Reading Cards: Correspondences
Nine of Swords and Premonitions
You’ve heard the familiar encouragement, “Know what the cards mean to you, forget the book, interpret the cards for yourself.”
Except I often find it difficult to access a card’s energy. Several times a month, with cards I’ve seen a hundred times, I feel blocked. I can't access the poetry of the image or its esotericism and it feels like a wipe out when I get nothing from the card and mind goes to the book meaning. To break the block I switch energy and rather than strain to pull meaning from the card I let the events of the week map meaning to the card.
Like In August 2019, when I planned to see a local band. In the weeks leading up to the show I experienced premonitions of seeing someone from my past at the same show. I ignored the premonition because I thought my mind was streaming garbage into my consciousness. The premonition came to me repeatedly but I denied the possibility I’d see the person at the show.
The day of the show I pulled a card (RWS deck) to understand what may happen and Sword Nine presented. The first hit I got for the card was the traditional meaning of mental anxiety - but that wasn’t the right hit. When I imagined the evening I didn’t sense heavy energy. No reason to think I’d regret anything about the show and that first hit felt like mind talking over intuition. I set aside the card, headed into the night.
Hours passed, music played and I’d been right to sense the night would be a good ride. The evening went fast I almost didn’t hear my name spoken. Just as I turned to follow the sound of the voice saying my name I saw the person from my premonitions. In front of me was the vision I’d dismissed over and over.
When I got home I threw my face in my hands and realized my Sword Nine moment. With face in hands I remembered the Sword Nine card pulled and in that moment a powerful correspondence formed.
Sword Nine was correspondence that what I’d been seeing could be trusted. In the RWS deck we see stacked swords suspended over the figure's head, ordered and pointing forward against the backdrop of night and the subconscious. I needn’t dismiss the mind’s message, she is clear. I needn’t doubt the shadows at the edge of premonition, there is no distortion.
There is no tarot book that defines Sword Nine as the card for believing premonitions. It’s a meaning that can only exist in the language between personal energy and the psychic currents flowing in my practice. And this is the work of reading tarot. Mapping energetically powerful and significant moments to the cards you pull. It requires attention and presence and persistence but as the correspondences present themselves the richness of your readings opens dimensions that reveal more.