Nine of Swords
The Nine of Swords is often referred to as the 'nightmare card' and represents anxiety, fear, and troublesome thoughts that haunt us, even in our supposed safe spaces. It encourages confronting these fears head-on, using reason and logic to mitigate their impact. The card suggests that our anxieties might not be as dire as they seem and urges a reflective approach to understand and cope with them.
Keywords
Nightmare Card
The Nine of Swords is the “nightmare card.” In our safest place we are vulnerable and prone to the problems that plague us. Sometimes all we want to do is crawl into the safety of our bed, away from our worries, anxieties, problems—only to have it all chase us there, too, amplified into bad dreams that won’t let us rest even in unconsciousness. On the very day that I sat down to write the description of this card, I had woken up from one of my recurring anxiety dreams of having to spend a holiday with my birth family, kept from my husband, unable to escape the obligation and forced to put up with all their passive-aggressive disapproval. Certain things stick in our psyches and crawl out of the woodwork even after a long time has passed and we think we are safe.
Reason and Logic
Goya's 'The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters' was the biggest inspiration for my interpretation of this card. The title and the visuals are suggestive of the meaning I ascribe to this card too. Reason, logic, and an emotionally collected approach to our situation can usually assuage our worries or, at the very least, give us a clearer picture of our situation and help us find a way to make things better, to see that they are not as bad as we thought, to find a solution. It is when reason sleeps and anxiety runs rampant that we catastrophize.
Facing Fears
When my brain starts running ninety miles a minute with worry, I try to stop and ask myself 'what's the worst thing that could happen?' and assess if that disastrous eventuality is actually realistic or not. Spoiler: it usually isn't. And even if it is, asking myself that question gives me mental preparation for the worst, and strategies to deal with it, in the highly unlikely event of it coming to pass. So, the Nine of Swords shows us the dangers that plague us, but it also reminds us that they may not be as substantial as we think. And when the monsters come, perhaps rather than hiding ourselves from their sight, we ought to sit with them in the dark and learn their nature to better understand them—and what they tell us about ourselves.
Fyodor Pavlov tarot
💜 Please support creators. Buy official decks.
ℹ️ Disclaimer
All card images and descriptions are taken from public sources. They are used for review purposes only. All rights to these images and descriptions belong to their creators. If you believe there is a copyright infringement, please contact us at [email protected].