So I have a couple of much-loved clients with a challenging Wheel of Fortune (WoF) at the moment – this one is for you, right now ladies 🙂 And hopefully will help others in the future.
It’s super important to understand the difference in the meaning of the WoF depending on when and where it shows up in a reading. For example, if you’re looking at the next week of your life with a 7 card spread – it’s just indicating that there might be some change that day. BUT if it shows up as the outcome card on annual Celtic Cross then you really need to pay attention!
Let’s look at that in a bit more detail – imagine you ask the question “How will I spend my time over the bank holiday?” and you get the cards above.
You can be pretty sure that your Saturday will feel like you still have too much left to do even though you don’t feel as though you have stopped recently. Sunday suggests you are looking for help with some of those problems – you might spend it reading a de-cluttering book and by Monday you’ve instigated some significant changes. These 3 cards make me think Marie Kondo and beautifully folded T-shirts and organised drawers.
I am over-simplifying – Obviously! But my point is that if you’re looking very short-term in your questions then even then Major Arcana cards have muted meanings.
In contrast, if you are having an annual Celtic Cross reading which both you as the client and I as the reader intend to be a guide for you over next 12 months, then when you get something like this with the Wheel of Fortune in the Outcome position (see below) you need to take the card a great deal more seriously. In this context it brings its full, half-way through the fool’s journey, Major Arcana weight to the reading. And as such would stand for significant changes being necessary and desirable.
So what is the full weight of the Wheel of Fortune?
This would be when we get into the interesting stuff. When the Wheel of Fortune appears in a key position (like the outcome card in an annual reading) big changes are coming. These changes are aligned with your greater good, but and it’s a BIG but, that doesn’t mean they will be easy.
Remember change can be temporarily painful or pretty uncomfortable even if it is leading you to your destiny – or back to your correct life path. The Wheel of Fortune is also called the Wheel of Karma and Dharma for a reason!
If you’re the type of person who prioritises performance, control and stability above all else, then the Wheel of Fortune will come as a shock to your system. (Talking to you G) You will need to learn patience and to relax and allow your greater good to come to you. It can feel unpredictable, uncomfortable and unnerving. However acceptance is the key here – stop fighting and begin to attract your good to you instead of chasing it constantly. It may mean that you need to discard some things or people that have been in your life too long and are no longer bringing pleasure. You may be going forward in a different direction and with new and different people.
The Weird Stuff
The Wheel of Fortune is one of the truly arcane cards of the tarot deck. Arcane meaning only understood by few; mysterious or secret.
Readers often have a problem when they try and explain the sheer scope and power of the Wheel of Fortune to a client. Explaining complicated ideas is not always easy. If we go for explanations covering the different creatures that surround the wheel; the angel, the eagle, the bull and the lion and how they are related to four fixed signs in the zodiac – Leo, Taurus, Scorpio and Aquarius. and maybe add-in that the books that each of them holds represent a holy book, probably the Torah, which communicates wisdom and self-understanding. The snake indicates the act of descending into the material world. Or that the wheel itself carries a sphinx and what appears to be either a devil, or probably Anubis himself at the bottom. These two Egyptian figures are representative of both the wisdom of the gods and kings (in the case of the sphinx) and the underworld (Anubis). They are rotating forever, in a cycle, and suggests that as one comes up, the other goes down.
Really, strangely, NONE OF THAT HELPS THE CLIENT AT ALL!
How we might dumb it down for clients
So we often end up saying something like – “This will be a year of key positive changes in many areas of your life”.
Admittedly that often doesn’t convey the entirety of the truth to the client.
The truth is more along the lines of “A huge lorry is about to plough, at speed, right down the comfortable rut that you are currently in” and you will feel unsettled while this is happening.
BUT (assuming the wheel is upright in the reading) it will all be better for you afterwards.
Yes, you will have discarded people, things, and even ideas, maybe a job or a home. You’ll change the things that are no longer serving you and while that will leave some space in your life – you will fill that space, if you allow it to develop, with the right things and people who suit the person you are growing into. Things which make you happier, more comfortable, far more empowered, and probably more affluent and even much happier once you find the strength to … Just move the hell on.
Does it hurt?
Truthfully, yes it can … but only for a short while. It can sometimes painfully, point out to you what is not working in your life, what has to change and change big. Your life itself will create situations where the worn out or outgrown parts get removed or are even taken from you, or you find the grace and guts to walk away. Ideally, what can happen is a little of both. It’s not easy – but it is a sort of spring clean of your life. A time to discard the things, that whilst they might be adorable (or even previously adored) are no longer appropriate for the person that you are maturing into.
This is a time when you learn to meet your own needs. To love yourself as you are. Your self-image often improves.
Welcome a little pain if it sets you up for the next 20 years
Other connections – Saturn Return
The Wheel of Fortune is the tenth card of the Major Arcana. It’s a half-way point in the Fool’s journey through the tarot. It can mean that spiritually it has links to the astrological concept of a Saturn return. Let’s remember that Saturn is often called the Lord of Karma!
Saturn returns approximately every 29.5 years to the place in the heavens that it occupied at your birth and at this time it helps create all kinds of change. That change is manifested in your thirties. I have frequently found that for clients in their late 20s or 30s that the Wheel of Fortune shows up around the time of their Saturn return – I’ve even known it to show up some years later for more stubborn clients who simply won’t move on. (Astrology calls these people Saturn resisters) In fairness, the delay in the necessary change can occur because they weren’t able to move on at the time of their Saturn return.
Why?
Sometimes because a major life event – marriage, births, the death of someone close happened at that time to stall or derail them so I would encourage you to think of it as a second chance to grow into your own adulthood.
This is a time to separate from parental supervision or assumed responsibility, to move on from unsuitable or unstable partners (especially if they’ve been in and out of your life for many years) and a time to focus on your adult goals.
It’s just another way of saying “This is your time. What do you really want? OK now. GO!”
In my very personal experience, people from the fixed zodiac signs such as Scorpio, Aquarius, Taurus (this would be me, so I really do sympathise), and Leo are often the late-developers. These are the ones who can struggle most with the concept that life is moving on, with you or without you. But it will move on. Scorpios with Saturn in Scorpio at their birth (this is you D) can very simply lose their shit during this time. Don’t worry – seriously – it will come back – better than it ever was – you just need to get through it. Then you will grow into the you that you have always felt you could be. So. please stop fighting the process and just go with it.
My head hurts – is there more?
There is a ton more – this is a complex card – one blog post simply isn’t going to do it. But I think it’s enough for now … except … The Wheel of Fortune spins. What is doesn’t do is stay still. Resisting the impetus that it gives you to change positively is futile. The wheel will turn.
Over the years I’ve seen a client get a WoF in the outcome position, resist that change and the next year the card appears in the negative or reversed. It’s as though the universe is saying … Oh, so you wouldn’t make good changes – OK let’s see how you handle the shitty kind then!
I’ve always thought of it as if you block the positive energy then fulfilling the Wheel’s own need to move it goes backwards.
So, seriously – stop bemoaning any situations you don’t want to be in and learn how to move forwards, naturally, without pushing for them constantly. Learn instead how to attract the positive to you. The Wheel is on your side and will help you to do this.
Final, light-hearted but accurate tip
If you get the Wheel of Fortune along with the Ace or Ten of Pentacles (particularly the ten) buy a lottery ticket or put a fiver on a horse whose name you like.
Seriously – what do you have to lose? That’s a lucky combo, the fates are smiling on you and that combination has given me a few small windfalls over the years 🙂
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