I wanted to write a quick forecast for everyone, even though it’s technically a federal holiday. The more I do these readings, the more I tend to depend on them, and the more I do them, the more I see the threads connecting them together: The monthly readings to the weekly readings and the weekly readings to each other.
So it shouldn’t surprise me that I happened to draw, out of all of the seventy eight cards in the deck, the one that was 1) our card for the month of September and 2) the card for 2024, but here we are. I’m sitting at my kitchen table, surprised.
Many tarot readers talk about this phenomenon. We’ve seemed to settle on the phrase “stalker cards” to describe those images that follow us from reading to reading. At first, I wasn’t so into the phrasing. It sounds ominous! Threatening! But there is something mysterious and dogged about an archetype that won’t give up; like Jung’s synchronicities, it’s impossible to identify the cause, yet the meaning feels unavoidably powerful.
With this in mind, I want us all to take a moment to pause and look at what we’re struggling with right now. What feels effortful? It doesn’t have to be upsettingly challenging, but it certainly can. Strength speaks to struggles that call on our entire self. Struggles that summon all we have and then ask for more. It’s in this space, when we give more than we realize we have at our disposal, that we truly learn who we are and what we’re capable of.
Drawing this card as the one card for the first week of September is an affirming call to look to your life just as it is for greatness. The big question, the crucial task of the year is right here. You might know what it is already (after all, Strength has been stalking us for quite some time!) but even if that’s the case, this week represents an opening: to go deeper, to learn more, to engage in the dance of everyday existence that brings us closer to what matters.
I love this about Strength, how it’s so undeniably prosaic. Sure, we’re not wrestling actual lions in our day-to-day, but it sure does feel like that sometimes. And look at the body language! The posture! The intimacy between the angelic figure and the lion is staggering. Sometimes I imagine the foul hotness of the lion’s breath and the kindness it takes to smile at it gently. Sometimes I think of how long it took for these two characters to come into such placid contact. Is the moment tenuous? A new way of being? The lemniscate, or infinity symbol, atop the angel’s head suggests that this process is always unfolding. We have to befriend ourselves - the angel: exacting, virtuous, lofty, removed and the lion: wild, canny, unpredictable, voracious - every day. This isn’t a situation that we can half-ass, walk away from, or fake. It takes work to walk towards the lion; we have to reach out our hands, smell the hot breath, and grasp the head with calmness. We have to do the thing. And do it again and again.
So take a moment to celebrate how you’ve been showing up for yourself. How you’ve been practicing strength, looking the lion in the eye, and steering with the guidance of your higher self. This card is meant to be messy and I’m smiling right now because, as I just looked up, I saw that I had placed a Strength card from another deck on my kitchen peninsula. It’s propped up precariously against a houseplant and the counter in front of it is covered in the detritus of a long weekend at home: two rumpled raincoats, a box of Annie’s macaroni and cheese, an empty mason jar, a box of tissues.
If anything, Strength reminds us that the sacred and the mundane live together. They’re co-occuring in everyday life. Even if it feels like life is plodding or exhausting, just showing up is a sacred act. And the key to some enduring personal questions, this card has been showing us throughout the year, can be found in the practice of putting yourself in the room, being present, and continuing to dance with the lion. Where is that happening for you this week?