Tarot · The Major Arcana
Wheel of Fortune
- Change
- cycles
- turning point
The picture
A great wheel marked with letters and symbols floats in the clouds; a sphinx sits on top, a snake slides down, a jackal-headed figure rises, and in the corners four winged creatures read books.
The meaning
The wheel turns, and what is up comes down again, and the other way round. The tradition reads the card as a turning point and a sign that nothing stays as it is. It stands for cycles, for lucky turns of events and for the insight that you do not steer everything. The four creatures in the corners go on reading calmly all the same.
Reversed
Reversed, it is read as resistance to a change, or a phase in which little seems to move.
In love
In love it is read as movement, a new phase, or a meeting that seems to come by chance.
At work
At work it stands for changes you do not fully control, and for the moment to make use of them.
As your card of the day
Something may turn today. Take it as it comes, and only then look at what can be made of it.
The Wheel of Fortune is a reminder that every phase passes. That is true of the easy ones and the hard ones.
The Major Arcana are the 22 trump cards, from the Fool at zero to the World at twenty-one. The tradition reads them as stations on a life's journey: large themes that touch everyone at some point.
Picture: Pamela Colman Smith, Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, 1909, public domain (Wikimedia Commons).