Opening the calculator…
This usually takes a second or two.
Still working. On a slow connection it can take a few seconds more.
Opening the calculator…
This usually takes a second or two.
Still working. On a slow connection it can take a few seconds more.
Minor Arcana · Suit of Wands · Number card
Nine · Wands
A card that falls upside down is read reversed.
Key words
↑ UprightResilienceGuarded strengthPatient defense
↓ ReversedWorn defensesMounting obstaclesSuspicion
What it means
↑ Upright
Leaning on his staff with a palisade at his back, he watches for whatever comes next: someone tested and still standing. Strength under pressure is the theme, guarded but not beaten, along with a wait that asks for patience. Hold the line you have built, and spend your strength only where an attack is real.
↓ Reversed
The wall begins to feel like a cage. Obstacles stack up, every approach looks like an attack, and the guard has been held so long that tiredness is doing the thinking. Find one person you can let past the palisade, and ask whether the thing you are bracing against is still there.
Nine is near-completion, and in Wands it is the last stretch, when drive has to become endurance. In the 1909 Smith–Waite deck, this card shows a man with a bandaged head gripping his staff and glancing sideways, eight more staves planted in a row behind him like a fence. The bandage shows he has already been hurt; the fence is what he has built and means to protect, which is why he will not lower his guard yet.
Upright
The card signifies strength in opposition. If attacked, the person will meet an onslaught boldly; and his build shows that he may prove a formidable antagonist. With this main significance there are all its possible adjuncts—delay, suspension, adjournment.
Reversed
Obstacles, adversity, calamity.
A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), Part III.