one thing i love about succession is when they need a sexually tempting honey pot for a deal with someone slimey, instead of sending the only daughter character like a stereotypical show would do, they send roman
Keywords for the Nine of Wands include: Courage, recovery, strength, success, conquest, determination, resilience, and defiance.
You won’t believe how many people read. that as “amputee”.
If you like my take on tarot, you can book a reading on my website! And if you’re enchanted by a deck in this post, you can request that I use it, or any other deck in my collection, for a truly unique reading!
In the Sacred Sisterhood Tarot The Nine of Batons (Wands) is an Above the Knee amputee. Her prosthetic leg starts at her hip, and the nine wands are a field of sunflowers behind her. She looks like a badass, I’m not gonna lie. And as someone familiar with disability world, the assumption I make fro her prosthesis is that she was likely born with amniotic band syndrome, or some other condition that affects the growth of limbs. I’m not an expert, but it’s rare to have an injury that requires such a high amputation. So, I read her as someone who’s been finding ways to do things differently for her entire life. She’s absolutely defiance.
Not everyone’s gonna read her the way I do. They’ll see such a high amputation and think oh, the poor thing, she’s been through so much. They might be the people who say “have a blessed day” a little too strongly when they speak to someone with a disability. They might not be. They may be incredibly empathetic. But in tarot interpretation matters so much. Now, this deck does have more representation, in the Knight of Pentacles (which I’ll discuss another time), so that does help.
I expected more peg-legs in the Lady Pirates Tarot, not gonna lie. That’s why it irks a bit that while we have two excellent ladies with monovision—like me!—and an injured person using crutches in the Five of Pentacles (We’ll get there). The Nine of Wands is the only one rocking a Long John Silver style look. Now, she’s a pirate, and a Below the Knee amputee, so chances are she has been through some shit. And she’s not smiling. She’s ready to fight back. In her, I do not see the “possibly unnecessary defense” influence of the Moon on this card. This reads like a Seven of Wands to me. I’m not mad at it, but I’d prefer her on a card where she could be stomping that leg into some enemy (it probably costs too much for that, but let a girl dream.)
Like the Sacred Sisterhood Tarot, the Fyodor Pavlov Tarot has an amputee in the Nine of Wands (and a wheelchair user in the Knight of Coins/Pentacles come to think of it). In this case, there’s an amputee without a prothesis—who really shouldn’t be upright with that crutch like that…having him injured on both sides would’ve worked fine, I assure you. This pushes us toward the second meaning of the Nine of Wands, but there two important differences here:
1. He’s not the only example of an amputee n the deck. In the King of Wands, we see an amputee with a prosthesis in a card that has to do with ambition and leadership. That he’s overcome hardship may be read in the prosthesis, but that’s the reader’s mind entirely.
2. He’s shown as the traditional “soldier protecting himself” with other injuries that indicate he’s still suffering. This isn’t someone who has “overdoing adversity” stamped on him at the point where it’s impossible to tell how he was injured—or indeed, if he was. It’s not someone able-bodied thinking about how they’d rather die than lose a leg—it’s a reminder of the pain o injury, and he’s pushing forward before he’s able to be fitted for a prosthesis, or at a point where it’s not possible. His leg isn’t the only obstacle here.
I see something similar in the Numinous Tarot’s Nine of Candles. Yes, this woman might be in more danger than others because she is mobility-impaired, so her pushing forward is brave—but she’s also using her walker as a source of courage. It stands between her and the danger. It’s not the “wands” in the card, and it’s not her only protection. If there’s an actual threat, she can burn it down. Her disability isn’t a net positive or a net negative here. It’s simply a feature, in a deck with two other cards where the disability is simply a trait.
The Nine of Wands isn’t a bad place for a person with a disability. As a group, we’re pretty damn tough, and sometimes we’ve been through stuff that makes us a little paranoid. But it’s not all we are. If you can show that in the card, go for it—as long as you don’t make that your only representation—but beware of what a less aware reader could see if their keyword for this card is different from yours.
