The Gryphon (Strength)

In a reading

• It matters to hold back your desires. It matters to tame your inner instincts. To learn patience — patience over brute force.
• Being able to handle a situation through inner confidence, not through pressure.
• It matters to accept your shadow side and your unconscious impulses. To be aware of fear, anger, passion and be a calm support for yourself.
• Love: a passionate union, strong attraction. Being able to see and accept your partner as a whole, with all their weaknesses.
• Career, money: getting past obstacles with confidence. A lot of potential to earn big. Success comes through charisma, diplomacy and being able to motivate others gently and well.

Shadow side

Held-in aggression. Not being able to control your impulses. Flashes of anger. Trying to solve all your problems through hard pressure, bossing people around and cruelty.

It matters to act gently but firmly, not to push your way through. Use diplomacy, charm and patience. Being able to come to terms with your inner fears and turn them into your driving force.

From the wider tradition

Not Tahmina’s own words: meanings common among other tarot readers, which she has reviewed and approved.

• A woman gently closes the lion’s jaws — soft strength wins where brute force loses.
• The lemniscate over her head (like the Magician’s) — spiritual mastery, an inner resource that never runs dry.
• Compassion and patience with yourself, accepting your “animal” side without pushing it down.
• Healing your relationship with your body, with desire, with sexuality.

Stage of the journey

Strength is card VIII, the eighth step on the path from the Fool to the World. This is the end of the first third of the path. A person has already learned to act and move forward, and now faces a much harder task — learning to handle their own strength.

What a person has already been through. Before Strength they went through the Fool — walked into the unknown; the Magician — discovered what they’re capable of; the High Priestess — learned to listen to their inner knowing; the Empress — started to create; the Emperor — built structure and took responsibility; the Hierophant — formed their knowledge and values; the Lovers — made a choice; the Chariot — started moving toward the goal they chose. So a person has already learned to act and get what they want. But the Chariot may have left the feeling: “If I push hard enough, I’ll manage.” And Strength shows the next lesson: not everything in life needs to be forced down.

What happens in Strength. The lion here is our instincts, passions, fears, anger, desires and life energy. The woman doesn’t destroy the lion or fight it. She tames it with gentleness. So Strength isn’t about hard control. It’s about being able to stay strong without crushing yourself. A person learns to turn inner chaos into energy they can put toward creating something.

Where Strength leads — next comes the Hermit, card IX. And it’s a beautiful shift:

• The Chariot: “I steer the movement.”
• Strength: “I steer myself.”
• The Hermit: “And now I want to understand myself more deeply.”

After all that outward activity, a person starts turning inward. Just winning, achieving and controlling isn’t enough anymore. They need to stop, spend time alone with themselves and find their own inner light.

So:

• Strength — “I can tame what lives inside me.”
• The Hermit — “Now I want to understand who I really am.”

The section above is the shadow side of the upright card — every card has one. I don’t read cards upside down — here is why.