Take Heart

Lessons in Courage, Solidarity, and Power from the Strength Year

Strength from Fifth Spirit Tarot by me.

Happy New Year! It’s the final day of 2024, and that means our 8 year of Strength is coming to a close and our 9 year of The Hermit is about to begin. I’m currently at work on a piece about what to expect from The Hermit in 2025, and I hope to post that here within the next week, so keep your eyes peeled. But first, let’s review 2024 and see what we have learned from Strength in our 8 year.

To refresh, 2024 has been a Strength year because the digits add up to 8 (2+0+2+4=8), and 8 is Strength in the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) tarot tradition. Before RWS, number 8 was Justice, and I think it’s safe to say we’ve seen some strong Justice (and injustice) themes in 2024, as well.

Before we get into it, let me say this: I wish this was a happier recap, but 2024 was a hard year. You were all there; you know that. I don’t believe any of us will be well served by sugar-coating it. The Strength card earns its name because it has to be strong in circumstances that attempt to weaken it. The Strength card calls for courage, and courage isn’t the absence of fear but being afraid and acting bravely anyway. This year gave us many reasons to be afraid. It tried to weaken us, and sometimes it succeeded. It challenged us to dig in and persevere, and that means a lot of us are tired, so tired, right when things in all likelihood are about to get much worse under a Trump presidency.

However, I do believe the ultimate message of the Strength card is to take heart. The phrase “take heart” is usually taken to mean reassurance that things will be okay, that there’s hope, and I do believe there’s still so much reason to hope. But when I say “take heart” here, I mean it literally. Strength asks us to take heart as in reconnect to the heart, touch the heart, take your heart and carry it with you because its capacity for love and joy is what will ultimately keep us fighting against the odds. We’ll need to remember this lesson from Strength in the years to come.

Let’s get into it.

Reviewing 2024 through Strength

Here are some Strength themes we’ll touch on in this post:

• Courage despite fear

• Perseverance through adversity

• Compassion, actions that come from the heart

• Crises of heart, challenges to hope

• Collective anger

• Showmanship, theatre, drama (the Leo of it all)

• Visibility and attention

• The resilience of love and joy

At the end of 2023, I posted this piece about what to expect in the Strength year, including challenges and lessons in solidarity, hope, and devotion, and I made some predictions:

“Devotion in itself is not good or holy—that depends on what you’re devoted to. We must not forget that devotion bends easily into zealotry and persecution of those who are different. These are themes we are already seeing on the global stage, themes we have been seeing in legislation against gender-affirming healthcare, drag bans, and anti-LGBTQ censorship for years, for example. And these are themes we can expect to see even more of, even more clearly, and with more power behind them in 2024. The 8 year holds the potential to recycle and intensify the same old capitalist colonialist white supremacist violence, to codify it even more firmly into law (8 as Justice), and for fascist movements operating under the false banner of “God” to rise to power. But 2024 also holds profound potential for the rest of us to come together in solidarity. From the genocides and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, Sudan, Congo, and elsewhere, to the dreaded 2024 presidential election in the U.S., we as a collective are challenged this year to show up in solidarity and in strength. It is up to us and our devotion to one another to stand strongly against that power, to meet it with our own.”

Those predictions were pretty obvious if you were paying attention to the course of events, so I won’t pat myself on the back too much, but I think it’s fair to say they panned out. We did, in fact, see fascist gateway drug Donald Trump win the U.S. election under the tissue-thin banner of “Christian values,” at one point promising Christians that they “won’t have to vote anymore” if he’s elected. We did, in fact, witness an escalation of the already-escalated persecution of trans kids and adults, with Republicans spending over 20 million dollars on anti-trans political ads and further erosions of trans rights to healthcare in numerous states. We did, in fact, see the 8 year recycling the same old status quo in its infinity loop (a sideways 8: ♾), not only electing a president we just got rid of four years ago, but also witnessing the Harris campaign double down on supporting genocide and recycle the same old Biden policies while trying to claim they’re different.

I wrote about Strength as solidarity, and solidarity as an expression of devotion rooted in love, and 2024 provided many challenges to that solidarity. The Democratic Party’s refusal to withdraw support and arms from Israel even while they paid lip service to a ceasefire and their refusal to allow a pro-Palestine speaker on the DNC stage are two glaring examples of broken or false solidarity. The usual election-season silencing of the most vulnerable and marginalized voices for the sake of “unity” is another. Now, some Democratic congresspeople are suggesting the party should walk back its support of trans rights—a decision not based on what’s right or good, or even on what their electorate wants (the majority of Americans support trans rights), but on clinging to power.

Last year I also highlighted the 8’s connections to technology and systems, and aside from the expected strides in AI technology, now we’ve basically got Elon Musk in the White House. Meanwhile, the 8 is associated with order and law as a double 4 (4 + 4 = 8), and Trump and Project 2025 are poised to attempt the destruction of democracy from the inside.

(*Takes a deep breath*)

On the political stage, we mostly saw the negative manifestations of the Strength card—brute force and domination, consolidating power by taking it from others, raging ego and machismo, showmanship and spectacle devoid of any meaning or heart. This relates back to those early versions of the Strength card in the first tarot decks that showed a man clubbing a lion—brute force—versus the courage and strength of character suggested by the Tarot de Marseille and Rider-Waite-Smith, where a woman gently closes the jaws of a lion with her bare hands.

So which is it? Is true strength brute force, military might, economic power? Or is it shared strength, solidarity, compassion, character, the power of the people? It depends on who you ask, and the Strength card speaks to both.

The Strength card from the Small Spells Tarot by Rachel Howe.

Strength, solidarity, and power among the people

The positive aspects of Strength were not seen on the political stage, but they were everywhere if you looked among the people. In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene’s devastation in Appalachia, some of the first groups to mobilize and deliver aid, supplies, and meals were not FEMA or the Red Cross, but community groups and grassroots mutual aid collectives like the trans-led Pansy Collective. The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement has scored wins with targeted boycotting, including pressuring Puma to pull their sponsorship of Israel’s football (soccer) team, demonstrating Strength themes of building power through solidarity. Activists in the U.S. and abroad have not stopped advocating and protesting for Gaza, despite steep consequences such as political retaliation, arrest, school expulsion, and job termination, exemplifying Strength’s qualities of courage despite fear, perseverance despite persecution and adversity, and compassionate, heart-led action.

In the U.S., unions continue to build power, with the Boeing machinists union winning wage increases after a prolonged strike and more Amazon warehouses unionizing, tying in once again with strength through solidarity. While some Democratic lawmakers are abandoning transgender Americans, nonprofits such as the Transgender Law Center and the ACLU are preparing to fight against discriminatory laws as they always have, and mutual aid collectives and nonprofits like The Trans Continental Pipeline are helping relocate trans adults and families with trans youth to safer states, weaving themes of not only Strength through adversity, but also tarot’s pre-RWS 8 card: Justice.

Leo in the political theatre and the coliseum

The astrological sign that rules Strength is Leo, and we certainly witnessed a walloping dose of that Leo theatrical spotlight in 2024. The U.S. presidential elections are always a circus of the absurd, but we did have some especially dramatic (Leo) events this time, with one and a half assassination attempts, Biden stepping out of the race less than four months before the election, ongoing criminal trials and one felony conviction for Trump, and a predictable obsession with crowd sizes. Leo is associated with the entertainment and the performing arts, and there was that bizarre episode where Trump played his Spotify party playlist on stage for an hour without making his planned campaign remarks, occasionally making little dance moves. Election season pretty much always embodies all of the loudest Leo qualities with few of the redeeming ones—all sparkle, no substance—and this one was no different.

On the Leo spectacle theme, we also had the Olympics, during which the usual athletics, glitz, and glamour were paired with a moral panic over a parade boat (float?) featuring a drag tableau of a Dionysian bacchanal that conservative Christians hilariously misinterpreted as the Last Supper (but what if?) and a(nother) transphobic and racist tirade from J. K. Rowling against cisgender female Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who was apparently just too good at winning to be a woman according to Rowling. The athleticism and competition of the Olympics is very Strength, but the story of Imane Khelif is especially so. Khelif is both literally and figuratively strong. She’s an athlete at the top of her game who overcame obstacles to get there, including her father’s disapproval of boxing for girls. Her rightful gold medal win at the Olympics was challenged on unjust grounds, forcing her to exhibit remarkable strength of character as she suffered speculation about her gender and waves of hate, misinformation, and bullying online. Bullying is another negative manifestation of Strength, fitting alongside force and domination. As a cherry on top of the Strength sundae, Khelif filed a cyberbullying lawsuit against Rowling (and Elon Musk), delightfully looping the Tarot de Marseille 8 of Justice back into the mix.

The Strength and Justice cards from The Gay Marseille Tarot by me.

Strength, violence, and justice

Speaking of spectacle and justice, we have to talk about the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in broad daylight on a Manhattan street. The details of the crime exhibited typical Leonine flair: the decoy backpack full of Monopoly money and the words “Deny, Defend, Depose”—a riff on a common industry slogan for denying insurance claims—written on the bullets are the stuff of Hollywood movies. Embraced as a vigilante folk hero by many, the “Claims Adjuster,” as the internet dubbed him, illuminated the public’s anger at the health insurance industry, with one poll showing that 7 in 10 Americans believe insurance profits and coverage denials are moderately or a great deal responsible for the CEO’s death, alongside the killer.¹ The alleged killer Luigi Mangione reportedly has a history of spinal problems, potentially a source of his struggles with the health insurance industry, and Leo rules the spine. Leo also rules the heart, and images of Mangione as a saint with the Sacred Heart of Jesus on his chest have circulated online. However, despite his Robin Hood characterization on the internet, Mangione seems to have been less of a leftist hero and more of a rich, private-school-educated, libertarian tech bro who is skeptical of “wokeism” and a fan of RFK, Jr. (that guy who hates vaccines and once dumped a dead bear in Central Park), so you won’t find me idolizing him. Still, not for the first time in 2024, a dramatic public spectacle ignited a impassioned public conversation on themes of injustice, power imbalance and power abuse, the common people versus the powerful elite.

The killing has further illuminated another Strength year theme: what counts as violence. While murder is obviously violence, many have pointed out that the health insurance industry’s profit-hungry practices that result in countless deaths are violence, too, and should be treated as such. This is related to the liberal refrain that “violence is never the answer” while tens of thousands of men, women, and children have been killed by American bombs in Gaza, and the government keeps on shipping them. Violence perpetrated by the state and the systems of power such as the insurance industry is never called violence. When violence comes from those on the bottom, it’s violence. When violence comes from those on top, it’s business.

To be clear, because I fear it needs to be said: I am not condoning vigilante killings. I’m analyzing how the UnitedHealthcare CEO killing illuminated the injustice of the health insurance industry’s practices and ignited calls for healthcare reform, showing just how angry and exploited the American public feels about for-profit healthcare. And I’m pointing out how violence comes in many forms, and some are punished while others are excused and perpetuated as good business and/or a country’s right to defend itself, surpassing all reasonable metrics of such defense.

Visibility, inspiration, and courage

In another high-profile legal case, one of the most striking embodiments of Strength in 2024 is undeniably Gisèle Pelicot. (Content warning: mention of multiple rape. Skip to next paragraph now if you don’t want to read it.) In France, rape victims usually claim the right to anonymity and rape cases are typically tried in private. But Pelicot waived her anonymity in order to publicly charge her ex-husband and the 50 men he recruited to rape her over the course of a decade. In what became a high-profile case due to the horrifying nature of the crimes, Gisèle Pelicot faced her abusers and the world with her head held high. She successfully shifted the shame of rape from the victim to the abusers, ignited a public conversation about the treatment of women in France and at large, and won her case. Pelicot not only demonstrated Strength’s courage, perseverance, and fear-facing grit in unspeakable circumstances, she also exhibited the archetype’s unshakeable pride and quiet ferocity and brought it to the Leo spotlight on the international stage, not for the sake of personal fame and not only for justice, but so she could reach other victims of sexual violence and show them by her example that they have nothing to be ashamed of and do not have to stay silent. This is Strength embodied.

Summing it up: Spectacle and the power of attention

Overall, I see a theme emerging under these major headlines of 2024, something having to do with spectacle, visibility, violence, power, and attention. What draws our attention has power. Spectacles like the presidential election steal our attention from more important things: climate change, genocide, trans rights, body autonomy, homelessness, families torn apart by deportation. Yes, elections do affect laws surrounding all of the above, but presidential elections tend to force unnecessary compromise, silence the most marginalized, and throw the most vulnerable under the election bus for the sake of pandering to a moderate vote that never shows up. Meanwhile, the same systemic problems and injustices continue, unaddressed. As the Trump presidency undoubtedly resumes its theatre of the absurd from 4 year ago, but more organized and malevolent this time, we will be well served to remember Strength’s lessons surrounding attention and spectacle. We need to improve our ability to discern what deserves our attention and what is a distraction, and we need to know where our power and muscle can be most effective and useful. These are themes that I believe will be essential to The Hermit year of 2025, with its service and detail-oriented ruling sign of Virgo, and I’ll talk more about that in my next post.

Spectacle can steal our power or it can inspire it. Gisèle Pelicot empowered victims of sexual violence to break their silence and release shame. Imane Khelif illuminated a conversation about cyberbullying and the intersections of racism, transphobia, and misogyny, and cisgender women and trans people alike found common ground to rally behind her. The UnitedHealthcare CEO killing (problematically) renewed a simmering outcry of anger at the for-profit health insurance industry. Not long after, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield reversed their controversial decision to put time limits on anesthesia coverage. Anthem did not cite the killing as a reason, but one wonders if the outpouring of public disdain for the industry had something to do with it.

All of these stories illuminate struggles of common people against power in different ways—patriarchal power, celebrity power, corporate power, government power, establishment power. Even Kamala Harris’s run for president had a whiff of the underdog about it, which the campaign attempted to use to its advantage. Unfortunately for Harris, she’s part of the establishment, and I personally blame her loss not on third party voters, but on her failure to stick to her own stated principles and show solidarity for Palestine, trans people, Muslims, people of the global majority, the environment, and her party’s leftist base by moving to the center in failed grab at moderate Republican votes. If we look at the presidential election through the lens of establishment vs. anti-establishment, the anti-establishment candidate won. Unfortunately, in this case the establishment is democracy and the anti-establishment is fascism. This is, of course, a simplification—there are many establishment features of Trump, including misogyny, white supremacy, capitalism, colonialism, abusive power, “traditional Christian values,” etc. But what I’m pointing out is that he successfully sold the idea of himself as an anti-establishment candidate—again—while Harris tripled down on the status quo and lost.

Strength cards from the Blood Moon Tarot by Sam Guay and the Trickster’s Journey Tarot by Jia Sung.

Lessons in perseverance

Even more than in the headlines, where I saw Strength in 2024 was in regular people steadfastly trying to make a difference, help others, and create change in their communities and areas of influence. I saw Strength in the minority of people still masking in public, in the clothing drives for mutual aid groups in my city, in the continued raffles and fundraisers for Gaza, in the Appalachian artists reclaiming canvases from floodwaters, in the huddle of protestors and Uncommitted Movement delegates outside the DNC convention crying and singing together when their speaker was refused. I saw Strength in trans people sharing information on how to source and HRT online when it’s banned, in abortion travel funds and activist bail funds, in queer artists fundraising to relocate trans people and families (support this one here in Portland in January), in every single Palestinian inside and outside of Gaza, in the strikes and boycotts and picket lines, in everyone who didn’t abandon one another, in everyone who kept going despite disappointment, devastation, fear, and loss.

Moving into 2025, it can feel like we lost something this year. Like we did the Strength year wrong, our opportunity for building strength together squandered. Like we weren’t brave enough. Like we let ourselves get distracted. And maybe we did feel weaker. Maybe we did lose some nerve. Maybe we did indulge in distraction. But the lesson of Strength isn’t victory, imperviousness, or infallibility. The lesson of Strength is perseverance. It’s failing and forgiving. It’s being afraid and muddling our way forward to the best of our ability, with whatever scraps of courage we can muster. Strength is in the heart of the matter, in the love and joy that fuel our anger and action. It’s in facing down the worst and still hoping and striving for the best. Strength challenges us to find the fortitude to not give up, not back down, not submit. And the only way we do that is by coming together in solidarity, by remembering the love and joy that we’re fighting for, and by taking heart.

Take Heart

I want to end with a story. The day after the election, I was sitting in a pile of tissues on my couch when an online friend DM’ed me and asked if I wanted to meet them at a queer bookstore in town. It would be the first time we met in person, and my face was red and puffy from crying, and I was honestly hungover from election night and felt like crap on top of the general feeling of post-election doom, but I said yes. I washed my face and got dressed. I ate something. I got on the bus. I walked into Always Here Bookstore feeling fragile, like I’d come apart in a stiff wind. I distractedly perused the shelves of queer comics and children’s books and manga, queer romance and fantasy and nonfiction. My deck Fifth Spirit Tarot was there, which felt especially meaningful on that day of all days.

Then my friend and their partner walked in. We hugged, and I thought I might cry and come apart, but I didn’t. They introduced me to one of the shop owners, who was delightful and pointed out the tea they had set up on the counter for anyone who wanted it. Another friend joined us, someone I hadn’t seen in years. We all talked, and eventually we laughed. We chatted about the election and acknowledged our shared fears for the future, but we also talked about Dungeons & Dragons and anarcho-punk emo bands and dogs and queer cartoon shows. People from the community came and went, and I chatted with some of them. Everyone was masked. I felt safe. By the end, my face hurt from smiling. Thank you Tehlor, Alex, Avery, Alyssa, John, and Always Here Bookstore for that day, which will now and forever be the thing I remember about the 2024 election. Not fear and hatred, but love, courage, and hope.

I was there for three hours, just sharing queer space with friends and strangers, remembering that this is what it’s all about. Community is what got our queer and trans ancestors through the persecution, criminalization, and violence of the past, and it will get us through what’s coming next. They can try to take it away from us, but we queers are good at finding each other, at coming together, at persevering. We haven’t always been good at solidarity, but we’re getting better. One of Strength’s themes is pride, after all. Amidst all the brute force, domination, and power struggles of 2024, the Strength year reminded me that Strength’s power truly does lie in the heart. I walked into that bookstore on November 6th feeling weak, and I left feeling strong, supported, and safe. Not because the danger isn’t real, but because of love and joy, connection and community. The heart has always been the root of courage (coeur is French for “heart”). Love makes us brave.

So take heart. Not because things will be okay. Not because it’s over. But because we have each other. We have each other’s backs and hearts. Always have, and always will.

Happy New Year, beloveds. ❤️

Stay tuned for my post on 2025 as a 9 year of The Hermit, coming soon.

And before you go, Always Here Bookstore is currently doing a fundraising and membership drive to raise funds for their new location, and they’re close to their goal. Please consider supporting this rad as hell queer bookstore by joining or sharing.

1. NORC at the University of Chicago poll, https://www.newsweek.com/luigi-mangione-brian-thompson-killing-heathcare-poll-2006645