Sunday, October 15, 2017

Strength


Sometimes when I sit down to write a blog, I get Aeslin to draw a card to give me inspiration. She uses the Magickal Spell Cards by Lucy Cavendish, so that gives me something extra to draw on.  I use the Motherpeace deck personally, so sometimes it's nice to get a little extra perspective on a concept. This week the card is Strength.

The Strength card represents strength, determination, power, and a higher level of consciousness. This card also represents responsibility and compassion. Just as the woman in the picture on the card offers patience and compassion to the lion in order to tame him, we offer patience and compassion to others to develop our energies around this card.

If you're like me, that's easier said than done. Sometimes I find it more difficult than at others to exercise that patience and compassion toward other people. This usually happens to me when I forget to take into consideration that the other person almost certainly doesn’t think the same way I do. Nor do they have the same values. I am constantly amazed at the varied approaches people take to situations, and to life in general. One of the hardest things in the world to do is to watch someone make a mistake, especially someone you care about.

Part of having patience and compassion is having the ability to let others have their own space, strengths, and weaknesses, and to realize that you can’t impose your expectations on other people. If you don’t base those expectations on what the person is capable of doing, you’re sure to be disappointed. Part of gaining the Strength of the Tarot is acceptance of people as they are. With this acceptance, you can gently influence others rather than criticizing them.





As an example, I tend to work a lot, simply because I love what I do. I love writing and research and working on the store. I love finding new merchandise and information that we can share with you, so that’s what I’m doing most of the time. However, sometimes I have to remind myself that it’s okay that not everyone is that focused on something. Actually, it’s most definitely a good thing. Most of us have this tendency, so that's an area where our control of our reactions and our treatment of others comes into play. 

The lion in the picture, on most decks, represents the animalistic nature that we must overcome at times. We all have baggage, and at times, all the stuff, we have sublimated, comes out. Anyone who tells you different is lying. Many times the way this comes out is simply in intolerance and impatience. We base our reactions to what happens to us on experiences we’ve had in the past, and the strength of the tarot is the strength that allows us to overcome our baggage, and allow others their own path, even if you’re convinced you know better. I usually am, but you can only master your own feelings and actions. Knowing and allowing that is part of the strength seen in the card.   

Strength also relates to responsibility for yourself and your world. Learning to work properly with that passionate, instinctual core inside all of us, gives us the strength to create our world as we wish. We all put on masks at some point, maybe when we go to work, or when we’re with certain people, we feel the need to hide our true selves. When we can appropriately control and work with both sides of our nature, we gain the ability to create our world as we wish while being truly ourselves. This is truly a gift.





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