Tarot Of The Day June 28 2018 - Day 10: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - Strength
I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the tenth session follows.
In the Rider-Waite deck, Strength is portrayed by a woman, a maiden in white, with her hands on a lion’s muzzle. She is wearing flower garlands in her hair and around her waist, and is crowned by an infinity symbol.
The Rider -Waite keywords for the Strength card are as follows: power, energy, action, courage, magnanimity (upright,) abuse of power, despotism, weakness, and discord (reversed.)
To me, the strength card is about the strength that comes with a calm demeanor. The strength we possess when we are prepared, understanding, and informed. The reverse is like the power that comes with anger and heated passions, uncontrollable and dangerous.
The Raven’s Prophecy deck brings back the hand of the mage for the Strength card, but now the hand is a fist, the symbols of the tools of the mage clenched under the fingers. It reminds me of propaganda style artwork, like the fist of the Black Power movement, or ironically the Aryan fist of the white power movements. It is also used in the Resist movement today. Long before all of those meanings, though, the raised fist was imply a symbol of triumph and solidarity.
Maggie Stiefvater writes about the Strength card:
“I have heard Strength interpreted in many different ways, many of them unsatisfyingly thin. I think the reason why it’s a difficult card to interpret is because it can seem a little redundant. So much of the tarot deck is about internal strength that it feels like this card is meaningless when it appears. Be strong? Of course! What else would you want to be?
But I think this card begins to make more sense if you read it as fortitude in the long haul and if you replace the word strength with patience.When this card shows up, you have been being strong, but this card says that you're not done yet. Whatever burden you've been throwing yourself against is not going away any time soon, and you're going to have to dredge up all of your patience and self-belief to get past it. This card asks you to be resilient, a far more difficult task than mere strength.”
Maggie’s keywords for Strength are patience, control, and self-belief.
Tomorrow - The Hermit
All of the lessons will be cross posted to my blog at http://ouroborostarot.blogspot.com, and at my Ouroboros Tarot Page here on Facebook.
***TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round. ***
I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the tenth session follows.
In the Rider-Waite deck, Strength is portrayed by a woman, a maiden in white, with her hands on a lion’s muzzle. She is wearing flower garlands in her hair and around her waist, and is crowned by an infinity symbol.
The Rider -Waite keywords for the Strength card are as follows: power, energy, action, courage, magnanimity (upright,) abuse of power, despotism, weakness, and discord (reversed.)
To me, the strength card is about the strength that comes with a calm demeanor. The strength we possess when we are prepared, understanding, and informed. The reverse is like the power that comes with anger and heated passions, uncontrollable and dangerous.
The Raven’s Prophecy deck brings back the hand of the mage for the Strength card, but now the hand is a fist, the symbols of the tools of the mage clenched under the fingers. It reminds me of propaganda style artwork, like the fist of the Black Power movement, or ironically the Aryan fist of the white power movements. It is also used in the Resist movement today. Long before all of those meanings, though, the raised fist was imply a symbol of triumph and solidarity.
Maggie Stiefvater writes about the Strength card:
“I have heard Strength interpreted in many different ways, many of them unsatisfyingly thin. I think the reason why it’s a difficult card to interpret is because it can seem a little redundant. So much of the tarot deck is about internal strength that it feels like this card is meaningless when it appears. Be strong? Of course! What else would you want to be?
But I think this card begins to make more sense if you read it as fortitude in the long haul and if you replace the word strength with patience.When this card shows up, you have been being strong, but this card says that you're not done yet. Whatever burden you've been throwing yourself against is not going away any time soon, and you're going to have to dredge up all of your patience and self-belief to get past it. This card asks you to be resilient, a far more difficult task than mere strength.”
Maggie’s keywords for Strength are patience, control, and self-belief.
Tomorrow - The Hermit
All of the lessons will be cross posted to my blog at http://ouroborostarot.blogspot.com, and at my Ouroboros Tarot Page here on Facebook.
***TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round. ***
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