Card of the Day for December 25 - Wheel of Fortune
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THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE
Attribution - Jupiter, Full Moon; in some systems Saturn.
The Wheel of Fortune is
a combination of the numbers 1 and 0, recognition that life is a
wheel and its ups and downs are now evident. Life includes change,
and the acceptance of this change is the number 10.
At the four corners of this card are the zodiac signs Aquarius, Taurus, Leo and Scorpio. These 4 fixed signs of the zodiac represent the ups and downs of our lives, and the 4 elements these signs represent – air, earth, fire, and water – are part of the focus of our lives.
Much of life is random and
unpredictable. Do not take any day for granted because it could be
your last. Appreciate the workings of fate and know that some things
are beyond your control.
Rider-Waite Imagery
The Wheel Spins… The Wheel of Fortune shows changing cycles. It is fortune good and bad. It spans the range of riches to poverty. Anchoring the four corners are 4 mythic creatures. The 4 Cherubims, 4 Archangels, 4 Elements, 4 Living Creatures of Ezekiel, 4 Fixed Signs of the Zodiac.
- Fire - Lion - Leo
- Earth - Bull - Taurus
- Water - Eagle - Scorpio
- Air - Human - Aquarius
The symbol in the center was borrowed from Eliphas Levi. In the
center are alchemical symbols of sulphur, mercury, salt, disolution.
The outer wheel has TARO, ROTA, ORAT, ATOR, and the 4 letter name of
god - the tetragramaton: yod, heh, vau, heh.
http://tarotjourney.net/tarot-cards/major-arcana/10-the-wheel-of-fortune/
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)
Part I: The Veil and its Symbols
10. The Wheel of Fortune. There is a current Manual of Cartomancy
which has obtained a considerable vogue in England, and amidst a great
scatter meal of curious things to no purpose has intersected a few
serious subjects. In its last and largest edition it treats in one
section of the Tarot; which, if I interpret the author rightly, it
regards from beginning to end as the Wheel of Fortune, this expression
being understood in my own sense. I have no objection to such an
inclusive though conventional description; it obtains in all the
worlds, and I wonder that it has not been adopted previously as the
most appropriate name on the side of common fortune-telling. It is also
the title of one of the Trumps Major, that indeed of our concern at
the moment, as my sub-title shews. Of recent years this has suffered
many fantastic presentations and one hypothetical reconstruction which
is suggestive in its symbolism. The wheel has seven radii; in the
eighteenth century the ascending and descending animals were really of
nondescript character, one of them having a human head. At the summit
was another monster with the body of an indeterminate beast, wings on
shoulders and a crown on head. It carried two wands in its claws. These
are replaced in the reconstruction by a Hermanubis rising with the
wheel, a Sphinx couchant at the summit and a Typhon on the descending
side. Here is another instance of an invention in support of a
hypothesis; but if the latter be set aside the grouping is symbolically
correct and can pass as such.
Part II: The Doctrine Behind the Veil
In this symbol I have again followed the reconstruction of Eliphas Levi, who has furnished several variants. It is legitimate, as I have intimated, to use Egyptian symbolism when this serves our purpose, provided that no theory of origin is implied therein. I have, however, presented Typhon in his serpent form. The symbolism is, of course, not exclusively Egyptian, as the four Living Creatures of Ezekiel occupy the angles of the card, and the wheel itself follows other indications of Levi in respect of Ezekiel's vision, as illustrative of the particular Tarot Key. With the French occultist, and in the design itself, the symbolic picture stands for the perpetual motion of a fluidic universe and for the flux of human life. The Sphinx is the equilibrium therein. The transliteration of Taro as Rota is inscribed on the wheel, counterchanged with the letters of the Divine Name, to shew that Providence is imphed through all. But this is the Divine intention within, and the similar intention without is exemplified by the four Living Creatures. Sometimes the sphinx is represented couchant on a pedestal above, which defrauds the symbolism by stultifying the essential idea of stability amidst movement.
Behind the general notion expressed in the symbol there lies the denial of chance and the fatality which is implied therein. It may be added that, from the days of Levi onward, the occult explanations of this card are, even for occultism itself, of a singularly fatuous kind. It has been said to mean principle, fecundity, virile honour, ruling authority, etc. The findings of common fortune-telling are better than this on their own plane.
UPRIGHT
Luck, the ups and downs of life, the dartboard of life, fortune.
Cycles of history.
The ultimate "big picture".
Change is the governing law of life.
A turn for the better, nothing can stop you now.
Appreciate your good fortune.
The value of life’s opportunities.
Karmic blessings.
Wonderful luck, prosperity, good fortune.
Destiny, fate.
The unexpected.
Change.
Taking risks and winning.
Making changes for the better.
This card is about movement and change – for better or for worse.
What’s good today is crap tomorrow. What’s crap today is good tomorrow!
You cannot step into the same river twice.
The Wheel turns.
Tomorrow is another day!
REVERSED
Devastating losses and separations.
Resisting fate and fortune.
Too much of a good thing.
What comes up must come down.
Have the courage to pull away and say better luck next time.
Having to learn the same lesson all over again.
A repeated mistake.
Familiar disappointment.
Resistance to changing times and events.
Spinning your wheels.
Unexpected bad fate.
A setback that comes after a time of rising hope.
The seeker steps out of circulation.
Failure.
A long streak of bad luck.
Being stuck in an old pattern or habit
that isn’t producing good results.
1. Robin Wood
2. Dorata
