Dark Grimoire Tarot - Strength

teomat

On a desolate moorland, a woman stands alone before a huge, leering beast. She holds an open book in one hand and what appears to be a glowing stone in the other.

The woman is small and appears frail before the terrifying beast, and yet she is holding her ground and looks at him without fear. Knowledge is power, and the magic spoken from the grimoire she reads holds the beast at bay. It is however a fragile hold, and if she slips up or hesitates the beast will overcome her.

Has she summoned the beast to do her bidding? Or is she trying to defeat him (and yet, not destroy him)?

This cards follows the RWS theme quite closely with the idea of the feminine controlling the masculine. The meek overcoming the strong. The glowing stone suggests the notion of 'shedding light' on something, perhaps facing up to our darkside and taking control of it.
 

Zezina

It seems to me the reason the woman is unafraid of this huge terrifying beast is that she understands he is a creation of the darkest side of her own psyche.

She holds up her candle to be able to examine him closely so that her earlier fear of him will disappear completely. He is leering at her, but she knows that exposing him to her open book (perhaps the Bible?) and the light of her wand will keep him at bay.

She addresses the fearful beast in the same way as we are addressing this unspeakable deck of cards. We know it contains all our darkest nightmares, but that these are generated by our own minds, as is the fear of these images.

So we also now know that these cards cannot harm us, unless we give them permission to do so.

As Strength addresses the beast, so we address this deck of cards.

Can we look at these cards as objectively as the woman is looking at the beast? We should not waver, but should look these cards straight in the eye, and work out exactly what they are about, and how it is that they have the potential power to spook us beyond anything we have previously encountered in our waking hours.

For me these cards are an impressively accurate representation of every darkest nightmare I have ever experienced. Something I never thought I would ever have an opportunity to explore.

I believe that to be able fully to address these images can transform each of us into the woman of Strength.

:TSTRE *Z*
 

Zezina

Dark Grimoire: Strength

Zezina said:
She holds up her candle to be able to examine him closely so that her earlier fear of him will disappear completely. He is leering at her, but she knows that exposing him to her open book (perhaps the Bible?) and the light of her wand will keep him at bay.
*Z*

I've re-examined this Strength card again since my earlier post about it, and I now believe that the woman is holding a large crystal in her left hand.

I found her bare left arm ambiguous at first, and I originally read that as a wand.

Looking again, I now feel that the book she holds in her right hand is not a Bible, rather I now think it is probably a Book of Magic.

*Z*
 

F.M. Tarot

Zezina said:
It seems to me the reason the woman is unafraid of this huge terrifying beast is that she understands he is a creation of the darkest side of her own psyche.

She holds up her candle to be able to examine him closely so that her earlier fear of him will disappear completely. He is leering at her, but she knows that exposing him to her open book (perhaps the Bible?) and the light of her wand will keep him at bay.

She addresses the fearful beast in the same way as we are addressing this unspeakable deck of cards. We know it contains all our darkest nightmares, but that these are generated by our own minds, as is the fear of these images.

So we also now know that these cards cannot harm us, unless we give them permission to do so.

As Strength addresses the beast, so we address this deck of cards.

Can we look at these cards as objectively as the woman is looking at the beast? We should not waver, but should look these cards straight in the eye, and work out exactly what they are about, and how it is that they have the potential power to spook us beyond anything we have previously encountered in our waking hours.

For me these cards are an impressively accurate representation of every darkest nightmare I have ever experienced. Something I never thought I would ever have an opportunity to explore.

I believe that to be able fully to address these images can transform each of us into the woman of Strength.

:TSTRE *Z*

Absolutely beautiful post Z, thank you so much sharing :) I feel the same way about this deck.
 

ceildric

To me the woman featured on this card appears to be not just fearless in the neutral or courageous sense, but in fact smiling. Either she is an explorer who has sought out or summoned this demon intentionally, or else she intuits that the only means of defeating it is through loving it.

It seems significant to me that (at least in my impression) the monster is leaning in, already in a bit of a daze, on its way to being subdued. The light and/or the woman is seeking the balance which the demon provides.

Darkness gives shape to light through contrast, just as the grimoire gives shape to the inner strength of the heart.

Perhaps the strongest of us find the proper balance.