Tarot · 3 July 2026 · Charlotte Himsworth
Strength: The Power of Gentleness
A woman calms a lion with her hands, not with force. True strength is soft.
In Pamela Colman Smith’s Strength card, a woman crowned with flowers gently closes the jaws of a lion. Above her head floats the same infinity sign that hovers over the Magician.
Gentle strength
The card’s message is clear and countercultural: the greatest strength is often gentle. Patience, compassion and steady courage can calm what force would only provoke.
The lion within
The lion can be read as our own strong feelings: fear, anger, desire. Strength does not crush them. It befriends them, and so they become a source of power rather than chaos.
Leo
The Golden Dawn linked Strength to Leo, the sign of the lion and the warm heart, and to the Hebrew letter Teth. In this deck it is numbered eight.
A practice
When a strong feeling arises today, try meeting it gently: name it, breathe with it and ask what it needs. Notice how it softens.