Strength

What Strength means

The Golden Dawn moved this card to eighth place and set Leo there; Waite published that order, and the attribution says most of what the card is about. Its subject is vitality, the animal heat everything else in a life runs on, and the long unglamorous business of living alongside that heat instead of spending it all at once. Exertion belongs to the Chariot; this is something slower. The capacity to remain with what has not yet yielded, to tolerate discomfort without converting it into a crisis, to keep command of oneself without needing the fact acknowledged. Most of it happens unwitnessed, which is why from outside it can look like nothing is being done.

Upright

Gentle persistence is the power available today. Meet the difficult part without making it an enemy, and your patience will become a kind of courage.

Reversed

You may be trying to overpower a tender problem. Trade force for a steadier hand, especially in the way you speak to yourself.

A question to sit with

What would become possible with a kinder inner voice?

Traditional attribution

Leo. Attributions follow the Golden Dawn with Waite's numbering.