Arcanum 11: Strength
Gentle strength
You can observe difficult feelings calmly and kindly.
A woman in a white dress and a garland, with an infinity symbol above her head, calmly holds a lion’s jaws and tames him without a fight. The lion represents your impulses: anger, fear and sudden enthusiasm. A patient hand achieves more here than shouting.
Gifts and potential pitfalls
- Gift
- When a difficult emotion arises, yours or someone else’s, you stay and give it time to settle. In a heated moment you keep a clear head and know what you want to say.
- Shadow
- Sometimes you hide anger or fatigue to maintain an appearance of calm. Calm for show quickly runs out, and what remains unsaid still seeks an outlet.
- First step
- Wait three minutes before replying to a message that upset you, then check what you want to write.
In a pair
When this arcanum is at the centre of a shared matrix:
You handle difficult conversations as a hand holds a lion’s jaws: gently and firmly, without raising your voices.
In the karmic tail
When this arcanum appears at one of the three points below the centre:
For days you say “nothing is wrong”, until a small thing, perhaps an unwashed glass, prompts a sharp reaction. You apologise for your tone, but what really bothers you remains unsaid. At the first prick of irritation, say, even just to yourself: “This angers me because…”.
Where this arcanum appears in the matrix
The centre and other points are sums, so this arcanum can appear for many different dates. Three points depend directly on the date:
- Point A (personality): birth day: 11, 29 (2 + 9 = 11).
- Point B (birth month): November.
- Point C (sum of birth-year digits), 1900–2026: 2009 (2 + 0 + 0 + 9 = 11), 2018 (2 + 0 + 1 + 8 = 11). Number of such years: 4.
Matrix number and card number
In the 1909 deck Justice is XI and Strength is VIII. In the matrix the order is reversed: Justice is 8 and Strength is 11.