Nine of Swords: ‘I Need Some Air’
“I need some space”, is something that one might say to a partner they are about to break up with, or to their parents when they are ready to move out of home. “I need some air.”
Open space, fresh air. How much of it do you experience in a regular day?
I used to live in a high-rise council flat near the centre of Manchester, England, on the edge of the city centre. I loved that little flat near the canal and geese, which were the only signs of Nature in the area by a long way. Once, when walking along the canal at night, I got hit in the face with a broken glass bottle by someone, for no rhyme or reason. He just came out of nowhere, hit me and then ran off. It was a scary experience which I somehow escaped with just a small scar above my brow, and yet it didn’t stop me from walking by the water in the daytime. (I never tried it at night again though.) Something demanded that I walk by the canal, and I don’t think it was just the water. Not many people walked there (for good reason, as I discovered) but I had to: the sense of having space without too many people around overpowered my fears of the dangerous, unhinged people lurking, which they often were! (It was a rough part of the city….)
On the whole, it was a magic time, but this was years ago, long before I realised my need for proper Nature connection. One of my best friends, Ames, lived in the same block of flats with their partner. I met my partner Lukasz, during this time, and he moved in with me. We had a lot of parties (I was the party type back then … now I’m the booze-free ‘read in silence’ type), but I hardly ever left the building, unless it was to go to work or for a night out.
When I first moved to Edinburgh, the hills all around the city – and even within the city – were magical to me. It seemed like Nature was always present, always visible, even in the centre of the capital city, which was a stark contrast to flat, concrete Manchester where I had lived for 12 years. I began walking up the little hills near Arthurs’s Seat – an extinct volcano in the centre of the city – looking out over the massive estuary, over to the green hills of Fife. I would take in the sights of Edinburgh Castle and the ancient, gothic city that had captured my heart so deeply. I would breathe in the air in big gulps, walking with my arms outstretched atop the grassy space known as Whinny Hill (once thought to be a home of faeries, I later learned). Our dog Euro, who was a puppy at the time, ran through the long grasses like a crazed fiend as the cool winds whipped against our faces. The air up there chilled us to the bone, even in the middle of summer, but I felt like a soaring bird: I could never quite get my head around living in a city which had miles and miles of open hills and green spaces to wander right on my doorstep. I had never considered living in the countryside before but … is this what it was like? Perhaps this was the kind of place that I needed to be all the time.
In the Marseille Nine of Swords, eight curved swords meet at the top and bottom of the card to create a tiny oval in the centre: four swords on either side of the card, curving around and taking up most of the space. These swords have been progressing throughout the suit: in each card a new sword appears, swallowing more and more space.
Above: Nine of Swords from the Tarot de Marseille (Camoin/Jodorowsky version)
In the centre of the oval shape stands the ninth sword. In the Jodorowsky/Camoin version of the Marseille, it is yellow, the colour of intelligence; it appears to have been broken and put back together. The tip of the sword pushes through the confines of the curved swords to reach for freedom, open space. In the Jean Noblet version, the sword is an intense red colour in the centre of the confined space – an anger, an urgency or passion to escape, perhaps. The sword’s tip turns into clever yellow where its tip escapes the curved swords, making its message known. It’s better where there’s more space. That’s the clever place to be.
Above: Nine of Swords from the Tarot de Marseille (Noblet/Flornoy version).
The Nine of Swords (the suit of the Air element, remember) says, “You need the fresh air on your face right now. A place where there are less people, where the city smoke gives way to a clean breeze, where there is more openness. A hilltop or a mountain would be the perfect medicine, but a city park would do the trick: perhaps in the early morning before it gets busy. You are spending too much time indoors, or in crowded spaces, and it is getting to you more than you realise. Push through the physical confines that are affecting your mental health in ways you rarely acknowledge. Find somewhere where you can stretch out your arms to your sides, turn around slowly and take in big gulps of air. Spin like a playful child in the openness and spaciousness. It is necessary!”
That’s all for now, friends. Thank you for being here – and please check out my Therapeutic Tarot Sessions and my courses embracing Tarot and Nature if you’d like us to work together. You can also sign up for the Tarot Blog newsletter (different to my main newsletter) below to receive occasional email updates (roughly monthly) with the latest posts.
Smiles from Scotland,
Stephen
