Wheel of Fortune tarot card meaning
Wheel of Fortune is the card of cycles, change and turning points. The turning of the seasons of life. The Wheel reflects that circumstances change, and asks how you meet the turn rather than how to stop it.
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Wheel of Fortune upright
The turning of the seasons of life. The Wheel reflects that circumstances change, and asks how you meet the turn rather than how to stop it.
Drawn upright, Wheel of Fortune is the card at ease with itself, and cycles, change and turning points sit comfortably side by side. The image of a great golden wheel turning in the clouds holds the whole of it. Read it as a mirror, and ask what in your own life it is showing back.
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Wheel of Fortune reversed
Resisting a change already under way, or feeling at the mercy of luck. Look for the part that is yours to steer.
When Wheel of Fortune falls reversed, many readers take it as the card’s energy turned inward. The cycles it stands for has not gone; it is waiting, or it has been overused. Ask which, and the card has done its work.
What the card shows
The plate shows a great golden wheel turning in the clouds, marked with alchemical signs, a sphinx with a sword seated on top, a serpent descending one side and a jackal-headed figure rising on the other, four winged creatures reading books in the four corners.
In the tradition this deck follows, the plate’s details are read this way: the wheel as cycles and change; clouds as what is uncertain or still forming; the sword as thought, truth and decision; and the serpent as temptation and renewal. Together they are why Wheel of Fortune is read for cycles, change and turning points.
Wheel of Fortune in love
Read for a relationship, Wheel of Fortune asks how cycles and change are shared between two people. It describes a mood rather than an outcome: where turning points is present, and where it is missing. As a trump, Wheel of Fortune speaks to the larger pattern in how you love rather than to a single evening.
Wheel of Fortune in work and money
At work, Wheel of Fortune reflects cycles, and with money it asks about change. Hold it against a real choice in front of you and see where turning points fits. As a trump, Wheel of Fortune speaks to the direction of a working life more than to one week’s accounts.
As a question to carry
What part of this turn can you take into your own hands?
There is no right answer to it; Wheel of Fortune asks only that you look at change honestly.
Its place in the Major Arcana
Wheel of Fortune is trump X, card 11 of the twenty-two in the Major Arcana.
Read as the Fool’s journey, the trumps tell one story of a life, and Wheel of Fortune stands in the middle stage, where the traveller turns inward and meets fortune, sacrifice and endings. It follows The Hermit and leads to Justice: cycles after the lesson of solitude, and before the lesson of fairness.
Draw your own cards
Reading about Wheel of Fortune is one thing; drawing it in answer to your own question is another. Members draw from the full deck in the Almanac tarot: the card of the day, three cards, or the ten-card Celtic Cross, each card read in its place.
Tarot is a tool for reflection, not a replacement for God, prayer, Scripture or wise counsel.
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Common questions
What does Wheel of Fortune mean in tarot?
Wheel of Fortune is read for cycles, change and turning points. The turning of the seasons of life. The Wheel reflects that circumstances change, and asks how you meet the turn rather than how to stop it.
What does Wheel of Fortune mean reversed?
Resisting a change already under way, or feeling at the mercy of luck. Look for the part that is yours to steer. Reversed, it keeps its theme of cycles, seen from the side where it is blocked or overdone.
What does Wheel of Fortune mean in love?
Read for a relationship, Wheel of Fortune asks how cycles and change are shared between two people. It describes a mood rather than an outcome: where turning points is present, and where it is missing.
