Weekly Tarot

March 30-April 5, 2026
Strength

Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.
Saint Francis de Sales

Behold. I come bearing a message for you during what is not only the most holy week in Christendom but also the arrival of the magnificent Full Moon of Sun in Aries and Lady Luna in Libra. Be assured by this that much-needed resilience, patience, and courage are the gifts I offer you. Rejoice and be glad, for I am the Strength card.

Come Closer. Let Me Show You Who I Am

Behold this beautiful woman adorned with flowers, holding the mouth of a lion. Her gentle demeanor recalls the nurturing, but more static, Empress, or perhaps the Goddess Artemis of the Beasts.

In the Rider-Waite-Smith illustration, she is crowned with the cosmic lemniscate, the figure eight symbol of infinity and dominion. In this way, she is like The Magician.

Arthur Waite also refers to her belt of flowers as a lemniscate, connecting her to the lion in another infinite loop. Wearing a special cord or belt is a very powerful and ancient practice in many magical traditions.

The lion is a universally understood symbol of strength, majesty, and courage, appearing in the mythology of nearly every culture. In astrology, lions are associated with the zodiac sign of Leo and are symbols of the Sun.

But as frightening as face-to-face encounters with lions might be, this woman has a peaceful touch that tames without breaking. Even as she tenderly closes the lion’s mouth, the beast licks her hand.

Body and Soul

This lion is the wild, carnal, ferocious animal within you – hindquarters up, claws digging in, and looking straight into the woman’s eyes. And she, unflinching and unafraid, looks directly back.

As long as you live, you will be filled with huge impulses for gratification: food, sex, power, pleasure, and aggression. When out of balance, humans can be selfish, gluttonous, greedy, violent, and destructive.

Or, at the other extreme, you are in danger of zombification – such a widespread pop culture motif in recent years.

For instance, modern human civilization seems to worship the intellect that is disconnected from the body. Cold, analytical logic is supreme; irrationality is shunned, feared, and vilified.

But repressing or fighting the wild in yourself is rarely successful. As Carl Jung wisely cautioned, “Too much of the animal disfigures the civilized human being; too much culture makes for a sick animal.”

I offer you the essential life force that courses through everything and helps all flourish, even when faced with challenges or adversity. Thus, naming your body’s drives “sin” and “evil” or projecting them onto others is deeply counterproductive, as the tattered Western history of shame, blame, bloodshed, and oppression surely attests.

When you try to bury your sense of being fiercely alive, you become warped and strange. With your animal instincts and desires sabotaged, your world becomes bleak and lifeless. Fear and desire intermingle, poisoning your perceptions.

Ultimately, people become addicts and voyeurs — longing for physical expression, but only from a numbed-out distance, or through artificial, bigger-than-life proxies, like sports and film stars.

However, at the other end of the spectrum, you also know all too well of those who do not or cannot manage the intensity of their urges. Too much power given to mindless volatility can lead to terrible consequences, like rape (which is not sexual passion but is rage and violent hatred), murder, and even the destruction of lives, families, and whole ecosystems for a sense of supremacy and other shadow needs.

The vast “Epstein class” of combined unchecked power, sexual exploitation of women and children, and elite, extreme wealth is what runaway human bestiality looks like; far worse and more deadly than the fiercest of Nature’s other children.

But such horrific appetites, taken to their basest form, are a distortion of who and what people truly are.

Much of that distortion comes from thousands of years of exploitation by vested interests that have lied about what it means to be human. Humanity has built an entire civilization on the belief that people are innately evil or, at the very least, dangerously selfish if left unchecked or without help from divine intervention.

The truth is, research has shown that humans are born with naturally kind hearts. It turns out that greed and self-interest are not the prime directives of survival.

In fact, to shut down your compassion is as unnatural as attempting to completely kill your untamable animal instincts. Both choices lead to great sorrow. They perpetuate a fight against your own heart and are rooted in fear. And as you probably know, fear only begets more fear and conflict.

As always, the Tarot shows you that the better way is one of flow and balance.

In my sunny garden, the woman and lion are at peace with one another. The beast’s primal, dangerous potentials are calmed, not by a whip, but by a reassuring touch and mutual respect. And the woman benefits from the lion’s tremendous energy and appetite for life.

In other words, my message to you is that love can and will conquer fear. This woman’s patience and care quiet the lion without demanding that the lion be anything other than what he is.

Blessings of the Full Moon

As mentioned, this is Holy Week for Christians around the world. It is when they observe the final journey of the Christos into Jerusalem, his last supper, his betrayal and crucifixion, and then his miraculous resurrection. The dying and resurrecting God or Goddess is a very ancient, universal motif that echoes throughout all human history.

The Deities who undergo this testing and absolute, final surrender ultimately triumph by some means of divine sanctification. Thus is my lesson echoed: for the force that overcomes all, even to the gates of death and beyond, is Love.

Our expert on how astrology and current events intersect, Elisabeth Grace (I hope everyone reading this will wish her a very Happy Birthday!), notes that the lion’s companion could well be compatible with Venus. She explains that today (Monday):

At 12 PM ET, Venus leaves warrior woman Aries for material comfort-seeking Taurus.  Venus refers to social expression, women, aesthetics and finance; Taurus is one of the signs Venus rules. For the next few weeks, note how a need for tangible value, comfort and security manifests in the news — and in your own personal world, too. Now is the time to indulge in simple joys and sensual delights.

I encourage this absolutely, and starting right away! Elisabeth also goes on to caution that —

The Sabian Symbols for the Full Moon are — for the Libra Moon, “children blowing soap bubbles”; for the Aries Sun: “an unsuccessful bomb explosion.”

We worked with these symbols in October 2017 — here is the chart and the forecast for your review.    Sabian Symbol expert  Blain Bovee notes that soap bubbles are fragile things which burst, prompting “delight or disappointment.” He implies that if you’re blowing soap bubbles while Rome is burning, your managerial skills may be suspect. On the other hand, finding delight in a burst bubble could be a childlike superpower…because when it come to soap bubbles, the supply is endless…

In the aftermath of this Full Moon, Bovee suggests these Sabian Symbols should be applied with a mind to “attempting to contain delicate but explosive situations; hollow threats; bubbling sounds; remarks that blow up in your face; extreme expressions of gaiety and doom; frivolity and seriousness…and/or a big show for a little result.”

Can anything be more delicate but potentially explosive than looking into the eyes of a lion while grasping his muzzle?

Elisabeth also mentions that on Thursday, there is a long Moon void, during which we can expect much ado about nothing, suggesting instead that we go with the flow —

Maybe indulge in random acts of kindness or senseless beauty. That would delight the Libra Moon and Venus in Taurus. Maybe even blow a few soap bubbles for a grounded perspective on whatever is happening in the news.

That would delight me, too.

Returning to the matters of this important Full Moon, Annie Heese of Café Astrology adds her insights, explaining:

On Wednesday night, the Full Moon occurs, when the Sun in Aries forms an opposition to the Libra Moon. It’s a time of culmination and the promise of fulfillment of something begun at the New Moon. Heightened emotions, romance, fertilization, relationship drama, and epiphanies are themes.

The Aries-Libra polarity is a relationship axis, where Aries represents “self,” and Libra represents “other.” Where Aries is about self-assertion, Libra is about compromise.

With the Libra Moon, we’re especially aware of our need for relationships and all that comes with maintaining them — compromising, negotiating, graciousness, and balancing. The Aries Sun, on the other hand, is self-assertive, leading, and personally courageous.

While the traditional astrological correspondence to my card is Leo, in some ways this dynamic is very similar: the self-assertive power of my lion countered by the Lady’s graciousness, balance, and peace.

Astrologer Jill Wintersteen, who writes as Spirit Daughter for the delightful Moon bulletins from Paradise Found tells us:

This is our first Full Moon and moment of release in the new astrological year. We are deep within Aries Season, a time when we align with our soul’s purpose and feel the call of our individual path. Yet Libra arrives with a gentle reminder that while we walk our own journey, we do so alongside others. We live in a world full of people who also have dreams, missions, and purposes of their own.

This Moon invites us to look at how we balance our needs with the needs of those we love. It asks us to examine our relationships and feel which ones truly support our highest path and which ones may be pulling us in another direction.

Thus, the lemniscate is ever moving, from our personal urges and hungers to our soul’s purpose of connection and belonging. And back again. And like Strength, your optimal life comes from when your “higher nature” and your “lower instincts” move in a harmonious give and take.

The Lion Whisperer

From horses to bees to headstrong young children and even Shakespeare’s infamous shrew, the ability to tame without breaking the spirit is a gift that many have wished for, but few have mastered. It takes enormous patience and, most of all, love.

Yet I have come to tell you that such power is now given to you. You are in the midst of big change that calls for you to dig deep into reserves you may not have ever known you had and perform a miracle or two.

Thus, I remind you that self-mastery is achieved, not by denying who you are, but through having the forbearance to accept, forgive, and bless yourself in all of your parts.

Whatever success you are longing for, it will come, not from fearlessness or naivety, but from the stouthearted acknowledgement of how things are. And even if they are awful, remember that it is your true nature to stand for goodness.

That true nature is what you saw when neighbors risked everything to help enslaved people escape via the Underground Railroad. When people risked their lives to hide Jewish children and smuggle them to safety. When nine million Americans took to the streets this weekend for the No Kings marches.

In the mysterious perfect timing of the Tarot I’m here to urge you to follow your bliss, no matter what unknown shores it may lead to, for I am your Guide that whispers, “The Force is with you.”

Awaken Your Lion Heart

I have come to help you remember and express the wonder of being both human and animal. How would your life be different if you were wildly, fully unleashed, yet always in alliance with your higher angels?

I am calling you to reconnect on a deep level to what you love most about your life: the people, places, and experiences that arouse you; the passion that gives you the will to face your hesitation and even fears and then magnificently conquer them.

What anxieties is it time for you to name and tame? How can loving tolerance quiet the “beast,” yet still honor your noblest powers? In what ways does my magnificent ferocity serve your highest aspirations? For, as is true of your own multifaceted self, these two figures in the Strength card are not at odds. They are friends.

Even more, the lemniscate indicates they are one – an eternal flow that rises and falls, giving way, one to the other, and back.

My dear friends, it is time for you to rise to the occasion. There could be risk. You may even face hardship or have to fight to defend what you love.

Nevertheless, it’s time to fiercely face what no longer helps you thrive in your most wild and splendid life. Although there could be difficulties ahead, my gifts to you are grace and fortitude. Passion and wisdom thrive beside one another.

No one in this life can ever shelter you from all danger or hardship. But now discover your Strength, for it is the Source that enables you to follow fearlessly where your lion heart calls you to be.

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