The Nine of Swords in tarot
The Nine of Swords gives a clear image of a person waking up in the middle of the night, distressed and shaken after a dark nightmare.
Visual description of the card:
The Nine of Swords shows a person sitting on their bed with their head in their hands. They seem to have just woken up from a bad nightmare, clearly upset, anxious, and frightened, or possibly even crying.
On the wall behind them, there are nine swords, and the base of the bed is decorated with an engraving of a duel, where one person is being defeated by another.
The blanket covering them is adorned with roses and silhouettes of astrological symbols, representing that everyone, to some degree, goes through these painful situations in life.
The Nine of Swords Upright:
General Meaning
General Meaning This card is all about fear and anguish, but the things causing you distress and despair now come from within.
This operates on a psychological and spiritual level and likely isn’t caused by anything external, like situations or people. It’s your mind creating overwhelming anxiety and anguish that paralyzes and, at times, terrifies you.
We know today that reality is partly shaped by ourselves, as explained by the widely known Law of Attraction: Your feelings generate your thoughts, and these shape the reality you live in.
You are creating the reality you face moment by moment from within. What you experience from the world, what you call “reality,” is undoubtedly influenced by what’s happening inside you. It’s colored by your desires, deepest fears, dreams, and expectations.
In this way, you create your own world, and the decisions, attitudes, and choices you make shape how you experience the universe you’ve created. The appearance of this card indicates you’re not handling your emotions well; you’re generating that sense of helplessness, distress, and unhappiness yourself.
Maybe things aren’t as bad as you feel and think, but your mind has certainly created the misery you’re experiencing.
On the other hand, the Nine of Swords can clearly indicate that you are deeply afraid of the future. Fear of tomorrow paralyzes you in despair, and you create all kinds of fantasies, projections, and stories that you assume to be true.
In this way, you end up steering everything toward that outcome. What started as a thought becomes reality, or life gives you exactly what you’ve imagined—a self-fulfilling prophecy. You create the situation, and the universe, which never contradicts us, grants you what you’ve created. So, be careful what you wish for and think!
The Nine of Swords clearly marks that you are carrying a heavy burden of worry. It may be, as we’ve discussed, coming from your mind or real, concrete external factors. Either way, you can’t sleep; you stay up at night, dominated by insomnia, with your thoughts running wild.
Perhaps you’re going in circles around a problem, or you’re “winding yourself up” unnecessarily. If you could step back and try to be more objective for a moment, you might see that things aren’t as dark or serious as they seem. Maybe you’re exaggerating, and it’s crucial here that you don’t drown in that distress but make an effort to face it and see if you can change it.
Everyone experiences fear, distress, and anxiety in life, often multiple times, because life, in a sense, is full of uncertainty. But we shouldn’t let this inevitable condition drain our energy, joy, and optimism.
Without those elements, life becomes difficult and perhaps meaningless. You mustn’t let yourself be paralyzed, but rather try to be flexible, accept that things are as they are, and sometimes there’s a reason for them, while other times, there simply isn’t. That’s part of the game, and you need to play with the cards you’ve been dealt.
The Nine of Swords can also point out that you’re very rigid and hard on yourself, constantly ruminating on negative thoughts, punishing yourself even for minor, trivial mistakes. You carry a permanent anger toward yourself and don’t allow yourself to see anything good in you, and this bad mood shows on the outside, towards others.
So, the card invites you to ask: why are you so angry and unforgiving with yourself? What’s your fault or sin? You need to break away from that negative internal dialogue and make an effort to see and appreciate the many good things you surely have but aren’t allowing yourself to notice. This reflects a complex self-esteem issue.
Finally, even though this card suggests everything originates from you, it’s possible that your distress, fears, and problems are actually coming from external sources, like your partner, family, or someone at work.
In that case, it’s essential to reassess things with that person or people, see if you can improve their attitude or the relationship, or if necessary, distance them from your inner circle or even remove them from your life. As the philosopher Sartre once said, “Hell is other people…”
In Love
The Nine of Swords suggests there may be some real concerns about the relationship. Love is the hardest area to be objective in, and it’s difficult to know what’s real and what’s not. You need to try to distinguish between what’s really happening and what your mind, in its distress, is imposing as real.
However, if deep down you feel something is wrong, that the relationship isn’t healthy, you should trust your feelings. Something may be happening behind your back—you don’t know exactly what, but you sense it, and it translates into that distress that keeps you up at night.
Find out and ask; it’s better to have the raw truth than to stay in limbo. It’s a time of confusion, instability, and anguish for the relationship.
If you’re single and looking for love, be careful not to trust blindly, especially with people you’ve just met. Things might not be what they seem. Be cautious and don’t rush; trust is something that has to be earned, not given freely.
In Work
The Nine of Swords tells you that worrying yourself sick or losing sleep over your work won’t solve the problems you have. Focus on what’s within your control, what you can manage. The rest is out of your hands, so worrying about it is unnecessary.
Keep in mind that much of the distress you’re feeling might be exaggerated. There might not be conspiracies against you, nor the whole universe plotting for you to lose your job. Try to see things realistically and solve what you can, not in your head but with real actions and facts.
If you’re looking for work, the wait is certainly stressful, but you must not despair. Life is cyclical, and work will come back, but you need to be emotionally stable first to be able to get it. Recover, and the work will come.
In Money
The Nine of Swords presents a situation of great distress. Here, the card doesn’t tell us whether this situation has a solution or not, whether it will resolve soon. It only describes that you are suffering, spending a lot of time imagining one disaster after another. You need to calm down and try to reorganize, starting little by little.
Make lists, come up with realistic plans, and start paying off debts bit by bit. This is solved with order. Now is not the time to spend on anything because you probably can’t afford it. Put your credit card away or even get rid of it, and don’t dig a deeper hole around you.
And don’t gamble or rely on some lucky break. You can solve things with the help of other people but not through chance.
If you’ve started a business or investments, if your company or activity is struggling, staying up at night imagining calamities won’t help.
You need to stay calm, and as the suit of swords suggests, seek rational and logical solutions. It might not be as bad as you think.
In Health
The Nine of Swords warns that this is a time to be cautious about using substances like drugs or alcohol, or self-medicating. What you really need is to get to the root of what’s bothering you.
Stress may be hitting you hard now, and you need to look for ways to mitigate the risk factors to manage it. If all else fails, you might need to consider changing your lifestyle.
Be careful not to become dependent on any substance, as in these situations, it’s easy to turn to them to ease the distress and fear. Everything should be done with some supervision.
In Spirituality
The Nine of Swords is a clear signal that you need to slow down the activity in your mind. Meditation, contemplation, and gentle exercises are excellent tools to reduce stress and help you get into a less emotional, more spiritual space.
It’s essential to quiet the noise in your mind and stop the negative internal dialogue. Learn how to silence yourself. Seek help, read about it, watch a video, or attend a course. This will surely help you in this process until you can move forward.
The Nine of Swords Reversed
General Meaning
General Meaning Although in reverse, this card shares much with the upright version, meaning you’re still dealing with fear, anxiety, and despair. Here, fortunately, you’re starting to find a way out of this overwhelming mental state.
There comes a moment when you realize you’ve been blowing things out of proportion. Your mind has created a universe of problems and situations that, when looked at closely, aren’t as terrible or serious as they seemed.
It’s just like those thoughts we have at night: They’re generally gloomy, fatalistic, and exaggerated. Then, when the sun rises, bringing light to everything, it also illuminates our inner world.
All that seemed like the end of the world hours before stops being so, and things fall into a more rational, balanced, and far less distressing place. You seem to be going through this process now, standing on the line between the last minutes of terrible darkness and the first moments of saving light.
On one hand, you’ve come to this place of improvement on your own, but it can also come from external sources. A problem that worried you becomes clear or gets resolved; a solution comes for an emotional, work, or financial issue, and you find evidence and information that reassures you.
Whatever the case, things are starting to clear up, so you’re beginning to calm down and return to a more normal state. You can recover your rest and sleep, letting go of that constant negative inner chatter that caused so much damage, sparking all kinds of harmful thoughts, stories, and fantasies.
Slowly, reality, reason, and logic begin to prevail, which is the meaning of the suit of swords. Your reason is starting to take control over an inner world overwhelmed by anxiety. You’re realizing you can be your own worst enemy, and there’s no point in hurting yourself without real cause.
There’s a new sense of confidence that things will be okay. You don’t know how or when, or where that well-being will come from, but you just know because you FEEL it. Now you understand the Law of Attraction, knowing that what you feel turns into what you think, and what you think shapes reality. So, if you feel better, you’ll think better things, and reality forms based on those thoughts.
You’re now in a phase of recovery and healing. The worst is over. Things have come to light, there’s new clarity and understanding, and everything is heading in a more positive direction for the future and your life.
It’s possible that during this phase, your dreams have a lot to tell you. You’ll likely dream about vivid and realistic things. It’s your unconscious mind finding solutions and showing you reality through the only channel it has—your dreams. So, don’t dismiss or ignore those messages.
In Love
When the Nine of Swords reversed appears in a love context, you may need to give serious thought to what’s happening in the current relationship. If you feel that your partner has been dishonest, this is a good time to talk it over or ask them for the necessary clarifications.
Remember the general message of the card: don’t let your imagination run wild; the reality may not be nearly as bad. There may be tensions, but they’re starting to ease, and everything is gradually calming down. The worst moments have passed, and it’s now possible to rebuild the relationship or what’s been damaged.
If you’re looking for love, take your time getting to know new people now. You might be feeling vulnerable, and you may meet people who will tell you what you want to hear but without much guarantee that it’s true. Trust your instincts. You’re in a healing phase now, so love will come when you’re ready.
In Work
The Nine of Swords reversed tells you that worrying about your job won’t change anything. Do your best, and don’t be shy—if you feel like someone at work isn’t treating you fairly or has taken credit for your work, bring it up and confront it.
Don’t imagine terrible situations because they almost certainly won’t happen. Everything is more in your imagination than in reality, so stop seeing conspiracies or thinking bad luck is following you. If you’ve been feeling pressure, tension, and stress, these are beginning to fade.
In Money
The reversed Nine of Swords tells you to be careful about whom you trust when it comes to money at this time. Double-check everything before lending money, and don’t lend more than you can afford to lose.
There’s a small chance, with anxiety being the central theme of this card, that you might be accused of something you didn’t do regarding money. If that happens, stand up and defend yourself without hesitation.
But not everything is negative: the bad times are starting to ease, and those catastrophic, grave ideas you were feeling and imagining are fading away. Now things are starting to clear up, everything is more real, and you’re seeing solutions you didn’t think were possible.
Maybe simple, logical solutions that seemed too easy to work but now make sense. As you calm down, everything falls into perspective. The worst of the storm has passed, and you’re heading into calmer waters. Have faith; things will get better from now on.
In Health
Now is not the time to feel embarrassed or shy about your body. It’s time to improve the relationship you have with it by taking care of yourself, exercising, and eating healthy, but most importantly, by improving how you see and feel about your body.
The distress you may feel about your body or health is slowly easing, and you’re gaining confidence. Keep working on it.
In Spirituality
You may be beating yourself up over something, and this could be interfering with your spiritual growth. What happened in the past? Whatever it was, it’s over now, and there’s nothing you can do to change it. Forgive yourself, if needed.
You are not defined by your past or any single action from it. You’re your own worst critic, and you need to stop this cycle instead of going in circles.
