“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” – Carl Jung
In this part of the journey, the Strength card asks us to show courage, endurance, and emotional regulation.
The Chariot in Tarot: A Card of Forward Motion, Progress, and Determination
In the last post, we saw The Chariot, who challenged us to move forward, overcome obstacles, and cultivate the determination required for triumph — even as we weigh nuance and different sides of an issue.
Now Strength challenges us in a new way: to understand that we are not the victim, and that we can take control using our true power. To do this, we must appease our fears. We must face our shadow selves and find the strength to endure.
If The Chariot represents decisions in motion, the Strength card represents turning to our higher self to embody strength of character under pressure. It’s acting with grace — not with a forced hand — to bring a situation under control.
Our heroine now encounters Strength, moving from the departure scene of the Chariot to sustaining that forward momentum.
Our hero is witnessing the birth of a leader, understanding what it takes to hold one's ground in the face of increasing tension, challenges, or pressure.
Symbolism of Strength in the Rider-Waite-Smith Deck
In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, Strength is card number eight: a number associated with balance, renewal, potential power and, not surprisingly, strength.
It also calls us to cultivate empathy for ourselves as we become more masterful in our endeavors.
The infinity symbol represents balance, endurance, and the cultivation of patience. It is also the number eight turned sideways — the number of the Strength card.
The circle of flowers brings in the idea of gentleness, unity, harmony with nature, and protection.
The woman in white has her hands on the lion’s snout. Not subduing his power, but working with it.
Her white dress symbolizes purity.
The lion symbolizes primal instinct, and the shadow self from which we can transform darkness into light. It also represents courage, majesty, and leadership.
The Strength card illustrates the importance of enduring when a situation is tough – of persevering when your shadow self says, “quit.”
It reminds us that we must contain our emotions in order to manage a situation or event. We must maintain patience while having compassion for ourselves.
Strength in a Tarot Reading
If Strength appears in a reading, it often signals that you need to look to your higher self for wisdom and guidance. As you do, you will find the strength and energy needed to tame your emotions and keep moving forward.
It suggests that continuing forward will allow you to understand the power and quiet strength of endurance…
Especially when outside forces pressure you to withdraw or quit.
Quitting isn’t the answer. Cultivating patience while giving yourself some grace and space to move forward will teach courage under fire, and you will emerge as the leader you’re meant to be.
We all have leadership qualities we can cultivate, hone and refine.
Since The Chariot required forward motion and inspired action, Strength invites us to maintain that inner resilience as pressure builds. That pressure metamorphoses us from a young fledgling into a mature leader. You become more resilient, and more aware of balance, and imbalance, of power.
My Personal Journey with Strength
One powerful way to deepen your understanding of the Tarot is to apply each card to real moments in your own life.
My story of illustrating Strength involves some powerful personal realizations.
Let me begin by saying that I am at a point in this journey, a very real hero/heroine’s journey, where I actually experience the archetype while I am making it.
It’s been happening all along, since I started with The Fool.
It happened again when I was working on The Lovers, when I had to make some difficult decisions for my parents, particularly my mom, who has dementia, for her safety.
When I started writing the script and working on The Chariot, my life became about forward momentum. I had made an important decision to help my mom, and then began working with the court system and an elder law attorney, filing paperwork and coordinating with different agencies.
Now I have embodied the Strength card in more ways than one. In fact, it started even before I began writing the script for this video.
If you’ve been following along with this video series, you know that the story arc of the tarot archetypes – in order – actually mirrors the hero’s journey, or in my case, the heroine’s journey.
These archetype videos take many hours to make. From script writing, to making or ordering props, to filming on location and preparing equipment, costumes and microphones, waiting for the weather, setting the scene, recording primary shots and B-roll, photographing still images with me posing as the card, returning home, organizing files, creating a time-lapse artwork piece from the archetype pose, and then exporting, uploading and publishing. It can take anywhere from 30 to 40 hours to complete.
This is why you don’t see me completing them every week.
But relative to the time I put in, I do not get many views. I do not get many followers.
I’ll be honest. It’s not easy embarking on this labor of love knowing that a video might receive only five or six views after publishing. Or that after months of publishing, my channel still sits below one hundred followers.
That is… sobering.
It has made me question whether this is all worth it. Whether I should keep going.
I sometimes feel impatient with the slowness of this journey. It is a colossal project. But it’s one that is changing me in the process.
Then I remember the hero’s journey. I’m exactly at the point where these thoughts would appear: where the hero questions themself, questions the sanity of it all, questions whether the investment of time, money, creativity, and heart is worth it.
Consciously, I realize that I’m so far into this journey that quitting would represent a huge waste of time, energy, money, and resources.
But there’s no glory for being in the messy middle.
There’s no cheerleading. No one saying, “Cynthia, you’ve got this. Keep going. The world needs this. YOU need this.”
Even as I work through the stresses of mid-life, caregiving for my elderly parents long-distance, and caring for special-needs animals, there’s no one saying, “Good job. You’re doing things right.”
As these thoughts swirled in my head these past couple of weeks, I realized – like a sudden lion’s roar stretching across the valley – that this is Strength showing up.
It’s the lion representing that impatient feeling. The fear of not knowing if this is all worth it. The fear of sacrificing time and resources for something uncertain.
This card is literally asking:
Do you have the strength to endure?
To stay devoted to this project?
To continue showing up when no one else is around?
(Side note: huge gratitude to those who do watch. You help keep me going. Truly.)
That’s when I channel the female figure on the card.
I remember my why.
My goal was to live the archetypes as I teach them. To illustrate them on an intuitive, personal level, so that those who discover these videos later understand that I’m not simply explaining “what a card means,” but showing the power behind the energy and intention they represent.
They are also foundational to how I work with tarot as a personal development tool: a way to discern what messages I and others need to hear, to hone intuition, and to create a body of work bigger than myself.
I am mapping myth onto my lived experience…and documenting it.
This card, as I live it right now, reminds me that I have the strength to carry on. To endure. To understand my true power.
That the work I’m doing, documenting this journey through the archetypes, serves a higher purpose.
I am being forged in preparation for the parts of the journey still to come.
The wisdom and mastery that will one day be evident when I reach the final archetype, The World, and the transformation it represents.
And so, I press on.
I gently tame the lion.
Chakra Connection
Strength strongly connects with the solar plexus chakra.
Like The Chariot, its strong yellow background suggests core strength and the development of the self through perseverance and courage.
Your Story + Invitation
Strength represents focus and progress, personal development, and overcoming our shortcomings.
To support your tarot journey, I’ve created a simple Tarot Cheat Sheet with key meanings for every card. You’ll find the link below.
And if you’re standing at your own threshold – ready to leap – a personal tarot reading can bring clarity. Book a 1:1 tarot reading with me, and we can explore the cards as they show up for you in the past, present, and future.
When has Strength shown up for you?
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate. – Carl Jung
