Nine of Clubs: old ideas let go, and the card of 29 February

Meaning

Nines in Richmond's book are disappointment at the centre of the path, and the Nine of Clubs is disappointment in what one learns or hears: “A sudden disappointment and bad news”, “Knowledge of a dissatisfying nature”, “Discontent”. The modern reading of the Nines as universal giving is a later softening.

We read the card as letting old ideas go to make room for wider ones. The tradition sees its people as meeting disappointment in plans or beliefs and learning by releasing them, and as generous with what they know; it places their best thinking on the far side of letting go without bitterness.

In the spreads

The formula gives 22 for 29 February, so the Nine of Clubs is the leap-day card; the Joker is not, and leap years change no other date. For the yearly periods we count a 29 February birthday from 28 February in other years; some programs use 1 March. Its twelve birthdays run from 31 January to 9 December, one in every month, and reach Aquarius and Pisces.

In the Life Spread it sits in the Venus row, Saturn column, after the Jack of Hearts, a fixed card and its Moon card; its Result card is the Eight of Clubs, another of the three that never move. It gives to the Queen of Hearts and receives from the Six of Diamonds, which is also its Cosmic Lesson.

Life path and karma cards

Read from the Life Spread: the card before the Nine of Clubs, then the ten after it, the order running on from the crown line back to the top right. The names of the places are Camp's, used descriptively.

Birthdays and ruling cards

The ruling card is the card of the life path in the place of the Sun sign's ruling planet; Leo takes the birth card itself and Scorpio two cards. On a date marked cusp the Sun changes sign during the day in some years, so without a birth time both cards apply.

For every sign, as the tradition's modern rulers give them: Aries (Mars): King of Hearts; Taurus (Venus): Two of Hearts; Gemini (Mercury): Nine of Spades; Cancer (the Moon): Jack of Hearts; Leo (the Sun): Nine of Clubs; Virgo (Mercury): Nine of Spades; Libra (Venus): Two of Hearts; Scorpio (Mars and Pluto): King of Hearts and Jack of Spades; Sagittarius (Jupiter): King of Diamonds; Capricorn (Saturn): Six of Hearts; Aquarius (Uranus): Four of Clubs; Pisces (Neptune): Two of Diamonds.

Correspondences

Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.

Suit in Richmond (1893, p. 28)

The shamrock of summer, the emblem of “knowledge, intelligence, heat, argument, or even quarrels […] under some planets”, quoted with its item on the law left out sourced

The suit's season and planets in Richmond (pp. 27 to 28, 41)

Summer; Mars, for “quarrels and heat” (its item on the law left out), and the Earth, “from the standpoint of knowledge”. Facts about his book, not about anyone born under the card sourced

Number in Richmond (pp. 42 to 45)

Nines: a disappointing obstacle in the centre of the path (p. 45) sourced

Richmond's table for the card (p. 118)

“A sudden disappointment and bad news”, “Knowledge of a dissatisfying nature”, “Discontent” sourced

Our keyword line (2026)

Letting old ideas go to make room for wider ones. our construction

Our theme for the suit

Mind, Knowledge, Communication our construction

A suit element or a single planet

None in Richmond or any founding text; the sets other sites give disagree, and ours was dropped in October 2026 disputed

How the schools read it

Olney H. Richmond (1893)

An emblem of solar value 22 and spirit value 42, read through its suit, knowledge, and its number, disappointment: one meaning under each of the seven planets, most of them events (p. 118).

Randall and Campbell, Lein, Camp (1947 onward)

Read the birth card as character rather than events. Camp's line adds the life path, the karma cards and the yearly spreads used on this page, and gives the card a nickname, which we do not use.

Card Blueprints and Seven Reflections

On 21 June Card Blueprints gives two ruling cards from a fixed table of cusp dates, and Seven Reflections asks for the sign. We compute the Sun and give both cards only when no birth time is known.

EsoTerrier

Read here as letting old ideas go to make room for wider ones, without bitterness.

Claims about it

• The Joker is also the card of 30 December in leap years.

  false

  What the record shows: 30 December is always the Ace of Hearts and 31 December always the Joker. A leap year changes only 29 February, which is the Nine of Clubs.

• The Sevens are spiritual tests, the Sixes fate and return, the Nines universal giving.

  disputed

  What the record shows: Richmond reads the Sevens as obstacles, the Sixes as monotony and settlement and the Nines as disappointment (1893, pp. 42 to 45). The modern readings are the tradition's later development.

• Each suit has an element and a ruling planet.

  disputed

  What the record shows: No founding text gives the suits elements, and the sources that do disagree with each other. Richmond gives each suit a season and two planets (pp. 27 to 28, 41), which we report as his. We dropped the attributes in October 2026.

• Each card has a traditional nickname.

  disputed

  What the record shows: The nicknames are Camp's coinages, or Randall and Campbell's, not Richmond's; taken as a set they mark a text as derived from his. We use none of them.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

• Queen of Hearts its first karma card, the card it gives to
• Six of Diamonds its second karma card, the card that gives to it
• Jack of Hearts its Moon card, the card before it in the Life Spread
• Nine of Spades its Mercury card, the card after it in the Life Spread
• Natal Chart where the Sun sign that picks the ruling card is worked out