By Sarah Taylor
Cups, Swords, Cups; water, air, water; a whole lot of emotive energy surrounding an issue of the mind that seems both harsh and uncompromising. What do you feel like when you look at the Nine of Swords?
The first word that comes to mind when I see it is, Ouch! — and not a light-hearted one. It comes with a sharp intake of breath, tongue pressed against teeth that are locked together, as if I’m steeling myself for the sharp end of their attack.
What’s interesting is that the attack has already happened. The blades bear this out, dripping as they are with blood. In fact, they are blood. There is no separation between the wounder and the wounded.
That is because we are the ones doing the wounding to ourselves.
The Nine of Swords is a card of intellect rather than of our feelings or our physical world. It can refer to a physical affliction, but given that it is aspected by two emotion-based cards, in this reading it represents anything we tell ourselves about who we are that is designed to induce guilt, fear and shame.
The Nine of Swords tells the story of recrimination, which is really self-recrimination because it is only the things that we believe about ourselves that are imbued with the power to hurt us. An insult has no impact if there is no hook to hang it from. The nine swords are the mental and psychic hooks we harbour that turn thoughts into instruments of damage to our esteem and worth.