Grandma Posted August 26, 2019 Posted August 26, 2019 15 minutes ago, Marigold said: In The Little Prince by Saint-Exupéry, there is a dialogue about taming between the Little Prince and a Fox. It's very beautiful. Yes, it is. Thank you for reminding me, Marigold. It's been a long time since I read The Little Prince. I'm going to re-read it now! 5 hours ago, -fenrir- said: Ooops - I don't know much about the history (and my english isn't that good 🙂) I think your English is excellent -fenrir-. 5 hours ago, -fenrir- said: 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). That's not taming, it's controlling. It's not Strength. It's the Devil. 5 hours ago, -fenrir- said: 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. If someone willingly gives up something just to please the other person, and it is something that they don't need and will be fine without, that may be a loving, healthy gift. If someone willingly gives up something essential to their well-being, that sounds like codependency. If someone willingly gives up something just to please the other person and asks the other person to do the same, that may be mutually beneficial compromise. If someone pretends to give up something just to please the other person and then demands that the other person also gives something up, that is a red flag for emotional abuse. That's how I see it anyway! And it either is or is not off topic depending on how deeply people want to examine Strength and taming.
-fenrir- Posted August 28, 2019 Author Posted August 28, 2019 On 8/26/2019 at 7:02 PM, Grandma said: I think your English is excellent -fenrir-. Nah, I'm just somehow muddling through all of this, I have problems expressing what I meant. For what I originally wanted to ask was more "how do YOU GUYS read the strength card", guess I should have phrased the question a bit different. I agree to everything you wrote about controlling etc, that's why I started the topic. Guess i just don't like a(nother, if you count temperance in) card telling me to keep it down 😉 As the saying goes, what we find in a soulmate is not something wild to tame but something wild to run with (or even “I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not”).
Talal Posted August 28, 2019 Posted August 28, 2019 (edited) I think I agree the most with Page of Wands. Here's my take: We tend to imagine the divine nature anthropomorphically. In ourselves we prize the ability to create and the ability to love. Therefore, we imagine God as almighty and all-compassionate. I note that there are two cards with a leminiscate above a figure's head, the sign of the infinite divine (Keter on the Tree of Life, if you will): the Magician and Strength. I view these cards as corresponding to our ability to share in the two divine traits. When we share in God's almighty, creative aspect, we are the Magician. Any creator can tell you that the task of creation requires focus. As a result, when we draw on the Magician's energy, we draw selectively on certain emotions and repress others. No creator can do otherwise. When creating, we give ourselves to the needs of the task. If the project is in the critical phase, we do not drop our project and run to pee. We repress the urge, clench our bladder shut and work on THIS now. THIS is what is important. We urinate when it pleases us, when we deign to. In contrast, when we share in God's loving, compassionate aspect, we show the Strength card, the gentle patience to endure. Almost any meditative system argues that compassion begins with the self. If we cannot allow for our own mortality, we have not released the Magician's attachment to creative power. If we do not do this, we will hold ourselves above the other humans to whom we show compassion. "Oh yes, you are weak and deserve compassion, but I hold myself to a higher (*COUGH* divine) standard. I must do better." This has the quality of making the compassion utterly fake. True compassion is begotten of a knowledge of our own mortality, our own vulnerability. It is begotten of empathy, of sharing in mortality. Hence, like St. Francis, the young woman can gently open the Lion's jaws because the Lion senses her innate compassion. For me this card begins with self-love, but it is about the need to express compassion for all life. Edited August 28, 2019 by Talal
Marigold Posted August 28, 2019 Posted August 28, 2019 (edited) 3 hours ago, Talal said: I note that there are two cards with a leminiscate above a figure's head, the sign of the infinite divine (Keter on the Tree of Life, if you will): the Magician and Strength. Also the Cavalier (Knight) of Batons wears a hat of the same shape. Great post by the way. I don't agree with some of it but that's just down to personal viewpoints of such grave matters. In spite of some disagreements I have, it's still a great post. Edited August 28, 2019 by Marigold
Talal Posted August 29, 2019 Posted August 29, 2019 18 hours ago, Marigold said: Also the Cavalier (Knight) of Batons wears a hat of the same shape. I think that depends on deck. Looking it up, the Tarot Marseilles does indeed have an infinity hat. That said, in the Rider Waite deck, he has a helmet with a red feather, reminiscent of the Fool and the Sun card. I've never read with the Tarot Marseilles, so I'm woefully ignorant there! It's so kind of you to say you liked the post!
Marigold Posted August 29, 2019 Posted August 29, 2019 57 minutes ago, Talal said: I think that depends on deck. Looking it up, the Tarot Marseilles does indeed have an infinity hat. That said, in the Rider Waite deck, he has a helmet with a red feather, reminiscent of the Fool and the Sun card. I've never read with the Tarot Marseilles, so I'm woefully ignorant there! It's so kind of you to say you liked the post! Oops. Sorry! I only read with TdM and forget sometimes that other decks exist!! (not really but almost).
2curious Posted August 29, 2019 Posted August 29, 2019 As I see it right now, the card Strength simply means cooperation between two things that would naturally be at odds or opposed to one another. Not like Temperance, who combines opposites, or two differing things, to make something different - "tempering" two things so that they blend together. Strength allows each thing to remain as it is, unchanged, but shows that the two can cooperate and work together even though it is not natural for them to do so.
2curious Posted August 30, 2019 Posted August 30, 2019 Thank you Grandma! You are very kind. I worry about posting to topics like this one because I'm new and haven't read or studied to the extent others here have.
Marigold Posted August 30, 2019 Posted August 30, 2019 4 hours ago, 2curious said: Thank you Grandma! You are very kind. I worry about posting to topics like this one because I'm new and haven't read or studied to the extent others here have. I agree with Grandma. Wonderful interpretation. A keeper in fact.
-fenrir- Posted August 30, 2019 Author Posted August 30, 2019 19 hours ago, 2curious said: As I see it right now, the card Strength simply means cooperation between two things that would naturally be at odds or opposed to one another. Not like Temperance, who combines opposites, or two differing things, to make something different - "tempering" two things so that they blend together. Strength allows each thing to remain as it is, unchanged, but shows that the two can cooperate and work together even though it is not natural for them to do so. OK, this one made sense to me. Not sure how to apply this in a reading, but I slowly get what you mean 😊
katrinka Posted September 2, 2019 Posted September 2, 2019 On 8/30/2019 at 10:22 AM, -fenrir- said: OK, this one made sense to me. Not sure how to apply this in a reading, but I slowly get what you mean 😊 With RWS I'd have to come up with a rule, but TdM has an obvious "woman side" and "lion side". So, using the same logic as the Matthews hack I mentioned earlier, if you were reading it as cooperation between two normally opposed forces, I'd look at the cards on either side. Courts would be people, of course. Other cards could be circumstances. Sometimes circumstances do seem to conspire to make things happen. Let's say you got a court, Strength, and the Tower. The person represented by the court doesn't WANT the Tower, but he's rolling with the punches, making the best of a bad situation. He's not resisting what's inevitable. And Caitlin's idea of trying to "control or withstand" the card on the lion side fits, too. In this case, your court wouldn't be controlling, but he'd be withstanding. He's going to ride this beast out and see where it takes him. That's actually a really good insight, @2curious. It's kind of like the Beginner's Mind that you hear about in Zen.
Grizabella Posted September 9, 2019 Posted September 9, 2019 (edited) I haven't read all the responses yet so this is just written from my own experience and isn't meant to agree or disagree with anyone else. Also, I haven't been able to learn all the history and other philosophies of Tarot according to Rider-Waite-Smith or Marseille or Crowley and that sort of thing. Everyone who knows me knows I'm a recovering alcoholic. In the AA program there are some steps a person takes in order to come out of the insanity and into a more healthy mindset. The steps involve coming to a "bottom" where we can admit that we're doomed if we continue to think and act as we've been doing and become willing to start from scratch so to speak. We have to become so desperate that we're willing to reach out in blind trust, see ourselves absolutely as clearly as we can, and then talk to others honestly about ourselves including the secrets we thought we'd take to the grave without revealing to anyone else. That's absolutely the most healing thing a person can do in the long run, although believe me, it's not at all easy to get through and for some of us, may take years of sobriety to actually do. Some of us do it more than once along the way as more is revealed to us of the need to clean house some more. So anyway, this card speaks to me of the unconditional love one being can extent to another and the miracles it will work. Once I went through the steps to recovery that include this thorough and unflinching look at myself, then became willing to admit it to at least one other person, suddenly I didn't see others the same way. I saw them as the beings they really were---just people like me with flawed coping skills, doing the only things they know to get through life. I didn't see them anymore as being that dirty, smelly homeless person, or a snooty artificial person putting on airs or beneath my dignity to associate with. I just saw a person. Like me. I felt compassion. I still had street savvy about not getting too close or putting myself in danger (actually, that grew with time, though) and I didn't feel the need to judge others based on my own sick need to get what I got out of that in the past. To give a simple example, there was a guy at a place where I went to meetings in the early years who just could NOT get sober because he was so far down the addiction path and other people were kind of scoffers about how he didn't try hard enough, etc. All alcoholics are skewed in their thinking and I'd been that way a lot till I got far enough along. This guy didn't just go to meetings, he practically lived at the AA club all the hours it was open. Of course, he couldn't afford cigarettes so he'd bum them from people sometimes, including me, and others didn't appreciate it and wouldn't be nice about it. He was not treated very well. I didn't make much money then but I was a smoker, too, and one day as I bought some cigarettes of my own, I just happened to think to buy an extra pack and I took them to him. The look on his face was amazing. I had just done it on the spur of the moment because I had a few extra dollars that payday. This man got sober! After all the years of not getting sober, he got sober! And that taught me a big lesson. Just one little act of kindness to somebody who was lower than a snake's belly in his own and the minds of others can sometimes work a miracle. I certainly don't take credit for that. It was just one more unexpected lesson I learned along the way. Many similar things have happened when I've come in contact with someone nobody else would touch but I did, not with any idea that it was going to make a big difference for someone else. It was happenstance, like the time when I worked in an ER and shared with a battered woman that I had been battered most of my first 40 years but that I'd gotten help. She was so shocked. Looking at me in my white uniform and stethoscope, she hadn't realized that people in all walks of life can be abused. She got help. I don't know if it was lasting, but she did. It was a lesson for my own life. I didn't do it with any great idea that I was some kind of great miracle worker. Nope---I was just me, sharing something with somebody else who was used to people looking down on her and thinking and saying to her "well, you must like the abuse. You keep going back." I heard that one a lot myself. Anyway, even an animal (or maybe especially an animal) can sense when a person is a threat to them. Lots of animals will attack out of fear and so will people. But if the one approaching is totally non-threatening and truly loving toward them, they can sense that and the miracles can happen. The natural fear a human would feel about the lion is overcome by compassion and the desire to help the lion. That's what this card can mean to me in a reading. Being willing to take a great big risk out of unconditionally caring for the suffering of another. Not with the idea of accomplishing anything but trying to nurture altruistically. This does take strength of the truest kind! ETA: I want to add that I was annoyed myself when the guy asked me for a cigarette and I didn't give the extra pack to him without selfishness. lol It took something for me to share that extra pack. I was a chain smoker and cigarettes aren't cheap. (I quit smoking in 1989, just for the record.) And the woman in the ER incident? I shared my experience with her, not with any great idea that it would make any difference because often it doesn't, but sharing with her put my own hell into some sort of positive use for the present, if that makes sense to anyone. ETA again: I need to wrap this up with what I intended to convey about taming one's own "dark side" before I got into all this other stuff. Overcoming that need we have within ourselves to get something out of every encounter is what this card conveys to me. The concern for "oh this lion will bite me" or "if I'm mauled I might die or at least be disfigured" or anything like that is some personal and self-centered desire of mine, but overcoming that and making it secondary to a genuine caring and trying to help or nurture someone else is the Strength message as I read it. Edited September 9, 2019 by Grizabella Thought of something else
Marigold Posted September 9, 2019 Posted September 9, 2019 (edited) Grizabella, your post made my heart go faster or slower or maybe it even stopped for a moment. Here we are on Tarot Tea & Me and we've just received one of the the greatest lessons of love that one could ever hope to read. Who would have thought it? It has been known for thousands of years by the revelators and seers and prophets and mystics and god knows what else that only Love will heal the world. Only Love. There's nothing else. Literally I mean.... there IS nothing else. Bless you Grizabella. And thank you for your blessing that you just gave us. We should place a garland of flowers around your neck. Edited September 9, 2019 by Marigold
Grizabella Posted September 9, 2019 Posted September 9, 2019 (edited) Thank you Marigold! But once again, I was just trying to explain my own take on this card because I can't comment on the profound stuff I see other people knowing about this card from their studies of philosophies behind the cards and their history, etc. Actually, I was just thinking probably nobody would have the patience to read such a long post? Instead of garlands, could I just have some chocolate? Edited September 9, 2019 by Grizabella
Marigold Posted September 9, 2019 Posted September 9, 2019 (edited) 25 minutes ago, Grizabella said: Thank you Marigold! But once again, I was just trying to explain my own take on this card because I can't comment on the profound stuff I see other people knowing about this card from their studies of philosophies behind the cards and their history, etc. Actually, I was just thinking probably nobody would have the patience to read such a long post? Instead of garlands, could I just have some chocolate? A garland of chocolate flowers then. I'm in Switzerland so it'll be of the finest Swiss quality. No seriously Grizabella, it's amazing how you actually LIVE the "love your neighbour AS yourself" which lots of people seem to think means you must love them as MUCH as yourself. But that's not what that means - it means AS yourself. Equal. The same. Of the same essence and substance as you. That's love. That's what you do. Edited September 9, 2019 by Marigold
Grizabella Posted September 9, 2019 Posted September 9, 2019 Yes. A person has to learn to love themselves first with all their faults, mistakes, fears, and everything. That's extremely hard. We come into the world as infants just thriving on love and if we don't get that or we get something sick that's touted as love, then we can't love and accept ourselves because we learn to see ourselves through the eyes of those who are around us. We only see the sickness reflected back to us. That's all we have to go on. Over time, it just gets more and more malignant and our self-image and coping skills become more and more twisted. If we learn to love ourselves then we can reflect real love to those around us because it's the genuine article, not something else. If we can reflect it to those around us, then that becomes a really miraculous revelation to other people that maybe they really do have some self-worth just like they are. Maybe they're worth something after all. That can give them that one little seed that can start growing and can work miracles for them. But it can't be artificial because that's obvious, usually to everyone but ourselves. And it can't be done with the selfish motive of being a feather in the cap of our own self-image, either.
Grizabella Posted September 9, 2019 Posted September 9, 2019 Swiss chocolate is so wonderful. I've had some before and it's really exceptional chocolate. Lucky you to live in Switzerland! 😄
-fenrir- Posted September 10, 2019 Author Posted September 10, 2019 @Grizabella just... WOW 20 hours ago, Grizabella said: A person has to learn to love themselves first with all their faults, mistakes, fears, and everything. That's extremely hard. We come into the world as infants just thriving on love and if we don't get that or we get something sick that's touted as love, then we can't love and accept ourselves because we learn to see ourselves through the eyes of those who are around us. We only see the sickness reflected back to us. That's all we have to go on. Over time, it just gets more and more malignant and our self-image and coping skills become more and more twisted. If we learn to love ourselves then we can reflect real love to those around us because it's the genuine article, not something else. If we can reflect it to those around us, then that becomes a really miraculous revelation to other people that maybe they really do have some self-worth just like they are. Maybe they're worth something after all. That can give them that one little seed that can start growing and can work miracles for them. That's easier said than done, but I admire everyone who can give other people this feeling.
Grandma Posted September 10, 2019 Posted September 10, 2019 1 hour ago, -fenrir- said: That's easier said than done Most things are. Like becoming partners with a lion - that takes Strength!
Arch Posted September 10, 2019 Posted September 10, 2019 I think it depends from person to person what the beast entails. We all have different histories, so what state the beast is in, will vary wildly. Some need to release, others need to hold back. I like the Strength card in Modern Spellcasters. With the lady riding the lion, not implying anything about the state of the lion other than a partnership with the lady. It can release and it can hold back, at least that is how I interpret it.
Grizabella Posted September 10, 2019 Posted September 10, 2019 (edited) Believe me, this I know very well. I was 40 before I even got started on alcohol recovery and just because I've learned a lot doesn't always make it easy to keep everything uppermost in my mind. Humans being what they are---flawed beings----never arrive on a better level and never falter. It's an evolutionary journey. 🙂 This was in response to fenrir. I was away from the computer and when I came back to finish and post, I didn't see the other two replies. Edited September 10, 2019 by Grizabella
Marigold Posted September 10, 2019 Posted September 10, 2019 (edited) It's easier to learn to love oneself when one starts loving others actually. I think most people go around it the wrong way and that's why they find it difficult. Loving other really I mean. Like seeing them as the same essence and substance as you. It automatically rebounds on yourself. On the inner level and also the intellectual level. All the universe is made of the same substance. Why should me or the other be any different? We're not something special and different from the rest of the universe and all that it's made of. Edited September 10, 2019 by Marigold
Grizabella Posted September 11, 2019 Posted September 11, 2019 I'm not familiar with the Marseilles decks. I haven't learned those. I use RWS and clones. I think the Thoth deck shows a woman riding the lion, right? I'm not very familiar with that one, either. OK can't find my little Thoth at the moment but I found the Strength card in a book and it is the woman riding the lion.
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