MAGICIAN / WHEEL OF FORTUNE / SUN
The Tarot cards for the year are the Magician, The Wheel of Fortune, & the Sun — it’s a 10 year (Wheel of Fortune which also reduces to 1 (Magician). & the Sun (19) reduces to 10, and I think is more of a support card for the year, but I’m really resonating with it, so I’m going to take all three. And, in fact, these three cards just so happen to be my LIFE PATH CARDS. I’m really feeling / wanting to feel inspired, motivated, chosen — I want to have a GLOW UP. This is my GLOW UP year. I am manifesting, turning energy into matter.
THE MAGICIAN
This is a card I connected with while I was in grad school — it’s really important to me.
I also just happened to have read up on this card as part of my Tarot project, & one important way I did this was by reading about it alongside all the other 1’s (the Aces, the Wheel of Fortune, & the Pages — which I haven’t actually gotten to, because that started feeling like too much information). My understanding is that both the Magician & the Wheel are about working with the energies of the universe/the world, and in the Magician this is chanelled through the “I.”
The number 1 is “the principle of unity that underlies all numbers” (Gray, A Complete Tarot, 185) & it is “the first manifestation of the unmanifest.” It represents both “multiplicity” in “fragments” &, combined, it is “unity” within “infinity.” It is “equated with the One God, the oneness of mankind, the power of Selfhood, of self-reliance, dignity, [and] rulership” and “it is the Wand of the Magician, the poower placed in the Man’s hands to accomplish through Will.” The One represents “beginnings, opportunity, originality” & “the self.”
And then the Aces, which “signify beginnings” are the “raw material” of each suit: the Ace of Cups, the Ace of Pentacles, the Ace of Swords, & the Ace of Wands. According to Red Tarot, the Aces are the “subject,” “the narrator,” “the I,” “the particular gaze” which “always belongs to the particular person.” The “Ace is each suit’s absolute, enocmpassing all of its encoded knowledge,” and each of these elements is the Magician’s tools, who uses them to manifest, to turn energy into matter.
The Magician represents “determination, skill, focus, [&] manifestation” (Taschen Tarot) and as a number one, it also represents “new beginnings & opportunities.” In the card, the Magician stands with one arm up “toward the Universe” & “the other pointing down to the earth…represent[ing] his connection between the spiritual & material realms,” as “the Magician uses this relationship to create & manifest his goals in the physical realm.” The infinity symbol & the ourobouros represent the Magicians’ “access to unlimited potential.”
In Red Tarot, Christopher Marmolejo writes that “as the Magician, ‘I’ navigate worlds” and “gather all the elements of my being….I may have nothing more than my intellect & emotions, but even in the midst of chaos I make my life meaningful.” The Magician works with a “more-than-human communication,” & “by restoring communication with the more-than-human, we re-member our autonomy, our cosmic autonomy, & we find an expression of the profound peculiarity of our shared interiority.”
THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE
The Wheel of Fortune is a card I’ve never understood much beyond “everything changes.” But in reading about it, I have come to learn how complex and mystical it is, and particularly its imagery. The Wheel represented is “ever-turning” & “carries [women] & their destinies up & down,” representing “the perpetual motion of a fluid universe &…the flux of human life with in it.” (Gray, A Complete Guide to the Tarot) The wheel has three circles: an inner wheel representing “creative force,” a middle wheel representing “formative power,” and the outer wheel, representing “material world.” It also has eight spokes, representing “universal radiant energy,” which echoes the eight-pointed Star in the Star card & is also seen in the Fool’s costume. There are four mystical animals representing the fixed signs of the Zodiac (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, & Aquarius) and a Sphinx at the top of the wheel, representing equilibrim/”stability amidst movement,” indicating that “we are not always governed by chance & fatality, but” instead “have the power to change our lives.”
This is such a heady card. Biddy Tarot explains that it “reminds you that the wheel is always turning & life is in a state of constant change.” I think the Magician takes control of this and makes things happen within the natural movement of the world. If things are going badly, they will get better and, of course, vice versa. But also, “what you send out into the Universe will come back your way,” so the card “asks you to be optimistic & have faith that the Universe will take care of your situation in the best way possible.” She writes that “your life [will] turn in more positive directions if you are willing to grow & expand” & “keep your mind open to…sychronicities/signs from the Universe” (& Many Moons writes about collaborating with the Unvierse for windows of luck & opportunity. Biddy Tarot: “The magic of fate & desitny is behind you & miracles are happening.” This card can indicate “a critical turning point in your life” where “opportunities you could never imagine are suddenly avialable to you & you have the chance to make a significant change”
In Red Tarot, Marmolejo writes that “the revolutions powered by the Wheel have no end” & it will never “stop at any singular point of resolution.” But this “opens up narrative possibilties that involve the reader’s interpretative choices of possible futures, sharing the narrative responsibility of liberation,” as “the revolution rejects the counterstance of either/or logic.” He writes that “change is the language of luck” and “the Wheel is considered an auspicious augur to appear in a reading” — “Change is a blessing because it offer hope” & “to acknowledge/embrace change is to affirm possibility….Change is transmutation. Death is the hand of change, the force that forces change….The wheel is a metaphor for cyclical time. We engage in a sacred dance to move with the planets in time, to know opportune times to plant, pray, reap, & rest.”
And, “the Wheel is the higher order referenced by the Magician” who “is the astrologer,” while “the Wheel of Fortune is the astrology, both images of each other.” Whereas “the Magician is the subjectivity of the present moment…the Wheel’s consciousness is of eternity, [reminding] us that life is not organized into an endless upward growth; there are periods of harvest, rest, [&] decline….To be stuck in an endless loop of repetition quickly incurs delusion, & so to keep from the ceaseless cycles of pain & suffering, the Wheel of Fortune signals an opportunity for awareness, understanding, & action that closes the loop” — “which evolves the soul’s consciousness.” This is an opportunity, a window. The forces of change are behind me if I work with the universe.
