By Sarah Taylor

What happens when you feel like you’re reaching a point of bringing something into form — of finally birthing something that, until now, has been conceptual — and you become aware of the fragility of the moment you’re in? That moment when you are in the space between the in-breath of your work and effort, and the out-breath of your finished product, where you can practically smell and touch what you’ve been working towards.

Ace of Swords, Nine of Stones, Two of Swords from the Haindl Tarot deck, created by Hermann Haindl. Click on the image for a larger version.

It hangs before you — your labour, your baby — and it is materialising in front of your very eyes.

What goes through your mind, just then?

The Nine of Stones (Pentacles in the Rider-Waite Smith tarot) is the second-to-last numbered card in the tarot deck. It is the second-to-last card in a sequence that has moved you from inspirational spark (Wands, the first suit), to emotional response (Cups, the second), to intellectual concept (Swords, the third), to the concrete (Stones).

It’s been quite the journey to get you from there, to here. To this moment, when you can look at the card at the centre and see what has coalesced. It’s taken some time, and the road has not been smooth — there’s little doubt about that. Tarot, seen chronologically, is the ideal. Then there is life. Life doubles back on itself; it has unexpected turns and loops; it has ladders, and it has snakes. And not all of the snakes are there simply to stymie your progress. No. Those snakes are there as quality control: their presence tests your mettle, your product, your resolve.

Your Soul is a divine taskmaster that asks you to be as much as you can be. It demands nothing less of you. You haven’t learned the steps to the dance that will free you? It will send you back to dance school. One pirouette forward, three pirouettes back. You want more money? It will show you both its presence, and its absence. You say you want to be a healer? You learn what it is to be a patient.

And you learn what it is to be patient.

It’s your patience that brings you to where you are now, oh beholder-of-the-Nine-of-Stones. Your patience, and your desire to learn balance (the Two of Stones), to take instruction (Three), to understand the limitations of power (Four), to know poverty (Five), to know wealth and what you do with it (Six), to have your faith tested (Seven), and to dedicate yourself over and over again (Eight).

So, here you are at the Nine. Your Nine. And what is going through your mind as you watch what happens when you release your creation into the big wide world?

Actually, what’s going through your mind holds the potential to be entirely supportive of what you’re bringing through — but it asks for two things: first, a faith in your ability to see clearly and to act on that; and, second, a willingness to keep the peace and balance two potentially opposing forces, so that there is safe passage for the Nine to take shape.

Swords are associated with air and the mind. Like both of these, they are fast-moving and quick-changing. The Ace and the Two, however, are two of the most harmonious Swords cards, and it is these that are ‘holding the Nine in place’, both visually and metaphorically.

So imagine, if you will, that you are the guardian of the Nine of Stones (as you are), and you are in the cave of your creation and you must bring these stones to light so that you can share them with the world. What resources are available to you that will be your allies in this task? On your left, you see the Ace — one of the psychic book-ends to what you’ve been writing into existence.

The Ace embodies clear thinking, the truth, a keen ability to get to the crux of what’s going on, to make a decision, to communicate that clearly and keenly. There is nothing spared; that blade cuts clean. Don’t go in ragged because the truth has all it needs to get the job done. You will know it when you wield the Ace because it will be a cool, directed fire in your mind and belly. Your will is in service to your insight. This is your first ally.

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Your second resource is the Two of Swords. Your ability to hold space open between two different points of view. Your ability to negotiate, if only to see a particular part of the process through.

The Two is your desire to choose peace and negotiation above conflict and over-involvement. It is uninvolved. That means that there is a detachment, for sure — and you know you won’t be able to keep that kind of stepping back going for long. But sometimes that detachment serves a purpose for a moment, until clarity (the Ace) comes through.

So step back, rise above, hold the tension, demand a contract knowing it will be short-term only. This is a temporary alliance, but it serves the purpose.

These are two fragile, but paradoxically perfect and robust, means to hold that Nine as it emerges from the birth canal and takes its first breath. And when that happens, reapply that insight (Ace) and the knowledge that your Two of Swords is a finite equilibrium: let that shit go. Your role was to bring this through. Now it is to be custodian and safe-guard.

When it emerges — and you will feel it and know it — you can let go that part of you who has sweated and slogged over its becoming. You can afford to sit back, and breathe. Because it can now breathe on its own. You are no longer obligated to it. But you are perfectly entitled to enjoy it.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Ace of Swords (the pure, limitless potential of air), Nine of Stones (Venus in Virgo), Two of Swords (Moon in Libra)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.