Strength

What the card means

Upright

The lion is not beaten - a hand closes its jaws and it allows it. The card is about the strength that does not look like strength: patience, repetition, an even voice. What cannot be taken by pressure is taken by your not backing away.

Reversed

Force instead of patience - usually a sign that the patience has run out. Sometimes the reverse: your own strength goes unrecognised and you give way where you should not.

Love and relationships

Upright

A relationship in which two people bear each other's character. Tenderness that turns out to be sturdier than passion. Good for anything needing time and gentleness.

Reversed

Jealousy, flare-ups, trying to hold on by force. Or somebody who endures too long and says nothing.

Work and business

Upright

You will manage if you do not snatch at it. A difficult colleague, a hard client, a long project - all taken by staying steady. Good for negotiation where impatience must not show.

Reversed

Burnout still being called focus. Or a conflict being solved by pressure and made worse.

Money

Upright

Slow, steady growth. Not the time to lunge - the time not to spend and not to be hurried.

Reversed

Decisions out of fear or out of appetite. Both cost more than they look.

The card's advice

Do not press it home. Repeat calmly what you have already said, and wait. Treat what frightens you as you would the lion: neither strike it nor run.

As the card of the day

A day on which everything works slowly and works. Good for hard conversations if they are kept level. Poor for ultimatums.

What is depicted

A woman calmly closes a lion's jaws; a lemniscate above her head, flowers at her waist and in her wreath. The lion is neither bound nor hurt: it gives way because it was not forced.

Zodiac sign and correspondences

Leo - what warms, and what can burn.

With other cards

• Strength + The Chariot — force outside and force within; together, a rare steadiness.
• Strength + The Devil — what holds you gives way to a hand rather than to a wrench.
• Strength + Nine of Swords — the fear is large and can still be handled.