(Tarot Prompts for Writers)
What I See in the Card:
The Wheel of Fortune is always turning, reminding us that life is change.
I shall reign; I reign; I reigned; I am without a kingdom.
(I love that quote, especially that last bit — I’ll make it a first-line prompt.)
Wherever you are in your journey, you can’t stay there. Whatever you have in your grasp, you can’t keep it. Happiness sours; sadness lifts. The lost find a way; the smug lose theirs. Storms destroy what seemed solid. Bodies age. Gifts arrive unexpectedly. Etc.
All to say: you can’t count on anything. Fortune is fickle.
The Wheel of Fortune looks different in every deck. My card keeps a classic theme of beasts around a wheel, their heads pointing in all directions. They rise from darkness into light, sink from light into darkness.
And yet the card doesn’t look too ominous, certainly not the creepiest card in the deck. There’s a distance to it, a sense of “such is the way of the world.” There’s nothing personal about the mess. This is the world we all share. All life changes, all life ends, not just our own, and this card connects us to the fate of the whole world.
The background of darkness and light in my card reminds us of the positive and negative aspects of fortune and change. Fortune brings wonderful things to some of us at times, horrible things to some at times. The image offers a mix of critters and motifs: sphinx, angels, animals, hands. It’s like controlled chaos. The winged sphinx on top symbolizes the divine mystery of life, and the sword of the sphinx symbolizes power, activity, the divine mind, forces beyond your control.
There’s a human at the centre of the wheel in my deck, looking right at you. This human at the hub of the wheel is your true self, in all its simplicity and complexity. All facets of fortune, both light and darkness, contribute to this core, to you and your journey through life.
There’s a definite sense of the wheel turning in my deck, and I like that, because it’s the defining characteristic of a wheel of fortune. Some decks show a more stagnant image. It can feel like we’ve landed somewhere in life — a good place feels secure, a bad place feels endless — but the Wheel of Fortune is always turning. Don’t give up hope; don’t get too attached. This too will pass.
Darkness will be brought to light. Light will fall into darkness.
Above all, this card says: Change is coming.
Read will take you to my notes on how to tell a fortune with The Wheel of Fortune — traditional interpretations; what the card might mean in different positions; keywords to help memorize meanings; and questions to ponder or ask the querent.
Write will take you to a few prompts for launching from the Wheel of Fortune into a story. A first line, an object, a point of view — three possible ways to turn the Wheel into fiction.
Tarot will take you to a central Tarot-Prompts page.
Go ahead, spin the wheel.
Images on this page are by the following artists:
Banner (and top box), left to right: Marseilles deck engraved by Nicolas Conver; Dragon Tarot illustrated by Roger and Linda Garland; Tarot Balbi by Domenico Balbi; Druid Craft deck illustrated by Will Worthington; Radiant Rider-Waite deck illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith; Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti.
Mid-page boxes: Tarot Balbi; the Idylls Tarot.
Catherine Austen 