← Encyclopedia of Tarot · lesson 31/121
Nine of Wands
The Nine of Wands shows someone who has been through a great deal and is still standing. Tired, perhaps hurt, and wary of the next blow, the figure has not given up. It speaks of resilience, persistence and caution — the strength that remains after a long struggle, and the need to hold out a little longer.
The image
A man with a bandaged head leans on his staff and looks to one side, as if expecting an enemy. Behind him eight more staves stand upright in a row, like a fence or palisade. Waite notes his "expectant look". The bandage is usually read as past battles, the row of staves as defences built up over time.
Upright
It tends to describe perseverance under strain: being close to the finish but worn out, guarding what has been achieved, staying alert. Waite calls it "strength in opposition", someone who will meet an onslaught boldly and "prove a formidable antagonist", with delay and adjournment as its side meanings. It often encourages one more effort, while noticing the cost.
Reversed
Reversed, it is often read as exhaustion, defensiveness that has become suspicion, or a sense that the struggle can no longer be kept up. Waite's reversed list is short: "obstacles, adversity, calamity". Some readers do not use reversals, reading the strain in the upright card instead.
Correspondences
A pip of the Wands, element Fire. In the Golden Dawn system, which most English-language decks follow, it is the Moon in the second decan of Sagittarius, 10°–20°, and sits in Yesod, the foundation, on the Tree of Life. The Golden Dawn named it the Lord of Great Strength.
In a reading
In the past it can show hard-won experience; as an obstacle, wariness that keeps others out; as advice, to persist but to rest and ask for help. Following the Seven of Wands it often reads as a long defence nearing its end; before the Ten of Wands, a warning not to carry too much.
In astrology
The Golden Dawn's correspondences, which most English-language decks follow (French, Marseille-based tradition differs for some Major Arcana).
Decan: Moon in Sagittarius, 10°–20°
Element: Fire — the element of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius
Mode: Mutable — Sagittarius is a mutable sign