Nine of Wands

This card depicts an ongoing, dynamic interaction with the environment, at a point midway through what appears to be a series of challenges. In other words, life on Earth. But what is portrayed here is not one of our more relaxing or boring moments. There is an air of unsettledness here: things are not in a stable state or in their proper place and the tension is dynamic. There is an energy in this displacement that’s analogous to potential energy in physics. When we are at a distance from where we need or want to be, we can use this as a sort of motive or driving force. A tension between what is and what must be will move things along towards a more equilibrated state, as though driven from behind by what lies ahead. We are drawn or pulled along. Necessity can be used as a drive as well as an excuse. That things are not right yet need not be a bad thing. The Nine of Wands will demand a greater perspective and warn against shortsighted or precipitous action. We are likely to have long-term goals that short-term demands and pressures just won’t respect, but we need to combine the two, reconciling our distant aims with our current necessities, and this is best done in ways wherein one will help the other. Of course there is great wisdom in attending to present circumstances, especially when failure can threaten our further progress. Details of the longer course may be in doubt and distractions may need to be dealt with. There will be obstacles to our progress that were not in our plan. To remember the longer-term goals and objectives will help us to measure or optimize our response. As we make our mid- course maneuvers and corrections, we try to make even accidents and setbacks serve our longer ends. In the systems model of our Tarot number symbolism, the Eights, combined with the learning that we have done, give us an ability to predict the future a little, at least in an environment that isn’t hostile to our theories, or too much changed from the one we are familiar with. But Nines show one of the problems we have with adaptation: that niches change as well, especially when we are on the move, with miles to go before we sleep. The system we have developed needs to learn resilience for this, and self-repair. As Alan Watts suggested, there is wisdom in insecurity. It’s a good time to stay alert and alive, living as we do in interesting times. And if we are to stay alert, we will need to hold some strength in reserve, grab some second winds, and pace ourselves for the longer run. We don’t all need to live right on the edge or in danger. But at least when things are dynamic, we can draw strength from outside or within and do our responding with some of the fire we carry in ourselves. We don’t need our fortunes told to us. The narrowness of our behavioral options is a function of the size of our world. The specialists’ options are narrowed. Fitness is how and where we fit in, and tiny niches need a less generalized fitness. Our contexts can be made larger, both in space and in time. We increase our behavioral options by remembering more of the length of our journey and the distances yet to be traveled. We keep our minds stretched out in this way, giving us room to sort our options. We think on the fly, ex temp and ad hoc. Our expectations of difficulty cannot be allowed to be overwhelming: they must be seen as a challenge. The problem is seen as a thing to be solved, something like an intelligence test, if we want the cheese at the end of all this amazement. Problems are for solving. We are a bit like Odysseus here, making his long journey home, meeting the needs of the moment, losing sight on occasion, getting past Circe and the Siren songs. But we have to get through the journey and kill us some suitors, or the epic will never get written or sung. P.F. Case saw this in this card, where he suggested a ‘danger of violence in foreign places’ in the course of our long journeys. This energy of displace- ment that demands so much vigilance, while motivating us at the same time, in represented in the Yijing by Gua 64, Not Yet Across or Before Completion, the ironically named final chapter of the book. It has the same advice to stay on your toes and alert as long as you’re this far from home. It depicts a young fox crossing a half- frozen steam, an exemplar of care and vigilance in the animal kingdom.