The Strength card is not as much the strength you know you have as it is about the strength within you and that is yet untapped. It is almost a dream state of being; you are reenergized and willing to face the world. With each step you gain the ability to take the next step. The figure on the Strength card has confronted her fears and stands among tigers. The Eye of Horus on the Moon watches her, as it is the strength she has gained and will gain. She has walked past one tiger and is standing before the second. She has realized the problems around her and us are best dealt with in a sequential order, one at a time until we are strong enough to face the greater challenges. Often the greatest feat of strength is our willingness to find just how strong we are, and the Strength card challenges us to find out the answer.
Dignified: Strength is found not in what we have done, but in facing what is still undone. This card indicates you have the will to succeed or you have the ability to succeed. You only need take the first step to begin the journey and with that first step you will find the strength and wisdom to take the next step and in which direction you must go.
Reversed: Strength reversed, is the lack of will or motivation to change. It is always easier to find an excuse or a diversion rather than to face our challenges, fears or doubts. Reversed, this card encourages you to face the realization that nothing in your life will change until you decide to change it. You are avoiding facing down your personal demons, and the longer you pretend that everything is alright the greater these problems become and the more difficult it will be to overcome them. Reversed this card may also indicate that someone or something is preventing you from being strong or has drained your strength away. In this case examine all those around and all your routines, and start to eliminate the negative influence so you can move on.
XII Illusion
In the majority, if most not most Tarot decks the thirteenth card of the major Arcana, or the XII card is called the Hanged Man, in the Rose Chalice deck it is called Illusion. Some say that the popular history of the image is based on the chief Norse god Odin or the Germanic god Wodin sacrificing himself on the Tree of Life to gain wisdom, others say it is either Judas Iscariot or Jesus Christ, the former hanging himself for betrayal and the latter as a sacrifice on which Christianity is founded. Whatever the origins, wisdom, betrayal or sacrifice all are illusions.
Wisdom is an ideal until placed into practice, where it becomes knowledge and knowledge is a tool that is easily twisted, altered and corrupted. Betrayal, is a very subjective and a two edged sword. Depending on with side of the betrayal you stand. The betrayer may be seen to some as a traitor and to others a patriot, that is the subjective context. The two-edged sword aspect is that once someone betrays another person, no one can or will trust that person. Even if the action was motivated with wisdom and conviction, the knowledge that this person is a betrayer will be twisted, altered and corrupted, and the betrayer, discarded. With sacrifice, the illusion is in that with a single a sacrifice a greater purpose can be attained. If ones� sacrifice motivates others to rise up and cast off some form of oppression, those still alive and fighting always had the will and courage to fight within themselves. It is an illusion to believe that the death of any individual could have been the only key for positive motivation. In this image, the Querant is seen hanging precariously over an opening to an unknown void, hanging by a vine lashed around the left ankle. To the sides Earthly and worldly concerns, and beyond them lies the boundless expand of the cosmos. Balance between; the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the spiritual and that which is transitory and that which is forever. The five candles of the pentagram represent air, earth, fire, water and spirit all in perfect balance. This card is wisdom to alter the present, not in the physical sense but how you perceive it. The Querant is relaxed their arms are not reaching out for support, or reaching out in panic. The right leg is relaxed the right leg or right side of the body representing that which is divine and the left leg is holding the Querant, represents the things of the world. Thus the mental, psychological and spiritual attributes of the Querant are also relaxed in the knowledge that it is the Querants� knowledge and understand of the physical world are strong enough to support the entire being.
This card symbolizes total awareness of the world, understanding all the complexities of nature and all intricacies of life. With this knowledge the universe is clear, concise and as prefect as a flawless diamond.
Dignified: This card is all about the application of knowledge and using it to benefit you first and foremost. Because if you do not have strength and belief in your actions how can you provide as a parent, return emotion as a lover and function in today�s complex world? With this card you have the power to make you dreams come true, the power to shape the future and even the power to alter the past. The most important of these is the past; we can either be victim to its grasps or choose to use the past and all that has happened to face the future. The greatest illusion is the past, it dictates who you are today, if you like yourself today, if you like who you are, and can say that you truly do like yourself, that would mean everything that has or had happened in the past made you who you are today. The good past has granted you wisdom and positive experiences, the bad incidents of the past, gave you character and gave you a purpose to move on and grow. If you still have issues from the past, now is the time to move on, they can be a millstone around your neck or the cornerstone for a new and brighter future. This is the strongest you will be and best time to strive and improve.
Reversed: All the positive aspects of this card are now negative, the image on the card is hiding their face behind their hands in fear of something, they are trying to step out of the vine hold them as if to run. The vine now is a snare, trapping them and holding them to the Earth. It is binding them to the past and to all things are transitory, corrupt and dying. Bound to the Earth, try as you might, you cannot reach the heavens. This card tells you in the strongest and harshest terms to move on and put the past behind you. If you do not, not only will you repeat it, you will always be a prisoner to it. You must break your illusions of fear, guilt and helplessness
XIII Death
There is much misconception about this card, it is not a harbinger of physical death of the Querant, a friend or family member, it is a different death and a much more common death. It is moving forward and putting the past behind. As in the case of yesterday being dead and tomorrow yet unborn. In school the act of being in or starting grade Seven implies that being in and living in grade Six is dead. Every year crops and plant �die� and go into a dormant stage, and then are reborn. Death is not the end; death is just the ongoing process of change.
Symbolically in a Tarot deck, water is change and crossing water is moving and change and a metaphor on death. On this card water is flowing behind the figure and in the foreground, this represents how you change and adapt to the events of the past can change and alter how you see and react to the future. Death is accompanied by the reappearing Sphinx head which is knowledge, because without death (change) and the willingness to know the world and what is beyond, nothing can be accomplished. The sun in the background is setting and the day is dying.
Death is moving on, it is facing an unknown future. Just as we do not know what lies beyond this life, we do not know what lies waiting for us tomorrow or just over the next hill. If we have to face the unknown we should face it with a resolve of spirit.
Dignified: The only message of this card is move forward, realize that you can do nothing about the past and you have only the control over tomorrow that you choose to exert and if the past is draining your strength then you will be unprepared for the future. Tomorrow holds all manner of promise if you are willing to embrace the death/change concept and break free of the constraints of the past and the circumstances of the present.
Reversed: What applies to this card in the dignified position applies more so reversed, and with this there is a greater fear and more uncertainty. You have to stop and assess why you feel the way you do, and in this case it is okay to blame others rather than yourself. Just remember that you then need to put those issues of those people behind you and this card reversed requires you as the Querant to make a bigger change and break from the past. Move on, forget the past and do not revisit it.
