What do you make of the Wheel of Fortune?

I always have a bit of a blank with the Wheel of Fortune, and was wondering what sort of interpretations people normally come up with for it. The meanings I've read in books seem to go along the lines of 'the wheel turns, change is coming, and things could get better or worse' Well, er, we sort of knew that, didn't we? It's a card that seems to hedge its bets, and I don't generally find it very useful. Am I missing something?

Originally posted by Bean Feasa The meanings I've read in books seem to go along the lines of 'the wheel turns, change is coming, and things could get better or worse'

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Actually, it usually means good fortune, the wheel going up, things changing in your favor. Also, if there happens to be someone who hasn't been nice to you, whose been undeservedly on top while you've been down, they will get their karmic reward and go down as you rise.

And that part about things changing is very important if your querent is feeling stuck, in a rut. We do fall into times of status where we wake up, go to work, come home, watch television, go to sleep. Same old, same old, day in and day out. Being told that CHANGE is coming can be refreshing, a jump start to a stale life.

On a final note, the Wheel of Fortune is one of the few cards that speaks of raw luck and happenstance. It doesn't advise you to do anything (follow your dream!) or be anything (stay strong!), it just says that circumstances are going to be going your way. It's a card of luck, expansion, change, movement and good fortune.

I think that this card signifies a crossroads in your life. I also think it speaks of destiny, so yes it could be good or bad - the surrounding cards usually say which way.
It's also a card of equality - In some decks a King or a king and queen sit on top of the wheel which is turned by some unseen force - To me this says that it really doesn't matter how high your station in life is, the wheel turns for everyone. Will you fall off or go round another time?

Love and light

Sulis xx

I tend to think of this card as a positive change; however, it doesn't have to be. In addition, the key word for me with this card is random. Unlike Justice, what happens may not be just and deserved.

This is one of those "difficult" cards because they look to simple to be only that, same happens with the sun. They dont seem to have deep meanings... or i fail to find them.

I agree with -X- the changes this card brings are random, not consecuences of nothing or what be deserve. It has nothing karmic on it. Fortune is capricious and out of our control, sometimes wants to be with us, sometimes we fall under the wheel. Theres no reason for it. Fortune is primal, dinamic, volatile, always moving in chaotic energies we can not understand or control in any way.
We all are spining in the wheel but it not turns to be the same for all of us. It isnt fair, balanced or equal. The only sure is it can change for everyone on any moment without warning. Luck works that way.

On the other hand i can see as if the changes it brings were meant to be, destiny. But its coming from another level we can not understand. Not what i understand for "karma". Sorry if it sounds contradictory.

Sulis, please, can you develop more what do you mean with "crossroads in your life"?

The wheel is a very powerful and personal card for me.
This was the card I decided represented the Goddess Chronata...the Goddess of Perfect Timing, Lady Luck and She of the Carnival.

Think of those times in your life when good luck and perfect timing seem to be in your pocket...when everything falls into place for you. Those times when you just KNOW that if you play the lottery or gamble, (spin the roulette wheel)you will win...

The wheel is turning in your favor.

But this card also represents Cycles...

There are those times when it seems nothing is happening, after everything was turning in your favor, you can have that time, or cycle, where there is no luck at all.
And the wheel represents that time too.
I equate it with the original idea of Carnival...a feast before a fast. There is a time after Plenty, where you just let go of control. It can be a time of want, a time of having nothing, but it can also be the time where you choose to give of yourself.

And then the wheel turns again...
and you are rewarded once again for that time of giving...
New cycle
New beginning,
New luck and reward.

To me its a card of fate and destiny. It means that the wheels are turning and theyre not going to stop until what has meant to happen is gonna happen.

Chronata, I like your definition!

Inana, I agree that the wheel isn't Karma. I probably shouldn't have used that word. Karma has a "just deserts" feeing to it, and as you point out, with the wheel, it's not a matter of rewards and punishments--it's just the right time, right place. A matter, as Chronata says, of cycles. I like to think of how enormously popular Frank Sinatra was in his time (girls crushing into see him, screaming, fainting)...then came Elvis (girls crushing in to see him, screaming, fainting)...then came the Beatles (etc, etc). Sinatra didn't lose all his fans, neither did Elvis, but each had their time at the top, then sunk away as another rose.

That's the Wheel. And its message is a reminder. You remind the person on top that their time will not last forever--eventually they will fall and another will rise. Ditto, you remind the person who's low that luck can come to anyone. Think of J. K. Rowling and the incredible success of the Harry Potter books. She was a waitress barely able to feed her kids. Now she's one of the richest women in the world and the single most successful author ever. How did that happen? Do you know how many childrens books tell that very same story about a kid finding out he's a "wizard" and going to magic school? Yet it was Rowling's book that hit gold. Why? Right book at the right time. If she'd written it 10 years earlier, when kids were madly reading Goosebumps, perhaps the books would have remained unnoticed.

The wheel turns, and you never know what or who's going to be the next big thing, the winner rising to the top, supplanting whoever's currently there now. It pays to remember that, to treat people well when they're down--and to be humble when you're up.

From a post I made last year (excuse me for being lazy)

In my own deck I am making, the Wheel is represented by the mythical Moreae... The Three Fates
The MOERAE are the three sisters who decide on human fate:
Clotho is the spinner of the cloth of our lives, Lachesis the apportioner and Atropus, the gal with the scissors, LOL, and not even the Gods of Mount Olympus would mess with these three.
There is no FORTUNA here, the 'extra' sister ... she was a later Roman addition, and therefore not in my purist view 'real'.

They ask you to accept.
Accept that somethings are as they are and wont change. Accept that some people are the way they are and wont change ... that is their 'fate'.
When you accept, there is no loss of pride, no losing of an argument .... whatever .... by accepting that certain things cannot or will not change, you can devote your energies elsewhere.
It is not your place to try and change others, you can only try and change yourself ... but even so, there is a limit to the cloth you are allowed to work with.

This sort of agrees with Meewah's 'go with the flow'.

I'm not into the whole good luck/bad luck approach to this card I'm afraid.

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and here's another...

From Picture of Cebes/ Table of Cebes/ Tabula Cebetis ( an allegorical tale of the Picture on a wall at the Temple of Cronus)

Resumptions are very common with this Lady, and there’s no depending upon her Favour; And therefore the Genius advises People to be loose and indifferent with her, and neither be transported when she gives, nor dejected when she takes away. For she never acts upon Reason, but throws out every thing at Peradventure. Therefore the Rule is never to be surpriz’d at any of her Proceedings. . . .

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Acceptance seems the theme

A view from the Heath

So many cards sometimes confuse me with the various aspects of "change". I quite like the idea of the establishment of balance between "flying off at a tangent" or achieving "centering". Of course too much even of the latter might lead to stasis or mere passive observation watching world going by? I won't look now, but I think this idea was one associated with the Haindl deck from a R.P. book...

Macavity