the scene's only height, stays that far off. The meeting happens on open, level ground in plain view: no den, no cave, no wall.

• Chain of FlowersA chain of flowers runs from her to the lion — a real bond, yet one that a single pull would break.+

  Waite reads the chain as 'the sweet yoke and the light burden of Divine Law', echoing Matthew 11:30, 'my yoke is easy, and my burden is light'. It is still a chain: the lion is led, not left unbound.

Story

Everything in this card leans toward one point. The woman bends down and forward, the lion's head comes up under her hands, and the two bodies close into a single curve at the centre. Nothing hurries. The quiet comes just before the jaws finish closing. The light is warm and even under a flat yellow sky, and behind them the land opens out, green and level, to one far blue height. The two figures have the open ground to themselves, and the stillness between them is the whole event.

Correspondences

Shadow

Related Cards

The Chariot

The Magician

Six of Wands

Combinations with this card