In the beginning of Beauty & the Beast, a beggar came to the castle and offered the prince a red rose in exchange for shelter from the cold. The prince, being a spoiled brat, sneered at the gift and quickly turned her away. She responded by transforming him into the beast until the day that he can find love in his heart. This is the plot of the Disney version, of course. In the original story the prince was turned into an ass, fitting for an unkind person such as this. We all have these animal instincts inside us. They typically come out in various forms of gut reactions and raw emotions, often getting us into a bit of trouble. The Strength card, our tarot card for Leo Season, depicts just that: these two opposing sides of the same coin. The key is in realizing that we have both of them inside of us, the horrendous beast and the saintly woman.
Strength is the first tarot card in the Second Line of the tarot, the death line, where we begin to ask the question: Who am I? This type of inquiry can be a deep internal journey that can produce a profound change within the self. At least it did for me. When you begin to peel back the layers of your life, you begin to see how much of it you believe versus how much of it was actually yours to begin with. Our society puts a lot of pressure on us to be a certain way, to act a certain way, and our parents do this to us as well. I have spent a large portion of my life doing things because I am “supposed” to do it, only to realize later that I hate myself. Hate is a strong word, so maybe it would be better to say that I was turning into a person that I really didn’t like. When I asked myself if I would be my friend, the answer was no. That’s when I knew that I had to take some deep, hard looks at myself.
Parts of me needed to die. It takes a lot of courage to admit that you were wrong; it also takes a lot of compassion and patience. I think the pandemic had that affect on a lot of us. The forced stop was an enormous contraction that asked us to surrender even more deeply than ever before. It makes you realize how little control you actually have in this world. I’m coming to learn that the only thing I do have control over is myself, my ability to respond instead of react to life’s obstacles. We can learn to tame our emotions, these animal instincts, so that we can then respond in a more constructive manner. Besides, when has anything good come from being screamed at?
Thanks for making me a fighter.
Christina Aguilera
I had to learn the difference between my anxiety and my intuition, which is so fucking confusing to me. In our society we value IQ much more than EQ, so that internal knowing got trained right out of me, and with that so did my inner strength. Our intuition is like our own personal superpower. It tells us that we can endure whatever this life throws at us. This is not to say it won’t be scary, but the Strength card is asking us to find this power within us so that we can persevere. It’s saying to feel the fear and do it anyway; do it scared. You have to be willing to put your heart on the line, but the heart, that lion, is a part of you. The Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz never lost his courage. He just had to remember that it was in him the whole time.
The Card of Strife
You are going to have disagreements in this life. You are going to fight with someone about something along the way. That is yet another inevitable fact of life. The Five of Wands is our guide from July 22 to August 1, covering the first part of Leo Season. Some days I feel as though I am screaming into the void. Everyone is fighting to be heard, but no one is listening. All this venomous dick swinging reminds me of the mosh pit that broke out right in front of me at that Clutch show a few years back. My friend handed me his glasses before diving in, the biggest smile forming on his face. “Man plays only when he is the truest sense man, and only whole as a man when at play.” (Friedrich Schiller) I am not one to throw myself into the lion’s mouth as some seem to be, but I can appreciate the need to release some of this volcanic energy.
These past few years have been quite the learning experience for me, specifically with anger. I have feared this emotion my whole life, my own anger and that from others. It doesn’t help that our society treats this emotion in men as not one, and in women we are deemed hysterical or ridiculous or even a bitch. Anger, as I have now come to understand, is the ultimate catalyst for change if we are willing to evolve along with it. It tells you when your boundaries have been violated or when someone, including yourself, have acted out of accordance with your value system. If you dig into it, you can actually use this emotion to figure out what your values actually are. That’s what I did. Ask yourself why it bothers you so much, because if it didn’t bother you, than you wouldn’t have gotten triggered by it in the first place.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Isaac Asimov
There is some medicinal messiness that can be found during conflict. Sometimes these tense times can force people to draw on unknown strengths, often allowing us the opportunity to rise above the disorder and to answer the challenge with renewed vigor. We are in a constant state of transition or transformation, whether we know it or not. The challenge is not to be overcome by all of it, to use it as an encouragement for an enthusiastic approach to change. Life is full of uncertainty and instability, and this card is asking us to let shit be messy before you clean it up.
The Card of Victory
I talk about failure a lot, mostly about how we humans are meant to make mistakes and learn from them. It’s how we grow and evolve into better versions of ourselves. The Six of Wands is here from August 2 to August 11, the middle portion of Leo Season, providing us with that little bit of self-confidence we all need. This life is hard, and I fear there are people on this planet who have every intention to make it even more difficult. This is why it is all that more important these days to search for the joy that can happen in the day to day moments. This card gives us the permission to find this “completely balanced manifestation” (Book of Thoth) from which to live our lives. There must be happy to offset the sad, joy to offset the mad. I often wonder if one cannot be without the opposite. Is it not the epitome of the human experience to feel it all?
We are taught to remain humble, not to brag about our accomplishments. “Don’t get too big for your britches. If your head gets any bigger, it won’t fit through the door.” I say screw all that nonsense. There is a big difference between feeling proud of yourself and boasting about how much you’ve accomplished. It all comes down to intention. Sharing your excitement about your successes in this life is a wonderful thing to do. People who care for you, believe it or not, want to celebrate your triumphs. You’ve had challenges along the way, and you’ve even managed to overcome one or two of them. Be proud of that accomplishment and celebrate it with the world. You got yourself this far, and even if it isn’t your final destination, progress is something. Don’t let fear or guilt stand in the way of you stepping into your own power.
You can be a rooster one day and a feather duster the next.
an old saying, source unknown
No one ever remains on these high horses. They think they will, but eventually the wheel of life will turn yet again and we will be dumped from our pedestals. Life has its ups and life has its downs, as they say. The key is to learn how to gracefully flow between the two, which comes with its own set of challenges. We can’t let the hard times keep us down, and we also can only sustain the highs for so long. Much like the tides of the ocean, there has to be a back and forth, an incoming wave and a washing away. It’s what you do during those low tides that really shows the world who you are. This card gives us the permission to come out of our shells, with all the strengths and the weaknesses. Life is not a perfectly captioned Instagram reel, but man is it great when it all comes together.
The Card of Valour
Setting and maintaining boundaries is one of the hardest things I have ever had to learn, and I am still trying to figure it all out. The Seven of Wands will take us through the final phase of Leo Season, from August 12 to August 22 when Virgo Season will begin. There is an expectation that poppies should grow together, and when one gets taller than all the others, that one gets chopped down to size. It’s called ‘tall poppy syndrome,’ a phrase commonly used in Australia to put down someone for their success, talent, or status. This card represents this “departure from equilibrium” (Book of Thoth) and encourages you to take a stand and to defend what you believe in.
Something I have recently learned is that there will always be someone who wants to challenge you, to topple you from your mountain of belief. Sometimes it’s because what your values are greatly differ from someone else’s. Sometimes it’s because they are jealous of what you have managed to accomplish, and they are sitting there not wanting you to have it. The latter usually stems from a place of self-hatred, from disliking where they are in life. It more often than not means absolutely nothing about you. This card is the reassurance that your perseverance will be rewarded as long as you stand firm in your convictions.
I want more of this feeling, fire and wings.
Jean Rhys
Much like boundaries are a struggle at first, you won’t need to carry this armor for the rest of your life. People will fight against the boundaries you establish, testing you to the roots of your fortitude. They get very upset when they can no longer manipulate and use you in the ways they once could, and they will try their damndest to keep you in the position of that of a doormat. I can tell you this from personal experience. When you can grasp that this is what is happening, that this is what they are trying to do, you have a chance to develop. This takes practice, more than you think it will. I was foolish enough to believe that once I set a boundary that people would honor them. Boy was I wrong.
Mad love, Jenna
deck credit: Rider-Waite Tarot Deck, drawn in 1909 by Pamela Colman Smith under direction of Arthur Edward Waite
