Tarot for Today: Deb PowersIntegration (Strength)
Key 8 of the Major Arcana, Strength, is less about physical endurance and might and more about the strength that comes from integrating all the parts of yourself. In "The Druid Craft Tarot," Stephanie and Philip Carr-Gomm talk about the "meeting of the civilized and the wild," about opening your body and your heart to the cosmic forces of Nature--that's Nature with a capital N. Most interpretations of this Key picture a woman and a feline--often a lion, with the woman exerting control over the feline. But the Strength that informs this card of the Tarot is not the strength of domination--it's the strength of integration, of accepting your inner wild self, your Natural persona, and welcoming it as part of your Self. To capture this concept, I created a transformation animation in Corel's Animation Shop, that started with a photograph of a woman and ended with a pencil sketch of a leopard. I then went through the animation frame-by-frame, and selected an image that captured the transformation in process, when the woman and the cat are equally evident. The resulting image combines both human and feline beauty and strength, integrated and whole.
This card is from a deck in progress. It's the first that I've put up publicly, but I intend to post one each week, along with explanation and interpretation. I know I've been absent for a year, but I'd love to hear from anyone who still peeks in on Tarot Tuesday. Let me know what you think, how you're doing, and what your Tarot Tuesday has brought you.
