Major Arcana Musing: Strength
The traditional image on this card is a woman petting a lion.  She doesn't need a chair
and a whip to engage the beast, there is no force used at all.  Look - she trusts her own
charm as much as she trusts the beast to recognize that she isn't a threat. They are
each entirely comfortable with the other.

You guessed it...the Strength card isn't really about physical strength  
It's about Guts.  Fortitude.  Will.
It's about being clear about who you are even when it's not like the rest of the tribe.
It's about knowing what you want - even when it's nothing like what your parents or
other loved ones want for you.  And it's about staying true to your vision and ideals
as you go about your life.  You know, feeling the fear and moving forward anyway.
It's what every After School Special was about: Not letting the little voices of
discouragement - whether those voices come from inside or from without - talk you
out of your mission.  Work with your inner passions - even if they seem
overwhelming or more "beastly" than logical - to reach your goals.

(You know, it's not unlike being a cat.  They just go about their cat business, not
worrying about what the dog thinks.  They have their secret missions and they sleep
just fine, thank you very much.  So if you have a hard time letting go of other's
expectations...this card suggests you take a lesson from your cat.  
Go ahead, I won't tell.  It'll be our secret.  Yours, mine, and the cat's.)

The highest internal qualities associated with this card include:
Courage, determination, fortitude.
The external events associated with this card include:
Big auditions, opening night, first dates, defending your thesis, proposals, re-negotiations,
sporting endeavors/playoffs...also, anything to do with cats, trips to the zoo.
The advice offered by this card:
Utilize your inner resources, all of them, all your strengths and talents and desires.  
Acknowledge the fear but go for it anyway.  Before you know it, your natural gifts will
propel you to a life of gentle abundance.
From the Zerner Farber Tarot
Mantras for Strength:

What I want, wants me.

Just do it.

I am strong, I am invincible.

We will, we will ROCK YOU.

Meow.

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.
You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along."
. . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
~Eleanor Roosevelt

People do not lack strength, they lack will.  
~Victor Hugo

Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.
~Frances De Sales

O, it is excellent to have a giants strength but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.
~Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene 2

They that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength; they shall mount up their wings as eagles;
they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
~Bible, Isaiah 40:31

My Strength is the strength of ten, because my heart is pure.
~Alfred Lord Tennyson, Sir Galahad

Prayer is more than meditation.  
In meditation the source of strength is ones self.  
When one prays he goes to a source of strength greater than his own.
~Chiang Kai-shek

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.
‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink but they whose heart is firm and whose conscience approves their conduct will
pursue their principles unto death.
~Leonardo da Vinci

That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.
~Friedrich Nietzche
Strength in literature and philosophy....
From the Hanson Roberts Tarot
From the China Tarot