Feb 23 | 2023 — Wheel of Fortune
Every time I see this card I think of some cheesy, gypsy-esque, shaw-wearing old woman, sitting in a dim room, drawing cards with her bony, cigarette-stained fingers. I expect her to speak to me with a thick eastern European accent and tell me that the tables are turning and luck is on my side. I expect her to stroke her creepy-as-fuck amputated monkey paw and look at me expectantly as I hand her a stack of ones. She’ll smile briefly and tuck the money in her bra, then yell something I don’t understand to a kid stirring goulash in a big pot in the kitchen.
Stereotypes. I know. But that’s how this card is played up; it’s a bit cheesy and overstated. The meaning is much more profound than some trumped up game of roulette.
Traditionally, the Wheel of Fortune speaks of change and the cyclical nature of life. The symbolism in the original illustration in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck is a little esoteric with Egyptian deities, representations of the Torah, alchemical representations of air, water, earth, and fire, writing in Hebrew and possibly Latin (I love it when you speak the laddin!), and depictions of the four fixed signs of the Zodiac. But wtf does any of that have to do with change and cycles?
The answer to that is: wisdom in the face of change.
About the Wheel of Fortune: Our lives are built on cycles. We wake up, live, go to sleep. Go to work, die a little, go home. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes the cycles are innocuous and sometimes vile; sometimes they are obvious; and sometimes they don’t reveal themselves until faced with specific situations. I mean, how many of our parenting behaviors do we see repeated because that’s how WE were parented? (And how many of those cycles need to be broken?)
A lot of times with the cycles we face, the people and places may change, but the situation is the same. Look at romantic relationships, for example. Do you have a “type?” Have you seen the same things happening from relationship to relationship? Have you stopped to consider the similarities from person to person? Why do things end as they do? Where does the unhappiness stem from? Maybe we get so caught up in the physical nature of the relationship and the Knight of Wands moments (that’s sex, people), that we don’t realize the foundation of the relationship is eroding (unless that foundation is purely sex, of course).
While the Wheel of Fortune represents the unavoidable presence of change and “fate” (if you will), it’s also yelling at us to be aware, be present, and observe patterns of behavior. Maybe there are some cycles we can’t end, where we have little control — but we still have the ability to think about the situation, make our own choices, and be aware; learning and embedding those bits of wisdom in ourselves so maybe next time things might be a bit different. (God, I wish my 10 year old son would understand this! Talk about Groundhog’s Day.)
There are also times where we get “stuck,” going through mindless motions of the same cycle time after time. We offer justifications for the cycle because X, Y, or Z, when in reality, we are likely just resisting change. Maybe it’s fear of the unknown (like leaving an unhealthy relationship), maybe it’s because the amount of effort involved with the change is ginormous (buying a house instead of renting, fighting addiction, or trying to get your kid to turn off the fucking lights), maybe it’s because you feel pressured or manipulated by family expectations and you’re too stubborn or scared to recognize that you deserve to be yourself. Whatever the situation, take a magnifying glass to it and find the cycle; then come up with a plan to improve the situation. Remember, too, that we pass these same cycles to our children, just as our parents passed them on to us.
I don’t see the Wheel of Fortune as the neon sign to buy a lottery ticket or head to Vegas. I see it is a reminder that change is imminent, and it is our responsibility, with each turn of the wheel, to learn something and add it to our little book of wisdom until its time for our Wheel to stop.
Decks shown above:
