For this week’s post, I will draw upon an insight that was offered by a tarot enthusiast in one of my recent groups. The subject of the Strength card came up, and various ideas and feelings were shared. I found myself relying on the usual interpretations of the card: bravery, facing something with gentle force, assertiveness without aggression. I drew from the classic image of a woman holding open a lion’s mouth and I pondered aloud on whether she was pulling open its mouth or forcing it closed.

‘Maybe she’s helping the animal’, the group member said.

Maybe she’s helping the animal.

How beautiful. Why had I never looked at the card from that perspective before? Whilst I am of the firm opinion that every card is so much more than a couple of keywords, and that a tarot card’s meaning changes every time a different question is asked of it (and, of course, depending on the particular artwork of the deck) I still hadn’t ever considered such a thing for the Strength card. This is despite my working with Tarot and Nature for a living, and regularly weaving connections between the two. What a gorgeous, yet so casual, insight this group member offered to the group!

Of course, so much really does depend on the image in your deck. In the Visconti-Sforza deck (pictured: the oldest known deck of tarot cards) the image disgusts me. A man swings a baton in the air whilst a lion cowers beneath him: it is an image of sheer animal abuse. I later learned that the image relates to the Greek myth of Hercules and his attempts to kill the Nemean Lion. It appears in other old decks, such as the (otherwise beautiful) 1JJ Swiss Tarot. Discovering the image’s relationship to myth did make me feel a wee bit better about it, but still, why must animals suffer so much at our hands, even in our mythologies?

Once, when using a Marseille-type deck in a reading, my client had a strong reaction to the typical woman-and-lion card, seeing the woman as an abuser, relating her life to that of the lion rather than the woman. She saw her own oppression represented in the grasped animal. (The particular card did show quite a mean-looking woman, to be fair!) I have never seen that particular version of the Marseille card in the same way again. Who we relate to in any given tarot card can be very telling; do we see ourselves in the human, or the lion?

And yet, the standard Tarot de Marseille depiction (as well as the standard Waite-Smith version) is a very flexible image. We could see the interaction between the woman and lion as forceful or gentle. In a Nature-based reading, the card could easily speak of gentleness and kindness towards animals, if we allow that interpretation in. (How many puppy owners have had to prise open a little dog’s mouth to stop it from choking on something dangerous?)

I now share an image of Strength that brings the card full circle. Readers of this blog know that I often lean into the Tarot de Marseille tradition of Tarot, and so I would like to share with you the depiction of Strength from the modern, nature-centric version of the deck, the Metanoia Marseille. This image couldn’t be further away from the violence of the Visconti-Sforza deck of the 15th Century, and (in relation to this very literal interpretation of the card), it’s an evolution that I am all for.

Sometimes, when I am with my dog Euro, I am overcome with a sense of responsibility for his apparent helplessness. The poor thing really isn’t very wild at all, and – though I believe that many dogs can (and do) cope as strays, I don’t think that Euro (or most whippets!) would fall into this category. There seems to be a certain anxiety that has been bred into these beautiful animals, and most people that I know who own sighthounds (including their cousin Greyhounds) concur. Sometimes I even feel guilty about ‘owning’ a dog at all. Who am I to enslave an animal to my home for my own comfort, really? Why do so many of these ‘breeds’ suffer from poor mental or physical health, and why are we allowed to continue breeding them, knowing this?

Contrary to all of this, I love our Euro deeply, and want to do everything I can to make him feel loved, safe and at home. I notice him getting older lately: his arthritic bones are stiffening and his eyes are becoming cloudy, and I know he won’t be with us forever. I look at the Strength card of the Tarot de Marseille, at this woman prizing open the lion’s mouth, and I think of all the times I have had to do something that Euro dislikes for his own benefit; bandaging a sore foot, forcing medication down his throat, or (the heavens forbid) giving him a shower! There is care within my forcefulness, though; a tough love that is mostly for the good of my ageing four-legged friend. (Okay, washing fox poo off his fur is for the sake of my nostrils, sorry Euro, but I did ask you not to roll in it!)

I wonder how often this card may be pointing to our relationship with animals without us realising it. The Tarot often speaks more directly than we realise, and since that beautiful insight was shared within my Tarot group – maybe she’s helping the animal – I see this card in quite a new light. 

That’s all for now, friends. Thank you for being here – and please check out my Tarot Therapy Sessions if you’d like us to work together. You can also sign up for the Tarot Blog newsletter (different to my main newsletter) below to receive email updates on every new post.

Smiles from Scotland,

Stephen