Your Chosen Card – Nine of Swords Upright Rider Waite Deck
When upright, this card represents anguish of mind. Sometimes you feel so bad that youd like to run off to a sheltered refuge and cloister yourself like a monk or a nun. Worrisome thoughts may be keeping you up at night or having a negative effect on your health. Perhaps you have felt the sting of harsh words from a loved one (warlike Mars in mental Gemini), or you fear an impending split or separation in a relationship. Whatever is troubling you, just remember that matters look bleaker in anticipation and in the darkness of night than when they actually manifest in tangible reality. According to author Amber Jayanti, this card reflects ‘how painful it can be to let go of what you want and accept what is.’ 42
Keywords Upright: The need for acceptance, self-realization, legitimate fear, self-exploration, confronting self-doubt and negative thinking, moving toward resolution, accepting loss, looking at matters realistically, piety, faith, devotion, virginity, integrity, celibacy.
Timing: 10 Gemini20 Gemini. Tropical, 1 June10 June. Sidereal, 25 June5 July.
Astrology: Assertive and warlike Mars in the second decan of airy Gemini, the realm of the Knight of Swords (Fire of Air) and the Lovers (Gemini). Mars is linked to the Tower.
Number Symbolism: 9 – the final single digit, culmination, fruition, attainment.
Rider Waite: One seated on her couch in lamentation, with the swords over her. She is as one who knows no sorrow which is like unto hers. It is a card of utter desolation. Divinatory Meanings: Death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair; an ecclesiastic; (R) imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame.
When Nine of Swords is upright you can pretty much take it that life is going well but that’s when life takes us by surprise. If Nine of Swords is unclear it may help to choose a card from the Major Arcana to provide more insight into what it is Nine of Swords is trying to tell you. If you had a particular issue in mind, or want to seek clarification on something else, you can also choose again to get more guidance.
This chosen card is part of your upright card reading for Nine of Swords using cards from the Rider Waite Tarot Deck. You will find many more tarot pages that will be of great help if you need tarot card meanings. Use the search at the bottom of the page. We have some amazing tarot books for you to browse. Please see below.
Here are some snippets from a few of my favorite books
Complete Book of Tarot: Card 6, the near future, was the Nine of Swords, sometimes called the nightmare card. It depicts a woman, perhaps a cloistered nun, sitting up in bed at night in a state of worry and preoccupation. The querent said that the possibility of not being able to have children was weighing heavily on his girlfriends mind. In addition, her mothers health has recently concerned her.
Creative Tarot: Well focus our attention here on the twentieth-century postGolden Dawn, around the time that Waite and Smith were redefining the tarot for a new age.
Complete Book of Tarot: The Tarot of Marseille, the oldest known of which is by Jean Noblet in Paris around 1650.
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Tarot Triumphs: This kind of process may be mirrored to some degree in your own use of Tarot, in that it will evolve and be shaped by your own life experiences. Your personal relationship with the cards may be modified over the years. My first encounter, as I’ve described, was with the Rider-Waite pack, a vividly-colored and fully pictorial set of suits and Trumps all heavily imbued with esoteric symbolism. I marveled at it, was transported by it even. However, after a period of research and decades of using Tarot cards, this has evolved into a quieter sense of affection and respect for that particular pack, while on the other hand my interest in the symbolism of the Major Arcana of the Marseilles pack has grown and proved to be a more lasting flame. This is my Tarot of choice, and it is the version I feature in this book. It is the closest representation we have of the core of the Tarot tradition, and for this reason it remains a classic and, to my mind, offers the best way to try to understand the essence of Tarot.