Strength & my shopping list

I've not been feeling myself lately. I even talked with my manager at work about going somewhere else for a bit - don't worry, I made it plain that my reasons were to do with feeling that my employers were not providing me with safe colleagues & systems of work, etc, rather than anything internal to me, such as burn-out. This is rather uncharacteristic of me - it would be much more characteristic to stay & fight.
I feel this is partly a hangover of the events of the past couple of years - their year cards were Hermit & Wheel of Fortune respectively - which I now seem to be getting over. My card for this year is obviously Strength; I couldn't decide on the rather deranged-looking old-time strongman on the gorgeous Linweave tarot or Houdini to illustrate this post so I've gone for both. The Linweave tarot also circumvents the argument of whether the woman is opening or closing the beast's mouth by depicting a situation where the man is able to manage the ferocious lion merely by holding its tail, confident enough to turn his back on it. This is a cunning, rather than brute strength.
Similarly with Houdini: I read years ago that when he was being chained he had this way of expanding his muscles so that when he contracted them again the chains or straitjacket were looser than they started off. Perhaps this is the message of Strength for me this year: to be the sort of person who cannot be bound, so that I will never have to free myself from them again.
Nonetheless it is always a good exercise for the witch to go over what she has done, to reinforce the idea that she can do it again, & more. I have a little list on my altar, written on a sheet out of a Dr Who notebook illustrated with the word 'exterminate', of people I am healing of the notion that they can use me. There were seven names on it originally: some have been crossed off, leaving three & one of them is on the way out of my orbit. By exercising ones strength, one reinforces ones own power to do so, & the rehearsing of what one has already done is the prehearsal of the next time one will do it.
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