9 of Swords

Oddly enough this is one of my favorite cards in the RW deck, the other being the 2 of swords.
Yes, it is a stressful card and I know that many of us at one time or another have felt this way before going to bed. I know I have!
At night things can also seem much larger than life.
The swords are the bad things hanging over her head-things she has to face, things she dosen't want to think about or wish would go away.The sword fight is just symbolic of the conflict of her troubles.
But, I also see it as a cleansing experience. Crying can be very therapeutic. The blanket (which I love!) is her protection.
I somehow think that she will be able to see things a bit more clearly. As for things being larger than life at night-those swords may be merely tree branches in the morning.

roppo said:

As I wrote somewhere, I believe the fighting scene on the bed panel is "Cain kills Abel" and relevant to the decan attribution; Mars in Gemini = strife between brothers.

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Makes sense to me. For example of a comparative image link below is for 'the killing of abel' on the Ghent altarpiece by Van Eyck, 1425-29 [you need to scroll down to the relevant image, above eve]:

http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/e/eyck_van/jan/09ghent/1open1/

Kwaw

Start off with the fact that the scene is on a bed.
Even if it's a Tarot bed, it's a bed~ not a museum.

Cain & Abel are not the stuff of bedroom furniture.

9 of swords has often depicted to me a situation where the querent is going thru anxiety and sleepless nights, is suffering from insomnia, but the querent is usually making a mountain of a molehill...it probably is not as bad as s/he makes it out to be! The rose bedspread, on the other hand, indicates that there IS some good stuff in your life or your situation, it is not all that bad as you are making it out to be. the zodiac signs indicate that 'time WILL heal everything".

I concur with MichM - this and the 5 of cups for me are the "depression" cards, and I have been on anti-depressants for the last two years so this is important enough!

The 5 of Cups shows I am overlooking what is still there; I got it as an Opponent and the Four of Cups in the part of the reading where I was overcoming the Opponent, which suggested to me that clearly, the hand of Fate was going to show me the full cups that I still had while I was puzzling over the three spilt ones and trying to make sense of them.

Similarly the 9 of Swords is the endless worry about, ironically, the things that I am most hopeful for (and it appeared in the space before the 5 of Cups in the above reading, suggesting that I was panicking over nothing and that all would be revealed in time - which indeed it was, and from an unexpected quarter). What others have said about the bedspread being indicative that there are still good things in life rings a bell - similar to the 5 of Cups with the two full cups still there.

To me the 9Sw is prophetic of worry ahead, but I never reach the "end" of the 10 of Swords, which would suggest that these worries are fluff and nonsense rather than real and genuine.

Nine (9) Of Swords

I'm not sure if this detail means anything, but on the Original RWS, the Roman Numeral IX is incomplete above the "X" part. IOW, there is a line that runs along the full bottom of the IX, but does not run along the full top.

The other IX cards from the Minors do not have this odd detail. I'm unsure of its significance (if any).

9 of Swords

Actually, this card is the "dark night of the soul"...
causing MENTAL problems...

-a crisis situation -

This peson is "literally" making themselves sick with worry.
And they usually do wake up in the middle of the night crying
with dispair. This card could very well verge on the edge of suicide
and should be taken very seriously.

The person needs to "let go of" or "forgive" all the experiences
they have had that are negative...that ones they can recall.

They need to forgive "themselves." They also need to seek happiness
in order to replace or let go of the negative. Of course, it makes sense, that
the person would really learn a lot from going through this/these experience/s.

We shouldn't take this card lightly, as it is a warning.

Reversed:
The person has NOT learned from past experiences. They still do not
understand. Here is where you can warn them of heading for a serious
breakdown or crisis, unless they make some change in their life now.

I had this card come up in a celtic spread about myself in the fears position. I read a story that the IX of Swords was mourning the death of her brother killed in X of Swords with the suit going in reverse from King to Ace.
My brother had a heart transplant in December 2007 so it really struck me down when my initial instinct said I feared losing my brother.

It has come up in spreads since but now have come to read the IX of swords as there is something happening we are trying not to see and we are blocking it out.

The bedspread is a mixture of zodiac symbols, obviously, and also what appears to be the original tudor rose back design for the deck itself. If you use the Original Rider-Waite from Rider & Sons, with the blue rose backing, this makes more sense.

As for the scene on the bedframe, I think it relates to the violent, depressive, haunting, or victim-mentality meanings of the card. Someone is defeating someone else with a sword. I've always had an eerie fascination with this card; the Ten of Swords, too. They're just so...dark.

The Esoteric Title of this card is Lord of Despair and Cruelty-it's a card that represents nightmares, anxieties, fears and that feeling of unease.

Regarding the bed and the bedspread quoting from Robert M. Place's book Tarot, History, Symbolism and Divination he says

The quilt on the bed has a checked pattern. In the yellow squares there are red flowers with the fourfold structure. These are poppies, the symbol of dreams and remembrance.

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He also goes on to say

In the alternating blue squares, there are astrological glyphs, which suggest divination. In the carving on the side of the bed, one man thrusts at another as if to stab him with a sword

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What the nine shows us here is that we seem to be heading too far in one direction, that it creates an imbalance mentally which in turn results in negativity and fears that remain in our mind. This is a card that reminds us that the only way out of this situation is to change our perspective, re-form our thoughts so that we may return again to balanced thinking.

From this image you do get the impression that the torment comes from within rather than from without, in order to overcome this infliction one needs to look seriously at these worries in order to understand why you have them.

~HoneyBea~