Best Strength Cards

Barleywine

Laura Borealis said:
To me it's just not Strength. It's Lust, which is fine, but it doesn't stand for Strength to me. That's one thing I appreciate about the Mutational Alchemy tarot, they changed Lust back to Strength.
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That's part of the Thelemic "baggage" I was referring to. It ties in with Crowley's Book of the Law "lust of result" notions that are in turn connected with the True Will. I never see it as "sexual lust," more as a higher vibration of the idea. The Woman is sitting rather casually on the Lion, after all, suggesting a sublimation of physical Lust, the same thing implied in the more placid Strength cards.
 

Dee Ell

Dee Ell said:
I like Strength in Cathy McClelland's long-awaited full deck coming out (finally!!) this May: http://www.cathymcclelland.com/html/tarot.htm

While it does skirt the issue of *how* - as someone on the previous page mentioned - aside from the overall aesthetics of the card, I like that the lemniscate is over her torso (rather than her head) and is centered (and glowing) over her solar plexus.
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I just realized I linked to the page rather than the card... Here it is in all its sublime beauty: http://www.cathymcclelland.com/enlarge_htm_pages/Tarot/strength.htm
 

Sulis

My favourite Strength card is from The World Spirit Tarot.
 

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Barleywine

Sulis said:
My favourite Strength card is from The World Spirit Tarot.
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Yes! I knew there was a good reason (among many) why I just bought that deck. :)
 

Nemia

Barleywine said:
That's part of the Thelemic "baggage" I was referring to. It ties in with Crowley's Book of the Law "lust of result" notions that are in turn connected with the True Will. I never see it as "sexual lust," more as a higher vibration of the idea. The Woman is sitting rather casually on the Lion, after all, suggesting a sublimation of physical Lust, the same thing implied in the more placid Strength cards.
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And if we go there already - I have always thought that Strength is not the best way to translate fortitudo, the virtue of fortitude. Fortitude and strength is not the same thing. When Hercules is depicted, Strength is fitting. But the girl with the lion doesn't use strength, she uses fortitude - moral courage in confrontating something frightening. I'd say: her fortitude gives her strength.

For Crowley, this concept is too timid. He takes it one step further - there is nothing to fear, and in "the rapture of vigour", the strength of the woman and the lion are one.

If Waite says: tame the lion, then you don't have to fear it, Crowley says: celebrate your one-ness with the lion.

And that's by the way was Lösche does in the Cosmic tarot. There is no lion and nothing to be afraid of or to overcome.
 

Barleywine

Nemia said:
And if we go there already - I have always thought that Strength is not the best way to translate fortitudo, the virtue of fortitude. Fortitude and strength is not the same thing. When Hercules is depicted, Strength is fitting. But the girl with the lion doesn't use strength, she uses fortitude - moral courage in confrontating something frightening. I'd say: her fortitude gives her strength.

For Crowley, this concept is too timid. He takes it one step further - there is nothing to fear, and in "the rapture of vigour", the strength of the woman and the lion are one.

If Waite says: tame the lion, then you don't have to fear it, Crowley says: celebrate your one-ness with the lion.

And that's by the way was Lösche does in the Cosmic tarot. There is no lion and nothing to be afraid of or to overcome.
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This is why I have always liked the Marseille Fortitude card over the Waite Strength: the Woman is opening the jaws of the Lion rather than trying to force them shut, and the Lion doesn't seem to be putting up a lot of resistance! :) I agree that she doesn't show any fear of being eaten.
 

FLizarraga

I see Crowley's Lust rather as Jung's concept of the libido, the vital force of which sexual lust is merely one easily seen aspect.

The Book of Kaos has a rather interesting version of Strength. In it, the woman and the beast(s) have fused and are one: http://www.aeclectic.net/cgi/buyframe.cgi?type=deck&id=520. (Scroll down, it's the second picture.)
 

cSpaceDiva

I am partial to the Strength card, renamed Courage, in the Osho Zen Tarot. It depicts flowers growing out from the cracks in the rocks.
 

Alta

Thoughtful said:
Yes l also like the Osho Zen Strength card. A seemingly fragile flower that has battled through the rocks.

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/cc/c5/5a/ccc55a62b05f4fdf72cebcb91be570f0.jpg
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That has also been for me one the best Strength cards but an image that occasionally (not always or even often) pops into my head when I see the Strength card in a reading.

The comments here have been so interesting and for me Nemia's comments especially. The Lust card in the Thoth has always been awkward for me to handle but this helped.
 
Tarot of the Holy Light, 2nd ed. Strange cards for strange times?