Strength / Taming

[-fenrir-]

Is it just me or do most literature & decks focus heavily on the taming aspect of the strength card?

All I read is somewhat about calming your "dark side" (which is nothing but our natural instinct most of the time), which sounds to me a lot like holding back who you really are (I know, by accepting it instead of burying it, but still). I don’t really know how to describe it, but this just feels off to me. I mean, holding back is more a temperance thing, right? But a lion is still a wild creature (for example in the wild unknown, the lion looks kinda like a toothless hippie and not like the wild beast it is naturally).

Even if someone is trying to change you all too gently, it still goes against your nature (sometimes). We are what we are, right?

 

To me, Strength is more like being unashamed of who you are (and therefore accepting yourself without tempering anything down or changing for other people because there will always be someone making you feel like you’re too much or too loud or not enough whatever). Doing this, you will achieve the balance you were striving for, sure, but precisely not by taming or holding back.

I just think we all need a reminder to be our truest self (even if not everyone thinks it's "right" that way) instead of another "shush message".

 

Does this count as bending the meaning until it’s what you want it to mean? Am I missing something here?

[Barleywine]

In the BOTA deck, Paul Foster Case shows the Woman opening the Lion's mouth (similar to the original TdM image), and describes it as releasing one's creative energy. Waite turned it into a negative by having her close the mouth to suppress the animal nature. I like Case's version much better since it aligns with the Leo correspondence for this card.

[Page of Wands]

Hello!

 

Loved your point of view.

 

To me the strength  is about not taming...specially because the figure that is "petting" feels very sweet and in peace. 

I got two interesting ideas:

-Using the RWS imagery i see that not only the human figure found peace, but the lion as well. So, both the lion and the human figure are in peace. Making me think that this is something mutual, both sides worked together to reach something. This feels a lot like "light and dark" sides reaching an agreement, not the light taming the dark. Light accepts, dont tame or oppress. Tame is something oppressive, that normally is connected to obedience. I dont see a figure, that has the infinite above it's head, being guided by concepts like "obedience".  

 

-The lion is happy, feel comfortable close to the human figure. Happy...not tamed...like...accepted. And accepting the human figure...i sense almost like admiration in the lions eyes when looks towards to the human figure. It feels like...they both have fallen in love with other. It feels like the lions says "It feels so good to have you close to me...it feels so good the way you touch me and accepts me". 

 

I think self love is the keyword in the strength card.

 

This is my take on this card. 

 

 

 

20 hours ago, -fenrir- said:

Is it just me or do most literature & decks focus heavily on the taming aspect of the strength card?

All I read is somewhat about calming your "dark side" (which is nothing but our natural instinct most of the time), which sounds to me a lot like holding back who you really are (I know, by accepting it instead of burying it, but still). I don’t really know how to describe it, but this just feels off to me. I mean, holding back is more a temperance thing, right? But a lion is still a wild creature (for example in the wild unknown, the lion looks kinda like a toothless hippie and not like the wild beast it is naturally).

Even if someone is trying to change you all too gently, it still goes against your nature (sometimes). We are what we are, right?

 

To me, Strength is more like being unashamed of who you are (and therefore accepting yourself without tempering anything down or changing for other people because there will always be someone making you feel like you’re too much or too loud or not enough whatever). Doing this, you will achieve the balance you were striving for, sure, but precisely not by taming or holding back.

I just think we all need a reminder to be our truest self (even if not everyone thinks it's "right" that way) instead of another "shush message".

 

Does this count as bending the meaning until it’s what you want it to mean? Am I missing something here?

 

[Barleywine]

11 minutes ago, Page of Wands said:

I think self love is the keyword in the strength card.

 

 

 

 

I hadn't thought of self-love because it's so often seen as a card of self-mastery. But self-love is certainly one of the core principles of Leo.

Edited August 23, 2019 by Barleywine

[chongjasmine]

I think mutual acceptance rather than taming is more like it for the strength card.

The lion and the girl mutually accept each other.

Neither is the loser, both are winners!

[NeptuneBloom꧂]

1 hour ago, chongjasmine said:

I think mutual acceptance rather than taming is more like it for the strength card.

The lion and the girl mutually accept each other.

Neither is the loser, both are winners!

I very much agree with this outlook!

 

Basically, it takes strength(courage) to try and subdue a lion, but it also takes strength(restraint) for the lion to refrain from attacking! Both require discipline, which is very much our strength when we know we need to do something, but also when we know we need to stop a certain behaviour. Balancing this caution and daring ushers in a more peaceful way of life.

 

Personally, I'm also very fond of Elliot Oracle's description of the card as well. 🦁

[-fenrir-]

22 hours ago, Barleywine said:

In the BOTA deck, Paul Foster Case shows the Woman opening the Lion's mouth (similar to the original TdM image), and describes it as releasing one's creative energy. Waite turned it into a negative by having her close the mouth to suppress the animal nature. I like Case's version much better since it aligns with the Leo correspondence for this card.

So it was pretty much meant completely differently before "some guy" decided for themselves that nature / instincts were "evil" and had to be removed / cleaned / whatever and everyone just followed suit? So basically what for example happened to the principle of the Mother Goddes etc? That's interesting, not just with regard to the meaning of this one card...

 

2 hours ago, Page of Wands said:

The lion is happy, feel comfortable close to the human figure. Happy...not tamed...like...accepted. And accepting the human figure...i sense almost like admiration in the lions eyes when looks towards to the human figure. It feels like...they both have fallen in love with other. It feels like the lions says "It feels so good to have you close to me...it feels so good the way you touch me and accepts me".

That's a really nice thought. Maybe I'm just a bit touchy about the phrasing (taming = changing someone into something that goes againt their personality or sth like that).

[Barleywine]

1 hour ago, -fenrir- said:

So it was pretty much meant completely differently before "some guy" decided for themselves that nature / instincts were "evil" and had to be removed / cleaned / whatever and everyone just followed suit? So basically what for example happened to the principle of the Mother Goddes etc? That's interesting, not just with regard to the meaning of this one card.

Case was writing well after the time of Waite. Waite himself changed the Golden Dawn image, which was described thus in Liber T: "The Order card shows her side by side with the Lion, both in an amicable relationship." As far as I can tell, the GD didn't give this card much in the way of moral implications beyond Harriet Felkin's contribution to Liber T that it represents "the mastery of the lower by the higher." For his part, Mathers just said "It therefore symbolizes esoterically the Beginning or Creation of things, and to that extent
has many subtle meanings." I think that's what Case was building on.

[Grizabella]

On 8/22/2019 at 9:27 AM, Barleywine said:

In the BOTA deck, Paul Foster Case shows the Woman opening the Lion's mouth (similar to the original TdM image), and describes it as releasing one's creative energy. Waite turned it into a negative by having her close the mouth to suppress the animal nature. I like Case's version much better since it aligns with the Leo correspondence for this card.

Well, it's not a moving image on the card so I don't know whether she's opening it or closing it. How can you tell?  Maybe if you strictly adhere to the book, but I don't stick with just the book.

[Barleywine]

The position of the hands, which duplicates the Conver TdM image. In the RWS card the upper hand is on top of the upper jaw, forcing it down. In the BOTA card it's positioned to pull up on it. Case had Jesse Parke redraw the image to express his opinion.

Edited August 24, 2019 by Barleywine

[katrinka]

There's no consensus.
Case vs. Waite vs. the Liber T, as mentioned. The Thoth has the woman reclining on the lion and essentially says to enjoy it. Somebody - I forget who, maybe Jodo - said she's opening the lion's mouth and giving it the power of speech. I do remember Jodo getting all Freudian and saying it could stand for masturbation (!)

You just have to find what works in the reading. As for the original intent, I'd like to find a corresponding image in an emblem book, that could be helpful. But so far I haven't run across it.

ETA: Mae West "gives a lion the power of speech", or, alternately, "Hello, is there anyone home?"
Some of the writings on this card can be hard to take seriously, LOL,

Edited August 23, 2019 by katrinka

[Barleywine]

8 minutes ago, katrinka said:

There's no consensus.
Case vs. Waite vs. the Liber T, as mentioned. The Thoth has the woman reclining on the lion and essentially says to enjoy it. Somebody - I forget who, maybe Jodo - said she's opening the lion's mouth and giving it the power of speech. I do remember Jodo getting all Freudian and saying it could stand for masturbation (!)

You just have to find what works in the reading. As for the original intent, I'd like to find a corresponding image in an emblem book, that could be helpful. But so far I haven't run across it.

Neither have I but I haven't looked all that hard. I also remember the "letting it speak" metaphor and it's the one that makes the most sense to me, rather than trying to squelch it.

[katrinka]

Just now, Barleywine said:

Neither have I but I haven't looked all that hard. I also remember the "letting it speak" metaphor and it's the one that makes the most sense to me, rather than trying to squelch it.

It fits.
It's a wild lion, and it's letting her get close and touch it, in a pretty invasive way. She seems to be a gentle type, not some whip-cracking lion tamer. Kind of a Victoria Stilwell figure, force free (which is ironic since the old decks call the card "Force".) It's definitely seems to be saying that you catch more flies with honey, whether the lion refers to an animal, ego, urges, or another person, at least in the later decks.

 

The lady in the TdM is strange, though. Shes just staring straight out, you can't really assume she's that way. Caitlin Matthews says that La Force doesn't actually translate to "force", but something more like "fortitude." She says it attempts to control or withstand the card to its right - I like that.

[Marigold]

59 minutes ago, katrinka said:

 

 

The lady in the TdM is strange, though. Shes just staring straight out, you can't really assume she's that way. Caitlin Matthews says that La Force doesn't actually translate to "force", but something more like "fortitude." She says it attempts to control or withstand the card to its right - I like that.

In English there's a word for Strength and a word for Force. In French there's only one word for both, i.e. "Force". And they're not necessarily always used in the same way as English, although more often than not they are. Therefore one always needs context to understand which one is being referred to. I can't agree with Caitlin Matthews that it signifies Fortitude. If it were fortitude, it would have been called Fortitude. Fortitude is more like moral courage. No, from the context, there's only one option, it's Strength in the TdM, there's no debate about it. 

 

On wiki on their section on lion symbolism and late antiquity mysticism there's this : 

 

In gnostic traditions, the Demiurge is depicted as a lion-faced figure ("leontoeides"). The gnostic concept of the Demiurge is usually that of a malevolent, petty creator of the physical realm, a false deity responsible for human misery and the gross matter than traps the spiritual essence of the soul, and thus an "animal-like" nature. As a lion-headed figure, the Demiurge is associated with devouring flames, destroying the souls of humans after they die, as well as with arrogance and callousness.

 

A lion-faced figurine is usually associated with the Mithraic mysteries. Without any known parallel in classical, Egyptian, or middle-eastern art, what this figure is meant to represent is currently unknown. Some have interpreted it to be a representation of Ahriman, of the aforementioned gnostic Demiurge, or of some similar malevolent, tyrannical entity, but it has also been interpreted as some sort of time or season deity, or even a more positive symbol of enlightenment and spiritual transcendence.

 

Edited August 23, 2019 by Marigold

[katrinka]

It occurs to me that the image could be a mashup of the old deck images of the lady by a pillar, and Hercules fighting the Nemian Lion. Put the lady with the lion and ditch the fight.
Just speculating, of course.

[Marigold]

I have no doubts that there is a reference to the Nemian Lion. There's a huge amount of symbolism and mythology in the Strength card of the Tarot of Marseille.

 

By the way, I don't really think that there's a reference to the Gnostic demiurge - perhaps a little wink if anything. Sort of a hello to the gnostic neighbours. But probably not even that. I just posted that 'cos I found it interesting. And who knows...

[katrinka]

Though there's much to be said for the Malevolent God concept, yeah...it's pretty useless in a reading. When you start getting into all that, the question about the job interview or the boyfriend comes unmoored.

There's a winged lion face on the RWS 2 of Cups, and a winged lion on the Sibilla Speranza card. Lion symbolism is kind of all over the place, it's royal, it's solar, etc. etc.

[fire cat pickles]

I see Strength as one of the virtues, sorry. Fortitude is just the Latin form of of the word strength. It really is the same word. It can take on different meanings in our readings, of course. And over time obviously the card has taken on other meanings. 

 

The TdM decks have virtues, certainly, and forms of TdMs (like the Minchiate) have all of the other virtues. Why wouldn't Strength be included as one of them (i.e. Fortitude?). Why would we leave this one virtue out simply because of semantics? Or because we want to overlay our modern sensibilities of the meaning of the word 'strength'?  

 

On AT there was a discussion about the progression of the Majors and why they were in their particular order. I wish I cold remember who presented the argument, but I can't, that the Majors may be a type of medieval morality play in artistic form (https://www.theatredatabase.com/medieval/morality_plays.html), where the virtues and vices are played out before an audience in order to teach a moral lesson. The Fool represented "vice" and the other cards are presented in order, each representing a different virtue. I thought it was an interesting, if unprovable, theory.

Edited August 23, 2019 by fire cat pickles

[Marigold]

8 hours ago, fire cat pickles said:

I see Strength as one of the virtues, sorry. Fortitude is just the Latin form of of the word strength. It really is the same word. It can take on different meanings in our readings, of course. And over time obviously the card has taken on other meanings. 

 

The TdM decks have virtues, certainly, and forms of TdMs (like the Minchiate) have all of the other virtues. Why wouldn't Strength be included as one of them (i.e. Fortitude?). Why would we leave this one virtue out simply because of semantics? Or because we want to overlay our modern sensibilities of the meaning of the word 'strength'?  

 

 

Well argued fire cat pickles. The Arcanum does historically on decks prior to the TdM (i.e. the original inspiration) have the name Fortitude. So there may indeed be a reference to this Virtue. But this begs the question "why did the TdM end up with Force as a title?". The etymology of the word Fortitude means both Strength and Courage. https://www.etymonline.com/word/fortitude. There's plenty of room on the card to write just a long word (they did it with Temperance). I don't think anything in the TdM is there by accident. 

[fire cat pickles]

7 hours ago, Marigold said:

Well argued fire cat pickles. The Arcanum does historically on decks prior to the TdM (i.e. the original inspiration) have the name Fortitude. So there may indeed be a reference to this Virtue. But this begs the question "why did the TdM end up with Force as a title?". The etymology of the word Fortitude means both Strength and Courage. https://www.etymonline.com/word/fortitude. There's plenty of room on the card to write just a long word (they did it with Temperance). I don't think anything in the TdM is there by accident. 

 

Point taken!

 

One has to wonder what happened to this card? The same goes for "Wisdom/Prudence". Did morph into Hermit? Star? Some other card? What about the Faith, Hope, Charity (aka Love)? Perhaps we should start another thread....

[Grandma]

22 hours ago, -fenrir- said:

That's a really nice thought. Maybe I'm just a bit touchy about the phrasing (taming = changing someone into something that goes againt their personality or sth like that).

"Taming" means "making less dangerous and easier to control".  This is not always a negative.  Sometimes we must tame our inner demons in order to free our true nature.  Within a seemingly dangerous person or animal there may be a frightened creature desperate to escape.

[fire cat pickles]

10 minutes ago, fire cat pickles said:

 

Point taken!

 

One has to wonder what happened to this card? The same goes for "Wisdom/Prudence". Did morph into Hermit? Star? Some other card? What about the Faith, Hope, Charity (aka Love)? Perhaps we should start another thread....

 

 

 

[-fenrir-]

On 8/23/2019 at 8:49 PM, Barleywine said:

Case was writing well after the time of Waite.

Ooops - I don't know much about the history (and my english isn't that good 🙂) and understood "Waite turned it into a negative" like he was the one to change the original meaning - sorry...

On 8/24/2019 at 4:13 PM, Grandma said:

"Taming" means "making less dangerous and easier to control".  This is not always a negative.  Sometimes we must tame our inner demons in order to free our true nature.  Within a seemingly dangerous person or animal there may be a frightened creature desperate to escape.

I totally agree to that, toxic / hurtful behaviour is something that needs to be adressed.

My concern was more about taming in a sense of changing another person's habits or personality traits that you simply dislike (ie the old "you'd be such a great guy if you were just a little more this / a little less that etc). This could also be a change that is perfomed willingly just to please the other person, not necessarily something that is forced on someone, if you know what I mean.

[Barleywine]

38 minutes ago, -fenrir- said:

Ooops - I don't know much about the history (and my english isn't that good 🙂) and understood "Waite turned it into a negative" like he was the one to change the original meaning - sorry...

As far as I can tell, Waite was the one to introduce morality into the equation (primitive animal instincts are sub-human and therefore should be suppressed rather than encouraged).

[Marigold]

On 8/24/2019 at 4:13 PM, Grandma said:

"Taming" means "making less dangerous and easier to control".  This is not always a negative.  

In The Little Prince by Saint-Exupéry, there is a dialogue about taming between the Little Prince and a Fox. It's very beautiful.

 

http://www.angelfire.com/hi/littleprince/framechapter21.html

Edited August 26, 2019 by Marigold