XI – Strength – The Tarot of the Crone by Ellen Lorenzi-Prince
A Most Perfect Time
A new moon in the sign of Virgo occurred this evening at 8:51 p.m. Eastern Time. New beginnings. Setting new goals. A most perfect time to change things up in our lives, make fresh commitments, and start actively dreaming a new world into being.
The power of this particular new moon is magnified, of course, by the fact that it also marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year celebration of Rosh Hashanah, which began at sundown. The added ritual, prayer, and sacredness being brought to this month’s new moon precisely because of its significance to our Jewish brothers and sisters only adds to the power of this moment.
Yes, every new moon is a new beginning of one sort or another. But we’re also quite aware of the fact of power in numbers. There’s an energetic upgrade to our thoughts and efforts when we gather together to envision our future. So now more than ever it feels essential to our survival to work together toward imagining greater understanding, facilitating peace, and perhaps even seeking justice.
Spiritual Miracle Gro®
I asked for a card to serve as a form of fertilizer for the seeds we’re planting at this powerful new moon and New Year. The card that revealed itself from my Tarot of the Crone deck was Strength.
Perhaps this message can serve as a meditation or point of reflection this week:
“I am Spirit
Making a body
Is what I do
I am Body
Expressing a spirit
Is what I do
You are Primal
You are Sublime
You are the Strongest
When both are One
In Strength is the image of a woman arising from the belly of a golden cobra. The background is the red of healthy power and passion. Strength is enlightened flesh, the life force flowing from your heart, from your belly and from your spirit. Strength is the power of kundalini, the energy ‘snake’ that uncoils from the base of the spine and rises up, bringing healing and knowledge. This is not about spirit taming the body, or lusts of the body overpowering the spirit; this is integration; this is knowing these are not separate things. Spirit and will are not attributes of the mind alone. Emotion is not felt only by the heart. Your body holds them all.
Whatever shape your body is in right now, it’s time to celebrate its life. Know that every breath you take feeds your power and infuses you with goodness and inspiration. Every breath you take is a victory over the forces of destruction. Feel how each cell of your body is an entire endless universe and how al of it, all of it, belongs to you.”
A Thought
It occurs to me as I share these words of Ellen Lorenzi-Prince (creator of The Tarot of the Crone) that this specific interpretation of the Strength card could not be more perfect for the times we find ourselves in.
Given the misogynistic ‘law’ passed by the Texas legislature ripping power over women’s bodies away from women themselves and handing it over to random religious zealot vigilantes, I have a feeling we’re going to see the Power of Woman rise up. It’s going to be a new day in Texas and this country.
Women will not knuckle under to this fear-based oppression. On the contrary, now that the stakes have been set, and the gauntlet thrown (thank you, Supreme Court), we will rise up from the belly of the cobra – precisely like the woman in the Strength image. It is a most perfect time for us to do so. Our bodies hold our spirits, will, and emotion. And I guarantee we will not relinquish our power to the fear-based minority (the forces of destruction) who quake at what they do not know or understand.
(T-81)