Nine of Swords

Upright

anxiety · sleepless mind · dread

Night thinking. The fear is larger in the dark than the facts support.

Reversed

relief · spiralling · speaking the fear

The grip loosening once said out loud, or tightening because it never is.

Why this astrology

The pips two through ten map onto the thirty-six decans, ten degrees of the zodiac each, so Nine of Swords is mars in gemini · second decan — a planet working through a particular third of a sign. Aces are the root of their element and the courts carry it as temperament.