Steampunk tarot (Moore) - 9 of Swords

shadowdancer

Not the card anyone likes to see in a reading. Yet it is one that can give us a good shake, and scream at us to regain a sense of perspective or mental control.

Here we have a woman in bed. Her hair is nicely plaited, and the bedclothes are incredibly tidy. No sign of any tossing and turning due to nightmares or restlessness. Therefore, we may assume her thoughts have frozen her in place as opposed to causing physical restlessness. (Different from some decks there, and in my mind, it is nice to see this different perspective of the same issue). She holds her hands over her ears, and has her eyes closed. Therefore what is going on in her head does not have any escape through seeing or hearing things differently.

There is a candle lit on her bedside table, and this actually sheds a little light. There is a small aura of yellow around the flame. The flame is unflickering, standing nice and erect, so no indication of any breeze or other movement in the room. Yet the light does not reach to the figure in bed, so we really have no concrete indication as to what is illuminating her.
Abov her we see 9 small daggers hovering in the aira bove her head and headboard. We can tell they are not fixed to the wall as we see their shadow cast behind them on the wall. Each dagger seems to have a tiny pair of wings.

Behind on the wall we see a plain framed picture of a grassy scene, the sky blue in the background of the picture.

So, my usual method here of just raising thoughts to consider when reading this card:

** Is she meditating, or trying to block out external stimulus? How would either affect the interpretation we place on this scene?

** Are the swords taking flight away from her, or flying towards her? Again, if either were to apply, how do they represent her mindset?

** Did she start with one dagger and if so, what has she done to quickly create a flock?

** It does tend to be at night time we blow things out of proportion in our own minds, thus causing a viscious circle. We cannot sleep so we ponder the issue even more. By pondering them even more, we find it harder to reach the required stated to relax in order to sleep, so we fill that awake time with more thoughts. And so the cycle begins. Why is it we rarely do this with positive thoughts? And why night time?

**If one of the main focal points of the card was to be the framed picture, what could it tell us?

I like how Barbara explains at night time, we can be guilty of releasing subconscious fears to the extent they become conscious thoughts.