What image/symbol/word/thought comes to mind when you think of the Wheel of Fortune

[Nova]

I see a mill-stone.
If one is under it, there can be grave physical suffering as when the Wheel is reversed especially of nature of toxicity or a sad disappointment from a no-show missed meeting. Upward this old tool so necessary for producing corn meal or flour, will feed many and is a very stable and global idea. Its as if not just portion of bread but many at a time. That notion is even biblical with respect to the multiplicity of the card and its enchanted "weight" having surprisingly and magically enough bread that is.

Reliable sources call the Wheel the tool of the Magician who was studied in depth recently on this forum as perhaps Jesus as the one who did produce much bread (and fish etc.)

Full of Celtic pride I know that one key element to a once-European culture was based on the fact that it was the Celts who put a slat of Iron around an ordinary wooden wheel to create a much less vulnerable way to transport across land. -- I mention this as the image is still quite a primitive one.
To this day it is our quality of tires that make or break a journey.

For an image for a painter, these could be ideas albeit less colorful than the above examples.

 

[Umbrae]

In Israel, they have this decoration you can buy, I don’t know what it is, but ever since I saw them…

Its like a hand with symbols all over it. The ‘thumb’ and ‘little finger’ are the same size, so it could be a left or right hand. People hang them in windows or on doors (not a mezuzah). I was told at the time it was ‘Qabalistic’, but nobody’d elaborate.

So when I see the Wheel, I think Yod (which means 10), the Open Hand, and that symbol.

And the saying, “Blow upon Yod, and you create all the letters of the alphabet”

That's what I think of when I see the wheel of fortune...

 

[frelkins]

This picture and the statue of Fortune on the old customs house in Venice.

 

[Gazel]

"What comes around goes around"

is what I think when I think about the Wheel.

Gazel

ETA:

Appearently it's the other way round: "What goes around ..." - but what ever

 

[starrystarrynight]

I think of two phrases: "What goes around, comes around" and "Obla-di-obla-da, life goes on, bra!"

Now, how you would visualize either of those into an image, I would be totally lost. (Maybe something with the Jamaican influence on the Beatles for having used that second phrase on their White Album.)

ETA:

Ha! Gazel, we must have been thinking and posting at the same time/same thought!

Another thought comes to mind...and that is the image (was it DaVinci??) of the human figure with the two arms and two legs coming out of it?

 

[Syrah]

That change is inevitable, and that things always come full circle - eventually.

My mental image is of a watermill, constantly in motion, moving water from one location to another in a (usually) fluid manner.

 

[philebus]

Honestly, the wheel of fortune always made me think of fools and foolishness. The Eturia Minchiate is my favourite, with an ass headed fool in royal regalia sitting on top of the wheel that will drop him down as quickly as it carried him up there. Its probably because I always associated the wheel of fortune with games of pure chance - which I have little time for.

 

[Dragon-Capricorn]

I see a huge wheel rolling around the ground, picking up people along the way (whether they like it or not). And if people don't come willingly onto the Wheel, they get squashed ;-) Because if you don't flow with the changes it brings ... (whether good or bad), life can become more difficult. And ... life IS about to change!

 

[frelkins]

And of course Carl Orff's "O Fortuna." As well as Shakespeare - "When in Fortune and men's eyes," and "fortune, all is fortune."

 

[blackairplane]

A Catherine Wheel......or....a 1959 Caddy hubcap