This version of the Nine of Wands is so poignant. There is one last battle to face. The man is likely exhausted, battered (at least he appears so in other images). He cannot count on his physical strength and so he turns to his deity, the one who feeds his passion, his soul. On this power he must depend. It is all he has left. The 9 of Swords is one we are all familiar with. While it can sometimes represent plain old insomnia, as a Swords card, it represents the sleeplessness caused by obsessive thinking. That hamster in a wheel in your brain running and running over the same paths, getting nowhere. Yeah, that’s this card. In old texts, the 9 of Cups is called the Wish