10 – Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune is essentially the wheel of life. No matter what happens, the wheel will keep turning, keep throwing life lessons our way and constantly keep us on our toes. We can never truly know what is coming next and when the Wheel of Fortune shows up, there is a need to let go of the wheel and allow the universe to take you where you need to be.

I always see the Wheel of Fortune as a reminder that everything in our universe works in cycles. Everything has a beginning, middle and end, nothing exists forever and yet we always find ourselves back at the beginning of a cycle once we’ve completed the last one. To keep our balance as the wheel spins, we need to find our centre. Realign ourselves with what is going on around us and allow the synchronicities to flow to us.

Upright

In the upright position, The Wheel of Fortune’s meaning is one of luck and random outcomes. It is a gentle reminder to us that life will keep on going, and whatever it is you’re going through right now will pass and fall away to allow another step in the Fool’s journey to come into play. Some of the main meanings of The Wheel of Fortune are:

• Fortune

• Luck

• Fate

• Destiny

• Cycles

A good thing to remember when The Wheel of Fortune shows up in your tarot reading is that your fate is in the hands of the universe. You’ve done everything in your physical power to sway things your way but now you just have to surrender and let the universe do its magic.

Reversed

In the reversed position, The Wheel of Fortune isn’t so much a sign of bad things to come, it’s more of a symbol for our own vices that may be trying to stop the wheel from turning as it should. When things are out of our control we can panic and try and grab hold of whatever is closest, The Wheel of Fortune reflects this behaviour or mindset back to us so we can recognise where we’re holding on too tight. Some of the main reversed meanings of The Wheel of Fortune are:

• Resisting change

• Bad luck

• Rigidity

• Let go

• Controlling

There are a lot of similarities between the Wheel of Fortune and the Death card in that they both symbolise our attitudes to change. The Wheel of Fortune differs slightly because it refers to the changes that come with the constant flow of a cycle, rather than a change that forces us to redirect or rethink our direction.

Reading The Wheel of Fortune in a spread

The Wheel of Fortune often hints that a cycle that we’ve been caught up in could be coming to an end or that we’re about to find ourselves in a situation where we have very little control over the outcome. With this card being the 10th Major Arcana card, there is a ‘wrapping up’ energy that we often feel in the 10’s within the Minor Arcana. There is something new coming in and we now have to allow things to play out organically and remind ourselves that what will be, will be.

As an invitation

The Wheel of Fortune is an invitation to let go, to relax and allow the chips to fall where they may. We’re not required to do much other than focus on our self and how we are approaching the situation. We are invited to put our faith in the universe and trust that it has our best interests at heart.

For The Wheel of Fortune, this invitation could be the following:

• An invitation to leave things to fate

• An invitation to look at parts of our life where you are trying too hard to remain in control

• An invitation to re-centre yourself in order to get a clearer view of the situation

• An invitation to surrender to the will of the universe and see where you land

As sage advice

There is something very wise about the Wheel of Fortune, I always get the feeling that it knows what you need the most and when you’re acting from a place of ego rather than compassion. Because of this, The Wheel of Fortune often gives us the very best advice!

Some advice The Wheel of Fortune may offer is:

• Assess where you are holding on too tightly and take steps to relinquish control

• No matter what you do, life will continue to march forwards, whether you march with it is up to you

• The universe has your back so trust in its intentions

As a lesson

The Wheel of Fortune is filled with lessons about life and the world we navigate every day. We see this learning represented in the four figures in each corner of the Rider Waite-Smith tarot card. These four golden figures each have their own book and are studying up, something we see played out in the very final Major Arcana card, The World, with the figures finally having learned everything they needed to within this particular cycle.

Some lessons that The Wheel of Fortune may offer you are:

• To learn how much influence you have in your life and where that influence can be found

• To accept that life is not in our control and we have to just go with the flow

• To understand that we can go through multiple cycles throughout our lives and the change that comes with them is an opportunity for growth

• The lesson of transformation and personal growth, especially the knowledge that we are not the same person we were when we were born and we won’t be the same person when we die

As a redirection

The Wheel of Fortune isn’t so much a redirection as a gentle nudge in the right one. The wheel turns constantly in one direction, we can’t go back and often we can’t rush forward. If we are talking about this card as a redirection it is more to do with our mindset than what is happening to us in our physical realm.

As a redirection, The Wheel of Fortune could symbolise a need to:

• Find a way to relax, let go of control and allow things to play out organically

• Make the best of a bad situation, instead of letting it derail you, what could you learn from it in order to push you forwards?

• Embrace the knowledge that if you put out good vibes, you’ll reap the best rewards

• Think about how controlling you’re being and where you may be resisting the inevitable

In summary…

The Wheel of Fortune is a card that offers us the chance to see the world for how it really is. It is a card that reminds us about reality, but in a gentle way so as to not make us panic and cling to the present even more viciously.