Key 10 the Wheel of Fortune is first and foremost an expression of the Law of Rotation. The number 10 on the Tree of Life is the Kingdom, called Malkuth in Hebrew. It is the point of manifestation of the Spirit of God. It is where we live. Yes, in essence, we are pretty much blind to the rest of the Tree of Life.
Here is evolution, involution, growth, regeneration, destruction, and all of the opposing forces that are manifest in our lives. But we don’t quite understand how they work. So the Law of Rotation deals with the manifest world with all its limitations and mysterious laws.
The Hebrew letter Kaph, in the lower right hand corner of the Key
represents a hand in the act of grasping, a hand receiving. It is one of seven double letters in the Hebrew alphabet. It stands for wealth and poverty. It appears that the lessons to be learned from this card will either bring wealth or poverty into your life. So heads up. Pay attention. The card also states that you have the capability of grasping, or understanding how the Law of Rotation works. That’s a good sign!
Look at the card. It consists of several circles. It even has the letters ROTA in the outer one. Becoming master of your life is an ideal situation. So how do we get there. The previous cards so far have given you some very good suggestions. The planet earth rotates on its axis, but that’s not the only thing going on as it flies through space around the sun. There is an additional element to the way earth rotates and evolves. Creation moves in a spiral, not just in circles. So the movement of life may appear to repeat itself, going round and round, but you never return to exactly where you left off. You will always end up in just a little bit better place than you were before.
The Intelligence of Reconciliation is the Qabalistic name for the awareness expressed by the letter Kaph. Here on earth we’re always coming up against people who think quite differently than we do. How we reconcile those differences among our family members, friends and even total strangers is dealt with here. That’s what the Wheel of Fortune is all about. And you could say, how you “spin” it determines your wealth or poverty in this life. To reconcile a situation is to make an adjustment of differences in order to establish peace and harmony. This is where the promise “Seek, and ye shall find” comes into play.
The planet Jupiter is assigned to the letter Kaph. See the small symbol of Jupiter in the lower right hand corner of the Key. In mythology Jupiter is the ruler of all the gods. Astrologically he is associated with the principles of growth, expansion, healing, prosperity, good fortune, and miracles. He also governs long distance and foreign travel, big business and wealth, higher education, religion, and the law. Today I’d say that would pretty much cover all of the “gods”! So the letter Kaph covers the attitude of reconciliation of opposites and difficult situations in order to gain rulership of all the “gods” in your life.
Going a step further, the planet Jupiter also rules the sign Cancer. This takes us to The Chariot card where the wheels on which the Chariot rolls are another representation of the Law of Rotation. And that card on the Tree of Life is considered the Intelligence of the House of Influence. The Wheel of Fortune is considered the Rewarding Intelligence (yay!) on the Tree of Life. These two cards being closely connected makes perfect sense to me.
The Cabala says that nothing is left to chance. It says that the Laws of Creation are always at work, but we are blind to them, just as we are to most of the activities on the Tree of Life above the Kingdom. Most interesting is that where we live, the planet earth, is called the Kingdom on the Tree of Life, that is, the Kingdom of God. And it would be a living Kingdom of God for us if we’d just spend a little more time looking at it more closely rather than just running around on top of it like chickens with our heads cut off.
History repeats itself. The affairs of mankind repeat themselves. There are cycles, ups and downs of events that appear to have a life of their own. That is not so. These cycles are always a result of preceding events, thought patterns, and old habits. We just failed to take these prior activities into consideration, even from the clues that they leave behind. The Great Work, here symbolized by the wheel, is an acknowledgement of the advances mankind has made over time, to pull himself out of previous mistakes and misjudgments.
Looking at the card there are four fixed signs of the Zodiac placed in clouds. Clouds are used in the cards to represent our inability to see what’s in them with our senses. In the same manner a cloud was used in The Lovers card to hide Archangel Raphael. The four fixed signs on the Wheel of Fortune are the bull for Taurus, the lion for Leo, the eagle for Scorpio, and the man for Aquarius.
Why use fixed signs? Numerically they are 2, 5, 8, and 11, which adds to 26. This is the number of IHVH, which is inscribed on the inner white garment of the Fool. So we are looking at the Holy name of our Creator hidden behind the clouds in the form of the fixed signs of the Zodiac. Here we have represented That which never changes, and is unseen and unknown to us. This is in contrast to the Wheel, which is always moving and changing, where we’re hanging out.
The acquisition of the wisdom and understanding of how we create is called the Great Work. So let’s now look at the wheel in the center of the card. It is a chart of the various worlds in which we live and an expression of how those worlds are created to become the one we live in. Based on the Cabala, the Wheel’s center, or pivot, is the archetypal world. The inner circle is the creative world. The middle circle is the formative world. The outer circle is the material world. The eight spokes are like the 8-pointed star in Key 17 The Star, the card of revelation and meditation. This star represents the Quintessence, the spiritual energy from our Sun. The circle in the middle is repeated 10 times on the cloak of the Fool, the Inner Self. When we create, we always begin from the Source, the Center, and then our creation works its way out through the next two Worlds and finally becomes manifest in the material world.
On the spokes of the wheel in the middle circle are three alchemical symbols: 1) for mercury (above), 2) sulphur (to the right), and 3) salt (to the left). Mercury is the directing consciousness, the Magician. Sulfur stands for passion and activity. Salt stands for ignorance and inertia. At the bottom of the same circle is the astrological symbol for Aquarius, which is the alchemical symbol for dissolution. Dissolution is a fundamental process of the Great Work.
There is a yellow serpent descending on the left side of the wheel. Its wavy motion suggests vibration, and the yellow implies mental equilibrium, intellect and the elements Air and light. So here we have The All moving into the conditions of name and form.
Ascending the right side is the jackal-headed Egyptian god Hermes-Anubis. The jackal has an excellent sense of smell, implying the sense of discernment and discrimination. Here is the evolution of consciousness from lower to higher forms. His ears rise above the horizontal diameter of the wheel to show that through the ability to listen from within man is beginning to gain some knowledge of this cycle of evolution. His red color expresses desire, courage, strength and activity.
Above him is a segment of the wheel containing the Yod, the symbol for wisdom supported by understanding. We will be moving beyond an intellectual level and requiring an organic change to our makeup. The distillation that takes place within us accomplishes the Great Work. Here the personal ego identifies through the heart with the Ancient of Days, the Hermit.
The blue sphinx represents the perfection of this identification with the Hermit. She is the Self of man, the Fool behind the veil of personality. She carries a sword, a weapon corresponding to the formative world, the middle circle, which is right before material manifestation. She uses right discrimination to unfold the use of the inner senses into the material world. Yes, these inner senses exist! When this unfoldment comes, The All fills our awareness. The wheel turns while the Sphinx just is. Its blue color reminds us of memory, the sub-conscious mind, and now we become aware that this whole journey is really just Self-recollection.
The sphinx reminds me of Key 8 Strength. She has a woman’s head and breasts, but here she’s combined with the body of a male lion. So we have the perfect blending of two opposite powers, the union of male and female. This would never work from a lower level of perception.
Paul Foster Case created a transposition of the letters TARO, which are placed in the outer circle. He arranged them to make the following five words: ROTA TARO ORAT TORA ATOR. Translated they mean, “The Wheel of Tarot speaks the Law of Nature.” Ator is an old Latin form of the name for the Egyptian goddess Hathor. She was the goddess of the sky, of women, and of fertility and love – in essence Mother Nature.
Gates of Light 