In Tarot, VIII The Strength, number 8 is a symbol of balance - each loop of the 8 is the same as the other. The Woman in the picture, has initiated a spiritual cause and, therefore, according to the laws of the universe, she will receive a spiritual effect. Brute force is never a match for spiritual strength.
In numerology, eight stands for power, money and worldly involvement. It is the number of material success or failure. Eights are strong, tough, practical people, successful businessman or politicians, but their course through life is never easy.
They do not accumulate money with the careless ease of the threes. Their careers are built on struggle, strain, effort, care and drudgery. They conduct their operations cautiously and tenaciously, without inspiration. They can be hard, materialistic, selfish, sometimes tyrannical and unscrupulous. They are not very attractive characters and they may be keenly and sadly aware of the fact. Beneath their often grim and chill exterior there is likel to be a layer of wild eccentricity, waywardness and rebelliousness. They have the capacity for massive success, but they constantly face the possibility of resounding failure.
In tradition, balance and harmony are the keynote features of this number which, when horizontal, is the symbol of infinity. Its planet is Saturn, which makes it the number of dark secret places, the world of the imagination and the unconscious. It also symbolise old age, related to the old Moon, and the Wisdom and patience associated with that phase of life. Sadly, it can also represent regret and disillusion, failing health and other difficulties which attend these years. If eight looms large in a birth date, there is a reasonable chance that the physique will be lanky. There can be a certain coldness of personality, with introspection and cool emotions.
Eight was the holiest of female numbers to the Greeks, since it is the cube or third power of the first female number 2. It symbolised Gaea, or the Grand Matriarch, or Holy Mother. 8 was especially associated in classical Rome with the goddess Cybele, originally a Phrygian goddess, who was worshipped by the Romans under the name Magna Mater, or Great Mother. Partly through reverence for Cybele, the number 8 became associated with divine justice, a tradition which survived into the early medieval Tarot, where the card numbered VIII originally represented Justice. Incarnated as Justice, it reminds of the need to be logical and diplomatic. It also represents the need for balance in nature. It also represents decundity, fertility, prosperity, good fortune, law, divine, and secular justice, proportion, foundation and regenerativity.
Esoterically, 8 is intuition, Moses the emancipator, the Magi who brought gifts to the Christ-child, the great trees (oak, beech, maple, sycamore, elm), blindfolded Justice holding her scales, clear crystal, the intellect soaring above the mundance.
This number's colour is black, or the darkest shade of other colours, which is reflected in complexion and hair. Close relations are made difficult by these coldness, the result of early maturity leading to an over-frankness when expressing opinions. Strong ideals rule the head and the heart, which can make others seek advice. Be frank, but understanding. Saturn castrated his father, Uranus. Don't cut off relations by being highly principled.
