Strength

UPRIGHT

A woman crowned with the lemniscate closes the lion's jaws with her bare hands, gently, the flowers of her belt unbroken. Strength in the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition is not force but mastery through tenderness — the inner beast met with patience, courage that does not need to shout. The lion does not resist because it has been heard.

REVERSED

Reversed, Strength is the lion turned loose or the woman afraid to touch it. The card can name appetites running unchecked, anger that has slipped its handler, or, conversely, a self-doubt so deep the querent no longer trusts their own gentleness as competence. The remedy is the slow return of the hand to the mane.

Return to the full deck, or draw the cards and see Strength in context.