Quantum Tarot: Strength

nisaba

I've decided to give my views on one of hte more challenging cards in the Major Arcana, now.

Strength is a maelstrom of boiling leonine colours: all yellows and oranges. In the top quarter of the image there are things thqat could be stripped bones, something living pared back to the very essence, the strongest bits that persist when all that nasty protoplasm boils away. At the bottom, the nout of a sleeping lion, plit from itself and overswept by Fire. To the left a lighter area which has always been abstract to me until *right* now - suddenly it has coalesced into a human face, peaceful, head tilted back to look at something inside the area of the card but beyond hte left edge, a misty lemniscate touching the right cheek. The face is more than neck-deep in fiery turbulence which threatens to engulf it, but there is no struggle and no sense of being defeated. Somewhere in the deeper layers of visibility in the card, is a standing robed semi-human form. Or it could be a tree-trunk. Or it could be both.

General Relativity is about how massive bodies warp time and warp space. In a case of warped space-time, of course you will see the Cat twice, seeing both positions of its head as it moves. In fact, in one of the Discworld books, Pratchett once described seeing a cat in four dimensions (the way magical people always see): it is sort of a cat-shaped carrot, a tiny blind newborn kitten at one end and a great obese dying feline the other end. Anything can happen when you remove limitations to functioning in space-time.

Strength is about endurance, determination, perseverance, grit. It's about staying with a situation no matter what the temptations. when everything is boiling up around you, when stars are going nova and lions are splitting in two-times-infinity, when you are being swept through the great fiery vortexes of space, whether you fight or not the outcome is up to you: maintain your central core, your inner peace, and you will get to see and understand everything around you, even if you are incinerated shortly afterwards. Panic, and you will be incinerated without any understanding. Oddly, the blurry yellow lemniscate in the middle of the image has always reminded me of a pair of glasses, taken off the face and left on a table. This card is telling you that there is a benefit in real *seeing*.
 

Leo62

OK just catching up here :D

This ended up being one of my favourite cards, though it was one of the cards that Chris and I completely revised when we had our second "go" at the deck. We wanted to get across the idea of how very massive objects can distort space and time, as described by general relativity. I find this idea a powerful metaphor for how the pressures and stresses of our lives can affect our psychological "shape". For me, the Strength card embodies the challenge of keeping ourselves whole in the face of these pressures. As nisaba says, maintaining your inner peace no matter what the challenges. The phrase "grace under pressure" comes to mind when I think of this card...
 

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nisaba

Out of interest, if you're prepared to label a card one of your favourites, is there a card or cards in the deck that you don't think work so well?
 

Leo62

nisaba said:
Out of interest, if you're prepared to label a card one of your favourites, is there a card or cards in the deck that you don't think work so well?
Ooh I'm not sure about that...! Chris and I worked long and hard at this deck, plus we had the chance to revise some of the cards we weren't happy with. Overall, I don't think I can pick out any cards that I feel don't "work", though of course some have less resonance for me than others. :D

Also, my feelings about individual cards have changed. For example, I really wasn't sure about the Emperor when we first did the card. Not happy with it at all. But it's really grown on me over time, and now I'm very fond of it!
 

nisaba

<smile> I think the Emperor's empty or blind eye is magnificent (thought just today I was carrying on in another thread about another deck and all the blind eyes in it).

I must admit, I have a card in this deck that spectacularly doesn't work for me on a visual level, although scientifically and magically it's pretty spot-on.