9 of Swords Rx as feelings - and then The World and 10 of cups?

VSN

Hello!

I'm a newbie here, so please have a bit of patience with me :)
So basically a while ago I did a 9-card spread about a potential relationship that started out beautifully but never lifted itself off the ground for reasons that were unknown to me. In the "What are his feelings for me?" column I pulled 3 cards, two of which baffled me:

9 of Swords Rx
Strength Rx

Although I never use clarifiers for my readings I decided I wanted to use them now so I could understand the situation better and put it to rest. The clarifiers pulled in addition to the 9-card spread were:

9 of Swords Rx ---- The World and 10 of Cups
Strength Rx ------- The Star Rx and 5 of Pentacles

While the latter I believe I can understand - lack of self-confidence (Strength and The Star) and courage to initiate anything, feelings of hopelessness, fear (probably brought from a previous failed relationship), possibly a distorted body image that contributes to the lack of confidence (he might have some weight issues) - the former I cannot so easily.
What are your opinions on this combination? I associate the 9 of Swords Rx with anxiety, discontent, nightmare but with the other two what should I understand of it?
Thank you for taking the time to read and answer this!:)
 

jenessa

9 of Swords Rx ---- The World and 10 of Cups
What are your opinions on this combination? I associate the 9 of Swords Rx with anxiety, discontent, nightmare but with the other two what should I understand of it?
There are a couple of ways to read 9 Swords in the reversed position, in the sense that "depending on the surrounding cards" it can be read as: mental anguish being brought to an even deeper and more negative level .. or conversely, it could represent a letting go of whatever is causing the person to suffer .. (ie. the swords that are hanging over the person's head, have fallen away). So with this trio of cards I would use the later meaning for this reversal.

Furthermore, the letting go of whatever was causing him anxiety &/or mental distress {9Swords rx}, could be a result of the situation coming full circle {World}, with the support of family or friends {10 Cups}.

However, in applying the above interpretation to the context of the question you were clarifying .. "what are his feelings for you"?, i'm not sure how this would apply, other than i'd take this to mean: that his feelings for you are such, that he's letting go of whatever was causing him distress.
 

jenessa

PS: As your a "newbie" it might be helpful if you posted the entire reading in the "your readings forum" .. that way people could view the spread as a whole, and see the positional meanings for all the cards drawn.

REGARDS/jenessa
 

Pandora180

9 of Swords Rx ---- The World and 10 of Cups
Strength Rx ------- The Star Rx and 5 of Pentacles

While the latter I believe I can understand - lack of self-confidence (Strength and The Star) and courage to initiate anything, feelings of hopelessness, fear (probably brought from a previous failed relationship), possibly a distorted body image that contributes to the lack of confidence (he might have some weight issues) - the former I cannot so easily.
What are your opinions on this combination? I associate the 9 of Swords Rx with anxiety, discontent, nightmare but with the other two what should I understand of it?
Thank you for taking the time to read and answer this!:)

9 of Swords rx, as his feelings for you this would seem to be some fear or anxiety over you that wasn't actually even an issue… yet. He was/is probably driving himself nuts with these sorts of thoughts. With the clarifiers I'd say he was hoping for the best and the worst all at the same time, with you. 10 of Cups could have been the outcome he'd hoped for yet his own unceasing inner anxiety (over what?) deemed it was over before it began (The World).

Strength rx could also be about him simply……… not feeling strongly enough about you or the potential relationship to forge ahead through his discontent, or to break out of his funk. Why? Star rx could simply mean the stars are not working in your favor astrologically. 5 Pentacles rx tells us that, again, fate may be working against this union as it would not be a beneficial relationship.

In short, I think fate may have stepped in here and that's what the cards are saying. Sometimes it's very hard to see why and how certain things happen for a very definite reason.
 

VSN

jenessa - thank you for your input! :D I did not think it was worth posting the entire spread in the "your readings" forum b/c I didn't think that people would have the patience to read and interpret a 9-card spread and b/c I was more interested in these 2 cards since I couldn't fully comprehend them.

pandora - I found your opinions on these combinations excellent! :D They really did make me think some more. I didn't feel that the 9 of Swords Rx card had a positive meaning -that I helped him forget his previous distress - even though I wish it were so. Before I read your post I thought about the meanings in a certain way: I remember that the first time we actually met he opened up to me much more than I did with him and on a more intimate level than I thought he would - The World card pops into my head (oh, and if I might digress from Tarot to astrology, his Moon is conjunct my Ascendant and I read that this also happens with the aspect). We departed and he made me promise to see him the next day. And then he suddenly changed, he became more distant, more tense, he reacted as if we were more or less strangers. And I was left baffled and with the memory of a now empty promise of more closeness or of a potential relationship. He sometimes had "episodes" of warmth and openness and curiosity about me only to retreat some more inside his shell (oh, those Cancer shells come to my mind). So I thought that his initial feelings (World and 10 of Cups) were hidden or minimized under his dominant feelings and attitude of anxiety and discontent. But it is also possible that those two clarifiers signified his *intentions* and not his feelings, as you said. I knew as a rule that I couldn't swap one clarifier for the card in the spread, but that their meaning did add to the original one. This is why I thought that I drew the 9 of Swords Rx and not the World or 10 of Cups - the 9 of Swords energy was dominant, the other two types of energies weren't...
In the end, I do think that whatever may have caused him distress and/or pain in the past was not an explanation or an excuse for not wanting or believing in me in the first place - love or the promise of love comes with *hope* alongside it, hope that things this time will be better. So yes, Strength Rx could also mean this.