In Tarot, the 9 of Swords is one of the darker cards in the deck.
In the Rider-Waite-Smith version, the image shows someone sitting up in bed, with their head in their hands, and 9 swords hovering malevolently in the air around them.
There’s a strong sense of anxiety associated with this card, and an internalization of fears and/or depression.
Quite literally, it describes the type of obsessive worries that can keep us up at night and make us fearful of everything around us.
As unpleasant as it is though, in my own experience, the 9 of Swords typically points to fears that are much larger in the mind than they are in reality.
If we could possibly just get some sleep, and see things in the light of day, we’d likely laugh at the monsters we feared the night before. Unfortunately though, it’s not always so easy.
The wonderful short film below called Upstairs, by Matthias Hoegg, illustrates this type of 9 of Swords energy. If you let your mind get carried away, even the most innocent sound can set off a torrent of fears.
Please visit the Upstairs video page for more info on the film.
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