Imagery: A great wheel turns with various figures around it, often including symbols of fate and destiny.
General Themes: Cycles, fate, change, destiny, turning points, luck.
The Wheel of Fortune Upright
The Wheel of Fortune is about the inevitable ups and downs of life. We can’t prevent them, but we can learn to embrace the plot twists in a way that helps us live better—more deeply, with richer relationships—without being completely unmoored when life throws us a curveball. This card invites you to flow with the cycles of life rather than trying to control specific outcomes.
Have faith. The universe has your back. That doesn’t mean your life will be problem-free, but it does mean that if things feel difficult right now, you will find yourself in a better phase of life soon. Sometimes the difficult things are actually gifts in disguise. See those symbols of fate and destiny in the card? It might feel like some divine intervention is redirecting you to a better life, even if the lesson is hard in the moment. Embrace optimism here. You might feel uncertain, but you don’t need all the answers to move forward, just an open mind and trust in the universe.
The Wheel of Fortune Reversed
It’s time to break negative patterns! Reversed, the Wheel of Fortune wants you to examine how you might be creating or, at the very least, contributing to the drama and heartache in your life. Does your world feel like one big telenovela? Take a step back and rethink the energy you put out into the world. The only way you can reverse your fortune is by doing things differently, and that starts with a good, hard look at your inner world.
Like its upright form, the reversal invites you to embrace the cyclical nature of life. You might be feeling stuck or out of sync with your life. Doing the inner work to clear stagnation will help with this, but it is also important to let go of expectations. Instead, learn to go with the flow more and listen to what the energy is telling you. Stagnation is a sign that you need to get your energy moving in other areas of your life in order to feel like you’re growing holistically. Likewise, this can be an invitation to relearn some old lessons.
The Bruja’s Guide to Tarot is the divination sister to the scholarly The Bruja Professor, a witchy take on literature, the occult & pop culture, and Enchantment Learning & Living, an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you.
If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is in the everyday…and good conversations with the tarot, subscribe to my newsletter below for regular doses of enchantment. Want even more inspiration? Follow me on Instagram and Facebook. Here’s to a magical life!