My approach to these daily readings has been to draw a card from one of my own decks, but if the image doesn’t feel “right” for the day, then I like to search other decks online, until the “right” image appears. This was especially the case today, and when I came across this card, I intuitively knew it was really the right one for today.

This is a highly unusual tarot deck, illustrated by Italian artist Nicoletta Ceccoli, with each card featuring a woman or women, and rendered in a soft, surreal manner. There is nothing literal or direct in these cards. A great deal of intuition is required.

In more traditional decks, the Wands suit is of course a Fire element, and is in the realm of energy, passion, and enthusiasm. And the Nine of Wands usually means  – after the struggle in the Seven and the immense outpouring of energy in the Eight – that strength in reserve can provide enough energy to win the battle, although resources may seem exhausted.

The original painting by Nicoletta is called “The Storyteller.” In this card, we see a young woman relaxed in a chair, engrossed in a book. A large blue reptile is on the wall, seemingly reading the book over her shoulder. Or as the title of the painting applies, perhaps she is reading the book to the creature.

Many tarot readers refer to the creature as a lizard – but it is actually a gecko. Note it has no eyelids or claws (as lizards do) – and it has pads on its feet that, unlike lizards, enable it to climb walls. This gecko has the same camouflage as the wallpaper. The gecko “concealed” in the wallpaper reminds of the story, The Yellow Wallpaper. The story details the descent of a young woman into madness, propelled by her supportive, though misunderstanding husband, who believes it is in her best interest to go on a “rest cure,” confined in a room with yellow wallpaper, after experiencing symptoms of “temporary nervous depression.” During the time frame of that story, women were  discouraged – or in the case of this story, prohibited – from writing or even reading, because it would ultimately create an identity and become a form of defiance. Therefore, reading and writing became one of the only forms of agency for women at a time when they had very few rights. In this Nine of Wands card, similar to the figures emerging from the The Yellow Wallpaper, the gecko seems almost a part of the house. It makes me think of someone who has had a tough childhood or difficulties in her (former?) home/marriage/relationship, etc, and who is now trying to process what happened by reading, and maybe through counseling, journaling and/or meditating. The more the young woman finds out about the gecko on the wall, the less threatening it becomes. In the card, the young woman is certainly aware of the gecko. Maybe they are friends, maybe not. Is the toy on the floor for the gecko? Therefore, has she “tamed” it? At any rate, is the young woman reading The Yellow Wallpaper to the gecko?

I really like her red shoes. Don’t they, along with her red dress, seem to imply power, strength, stamina and independence? My understanding is that a lot of Nicoletta’s heroines wear red shoes, so it may be helpful to today’s reading to take a short journey through the history of red shoes. In the 17th and 18th centuries – approaching a similar time period as in The Yellow Wallpaper story – only aristocratic men had the right to wear red heels. At the time, red ink came from grinding a red insect imported from Mexico, which made it extremely expensive. This clearly separated the haves from the have-nots. Two hundred years later, Hans Christian Andersen wrote “The Red Shoes.” This story talked about a poor girl whose vanity got the better of her, and she insisted on a pair of red shoes from the local shoemaker. Once she puts them on, she starts dancing frenetically and is unable stop. Those red shoes become her obsession and her demise, in a story whose intended moral was about guilt and redemption – but now we understand it is about lack of social mobility. For most of us, however, it’s likely that the meaning of red shoes is based on the Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy’s magical red shoes helped her go back home. It’s safe to say that every girl who watched her click her heels was left with the impression that red shoes are powerful and magical, and so with that film, women have properly appropriated red shoes as our own. So I think Nicoletta’s red-shoed heroines, as in this card, are a signal to all of us to find our own inner red shoes.

The young woman in this card is building up her strength and reserves by resting and reading a book, which reminds us that there are many ways to replenish our strength. Becoming well-informed, acquiring new information, feeding one’s imagination, learning, and writing are all ways to become stronger. And let’s not forget resting! Gloria Steinem once said, “Today I woke up, and that was enough.” And she was right!

The only symbol in this card that has me stumped is the button. Like the gecko, it is dramatically oversized. The obvious answer is that the size of the button may indicate that this young woman exists in a miniature world. But nothing is obvious in Nicoletta Ceccoli‘s tarot cards. So, I’ll leave this one up to the readers.