The Tarot Asks: Do you know your own strength?

three tarot cards are shown from left to right. 8 of pentacles, strength, and 2 of pentacles

“So much is changed, but in sometimes imperceptible ways.”

Everything is so much harder now. I’m sure you’ve noticed. Maybe you’ve even posted about it. “How did I used to do it all?” I keep wondering as I’m trying to move forward with a music show I’m producing this month. I used to do this kind of work constantly. I was always in process of organizing and/or promoting multiple shows. I had momentum. Then the momentum stopped. Getting started again is hard.

When I complain about it, the word “inertia” keeps coming out my mouth, and when it does I can’t help but think about how that word doesn’t inherently mean “slow-moving” or “static.” I could argue that my pre-pandemic momentum was inertia as well — an inertia that took a pandemic to stop.

My attempts to restart, I think, are not so much inertiatic as they are furiously spinning and rebounding, like a pinball stuck between bumpers, waiting for the machine to tilt.

“How did I used to do it?” Clearly, it’s more than just the momentum that’s changed. So much is changed, but in sometimes imperceptible ways. Everything is delayed, postponed, pricier. I’m tired. You’re tired. We’re all tired. And yet we still have to keep going. But how? And why?

STRENGTH

A few years ago, running a big arts event, I had one of those rare and glorious moments when I really recognized my own strength, my capacity. I showed myself what I was capable of doing, and recognized shortly after that I could — and needed to — devote that same energy toward something that might be recognized and that was entirely mine. For what other reason have I developed my talents and skills?

The Strength card was the last card I drew for this month’s pull — after the Pentacles, which we’ll talk about in a minute — and my first reaction was little scoff. This last retrograde period left me feeling quite detached from feelings of “strength.” I was certainly not communing with my lion.

It’s funny — pet lions are sort of a cinematic shorthand for embarrassments of riches and unmatched egos — a couple of traits that some try to position as strengths and virtues, but just…aren’t. But our strength card is not depicting a pet/owner relationship. Instead, it’s depicting a union between primal energies and civilized energies; power and reason; nature and nurture.

I’m interested in what Strength has to say about these relationships, the balance of power that emerges from communion and communication.

The relative placidity of the Strength card always strikes me. No matter which deck, it’s rarely a card that is interested in spectacle or intimidation. We don’t need to see these figures in conflict to know what they are capable of. Lions and goddesses have earned their reputations. They deserve their quiet moments to themselves, and those connections they build in moments like these are what helps them rely on each other when conflicts arise.

“What happens if I stop?”

THE PENTACLES: EIGHT AND TWO

On the left side we have the craftsman; on the right we have the clown. They are both serious artists in the midst of honing their crafts, and plotting their next creations.

Notice the throughlines between all these three cards. The focus of each figure in the moment. The external world in the distant background. Nothing happening out there is as important as the task at hand. We can’t read their minds; perhaps they’re tempted to hop on Twitter or quit their jobs to run away with the circus.

And then there’s the recurrence of infinity; infinity — or is that just a sideways eight? — crowns Strength. The jester uses infinity/eight as a tool to juggle their Pentacles (which, remember, are resources). Our two Pentacles icons don’t seem dissatisfied from their work or willing be to distracted from it. The jester could be doing this forever on an endless loop, and the artist in the Eight of Pentacles here seems to have quite a bit of momentum still, so he’s not likely to take a break until he’s done — or when some circumstance compels him to stop, or change course. When the force that can break his inertia arrives, what will he do?

For my own art practices, the last two years have been extremely challenging to my desire to stay on task. Questions abound: What’s the point? What happens if I stop? Do I have anything to say anymore? Did I ever? It takes a great deal of strength to obviate such questions, to keep moving and making. For many, if not most, artists, the goal is to effect change on just one person — even if that one person is the artist themself.

YOUR TAROT TUNES PLAYLIST

This month’s Tarot Tunes playlist asks the musical question, do you know your own strength? Can you summon the strength to keep on doing? Whistle while you work, and remember – the most important part of exercise is the reps.

Rahne Alexander is an intermedia artist and writer from Baltimore, Maryland. She holds an MFA in Intermedia + Digital Arts from UMBC. A tarot reader for more than 20 years, she can be reached for readings at rahne.com/tarot. Follow her on Instagram @the_tarot_asks.

Cloud image by Laura Vinck for unsplash