Love Not War

For the April 'poem a day' challenge this year, I'm writing haibun to explore and reflect on my new Tarot deck, Forests of Enchantment. 

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I'm sharing this with Poets and Storytellers United on April 22nd, for Friday Writings #23 and the prompt Write Your Medicine, inviting us to 'shape our words around the idea of "medicine for the body and/or soul" '.  I found that this whole expedition through the Major Arcana, looking at each card (or stage of one's soul journey) in depth, encouraged profound self-healing. Not knowing which one to select for this prompt, I shuffled and drew this card. Yes, it's a perfect choice!

(And, just so you know, leaving out a comma you might expect in the title is deliberate. I like the ambiguity, and both possible meanings.)

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The Strength card usually shows a woman taming a lion with a gentle stroke of her hand rather than a whip. The message is that Love is the greatest power. 

In this deck it shows a wolf instead of a lion – an affectionate wolf – and the young woman sits on her own red cloak. Yes, it’s a variant of Little Red Riding Hood. In this version both have chosen to love, rather than fear and kill each other. They are clearly happier for it. 

Can that work in the real world?

Loving oneself is surely a source of strength. And loving the natural world. 

(To gain the trust of a cat that doesn’t know you, sit quietly, don’t stare at it, let it approach in its own time. Might it be the same for some wild creatures too?)

But loving all people? Hands up, everyone who loves all war criminals, all child abusers, the managers of all the companies burning down the Amazon forests! ‘Hate the deed, not the person,’ we are advised, but that can be very difficult. Also we often need to react in the moment. The fight or flight response is still our best reaction to extreme danger. That’s why we have it. 

But over time, in a one-on-one situation … some people are still more challenging than others, but perhaps…. 

When this card turns up for you, you are being told you can rely on your strength in the particular situation, and that you would do best to take a loving approach.

A woman once told me of a neighbour who was unfriendly and trouble-making. ‘I couldn’t find anything about her to love,’ she said. ‘But she did wonderful knitting. For months, I kept sending love to her knitting. Yesterday that woman was in my kitchen, drinking tea!’

you were wary –

slowly coming closer

to my stillness

Note:

In this deck Strength is positioned as VIII in the Major Arcana (the cards of Destiny and the big questions). In some decks, Justice aka Balance is VIII and Strength XI. That was how it was until A E Waite, who created the deck that’s still the archetype for most modern decks, reversed the order. Now some decks follow his order, some don’t. 

Which you prefer depends whether you’re more astrologer or numerologist. Some Major Arcana cards fit particular Zodiac signs. Balance is obviously Libra; Strength, which usually features a lion, Leo. Waite’s rearrangement puts the Zodiac signs in correct order. 

Personally I’m always startled when VIII doesn’t show up as the number of Balance; it seems a bit wrong – but the meanings of the cards don’t change according to where they are in the sequence, and each works well in either place as a stage of the Fool’s journey, which is what the Major Arcana cards really depict.