Wheel of Fortune
The Wheel of Fortune symbolizes the cycles and unpredictability of life, driven by both luck and personal agency. It suggests that while fate has a significant role, human actions also shape outcomes. The card indicates that success and misfortune are both temporary and part of life's continuous motion. Adaptation and risk-taking are key themes, emphasizing the importance of embracing change and chaos.
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The Card of Luck and Fate
At the very beginning of this guidebook I said that all tarot cards contain a multitude of interpretations because they represent the vast variety of human experiences. No card is more emblematic of this truth than the Wheel of Fortune—the card of luck, chance, and the pitfalls of fate.
Ancient and Mythological Roots
The tarot imagery of the Wheel of Fortune invokes the notions of rota fortunae popular in the ancient world and medieval cultural thought. The heart of this philosophy is that the capricious goddess Fortuna spins the wheel of the world, doling out windfalls or misfortunes to mortals at random. Most tarot illustrations depict only the Wheel, but I wanted to include the goddess herself to reference the esoteric and mythological history behind it. I also wanted to introduce a human figure into a card that does not usually include one as a nod to the fact that while sometimes our fortune can be out of our hands, we are also the makers of it. Our lives are our own, even when we do not feel in control.
Symbolism and Design Choices
Representations of the four evangelists, or their stand-in symbols, are common in most tarot representations of the Wheel, but frankly, they mean nothing to me. While I am not banishing Christian imagery from my deck entirely (in fact, The Hanged Man bears a striking resemblance to a certain very popular saint), this particular symbolism does not resonate with me and does not illuminate the card's meaning. Instead, I took a leaf from Robert Place's The Alchemical Tarot, and adorned the corners of the card with the four elements: air, water, fire, and earth. They serve the same function, and represent the whole of the world in a way that makes more sense to me.
Cycles and Change
The Wheel of Fortune is a card of cycles and change, and it is a card of constant motion. Thus, its interpretation is highly dependent on the cards around it. In its positive aspects, the Wheel of Fortune can point to unexpected success, good luck, or a positive turning point. In a negative position, it may mean luck running out, impending misfortune, or negative changes. But even when there are other cards around the Wheel, its meaning can be hard to divine—which I think is the point. Life can be unpredictable. Sometimes, chance simply rules our lives and there is nothing we can do about it except go along for the ride.
Lessons from Fortuna
Fortuna teaches us to adapt, to not be afraid to take risks, to think on our feet. She wants us to wrestle with her, to forge our fate and our destiny against all odds, and to accept that we won’t always come out on top. She reminds us that nothing in life is forever. The Wheel of Fortune wants us to get comfortable with chaos.
Fyodor Pavlov tarot
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