Tarot Card Combination
Strength+Death
力量 & 死神
The lion's roar meets the river's flow—this is the alchemy of profound personal revolution. You're being asked to harness your raw passion not to resist change, but to become its willing architect. The old self must die by your own courageous hand, transformed in the crucible of your deepest feelings. This is not destruction, but creative dissolution where your inner fire meets emotional truth, forging a new, authentic identity.
Strength and Death together signal a metamorphosis powered by inner fortitude. This is not a passive ending, but an active, courageous surrender. The fiery will of Strength (Leo's domain) is poured into the watery depths of Death (Scorpio's realm), creating the steam of transformation. You are called to face a profound ending or change not with fear, but with the compassionate, fierce heart of the lion tamer. The old structure, habit, or identity must die, but you possess the gentle power to guide this process. Your passion becomes the fuel for your own rebirth. This is the ultimate test of character—to love what must be released, and to find your true power in the act of letting go.
Elemental Analysis
Fire (Strength) meeting Water (Death) creates steam—a potent, transformative force. The passion, will, and action of Fire are plunged into the emotional, subconscious, and regenerative realm of Water. This interaction cautions against raw force, instead advocating for passionate surrender. The fire tempers the water's potential for stagnation or overwhelm, while the water prevents the fire from burning recklessly. The result is directed, purposeful transformation: heat applied to the deep emotional material to reshape reality.
Numerology Insights
8 (Strength) + 13 (Death) reduces to 21 (2+1=3). Twenty-one symbolizes the completion of a major cycle and the mastery that allows for a new, independent beginning (The World card is 21). The number 3, the result, brings creativity, expression, and synthesis. This numerology confirms the process: an ending (13) handled with mastery (8) leads to a new, self-actualized chapter of growth and joyful manifestation.
Reversal Meanings
Strength Reversed
Strength reversed suggests a depletion of inner resources—courage has turned to fear, compassion to enabling, and gentle control to either brute force or complete powerlessness. The lion's chain is broken; either the passions run wild untamed, or the spirit is too cowed to face necessary challenges. This is a warning against inner cowardice or misdirected aggression.
Death Reversed
Death reversed indicates resistance to an inevitable ending. This is stagnation, a refusal to let go that creates a living death. The transformative waters are blocked, leading to emotional poison and decay. It can signal a fear of change so profound it paralyzes growth, causing one to cling to a corpse of the past, delaying the rebirth that wants to occur.
Both Cards Reversed
With both reversed, a toxic paralysis sets in. Inner weakness (Strength Rx) prevents you from confronting a necessary ending you are desperately resisting (Death Rx). This creates a stagnant, powerless loop where fear blocks change, and a lack of courage perpetuates the status quo. The transformative steam condenses back into separate, ineffective elements: cold water and smoldering, frustrated embers.
Spiritual Guidance
This is the sacred journey of the Phoenix. Your spirit is called to incinerate the ego's attachments in the waters of profound feeling, rising renewed. The 'death' is of the false self—the identities, stories, and masks you've outgrown. Strength provides the lion-hearted courage to sit in the fire of this dissolution without fleeing. The alchemy happens where your will (Fire) surrenders to your soul's deeper flow (Water), birthing a consciousness that is both powerful and profoundly connected.
Yes/No Reading Guide
This is a profound 'Yes, but...' The change or outcome you query is likely, but it will require all your courage and will involve a significant ending or transformation. The answer is affirmative, contingent upon your willingness to undergo the death and rebirth process with strength and heart.
Historical & Mythological Context
In the Marseilles tradition, Strength (La Force) depicted a woman calmly subduing a lion, symbolizing soul over brute instinct. Death (La Mort) was the skeletal reaper, a neutral force of transition. Together, they represent the ultimate human challenge: facing mortality and profound change with serene, internal fortitude.
Daily Affirmation
"I meet necessary endings with a lion's heart and a river's grace."
Practical Advice
Do not fight the ending. Instead, bring your full, compassionate strength to it. Walk consciously into the fire of change, letting your deepest feelings guide the dissolution. Your power lies not in preventing the death, but in midwifing the rebirth. Harness your passion to fuel the transformation, not to resist it.
Things to Watch
Beware the temptation to use force to prevent the inevitable, or to let fear masquerade as strength. The greatest danger is resisting the transformative flow, which will only magnify the pain and delay your renewal.
Individual Card Meanings
Strength
力量
The Strength card shows a woman gently closing a lions mouth—not through force, but through patience, love, and inner power. This card represents the strength that comes from compassion rather than aggression. It speaks of courage, but the quiet kind—the bravery to face our fears, tame our inner beasts, and handle difficult situations with grace. When Strength appears, you are called to approach challenges not with brute force but with patience, understanding, and gentle persistence. Your inner strength is greater than any external obstacle. Trust in your ability to overcome through love rather than fear.
View full meaning →Death
死神
Death rides on a white horse, carrying a banner of the mystic rose—symbol of life and rebirth. This card rarely means physical death; rather, it represents profound transformation, the ending of one chapter so another may begin. What must die for you to be reborn? Death clears away the old, the stagnant, the no-longer-serving to make room for new growth. While this transformation may be painful, it is necessary and ultimately liberating. The Death card promises that what rises from these ashes will be more authentic, more alive than what came before. Do not fear the ending—embrace the transformation.
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