X is for Major Arcana X: Wheel of Fortune

I have a tendency to think about some things in terms of opposites. Life and death. Right and wrong. Up and down. Manic and depressed. Placing the ideas on the flip side the same coin organizes them quickly and easily. That approach to thinking is so prevalent that I am compelled to believe it's human nature to do so. The coin system works great for a lot of things but it's sorely inaccurate for many others. The 10th card of the Major Arcana always reminds me of that fact.

This card has two wheels on it. The obvious one that's the focus of the card and another one tipped over on its side at the very top. Do we make our own future, our own destiny, or are those things determined from above, from the divine? The artwork on the card says the answer is both. The lighting bolts in the background, the power from above, are always hitting our lives from one direction or another. The other wheel, with the Sphinx, the monkey, and the crocodile is the destiny we create for ourselves. The swirling pattern farthest in the back is the motion our lives add to the world around us - the proverbial ripple in the pond.

I don't dare speculate about the wheel at the top. After all, who can really know the mind of the divine or the rules from beyond the veil that govern the physical and spiritual universe we live in.

The wheel in the front I can talk about because it is my own life and its movement is the result of my own choices, good, bad, or indifferent.

The ape on the left is riding the wheel up to the top. It represents creation, initiation, those things that are coming into being in my life and they are not necessarily positive  things. The ape could let go if it chose to. It could refuse to allow the emergence of the next thing in life. I could refuse and at times I have.

The crocodile on the right side is riding the wheel down, to its lowest point. It's tied to the wheel with absolutely no choice but to experience the destruction that occurs in life. Or does it have a choice? The tie is loose, there's no knot. The crocodile could let go, just like the ape. In letting go though, it will fall none the less. Perhaps something wonderful is being destroyed causing pain that we cannot escape from. Of course, something causing us great pain might also be disintegrating.

The Sphinx at the top is balanced. The wheel turns easily so maintaining that balance is difficult. It looks back into that space between the wheels, between how we influenced our own lives and how the higher power influenced it. If we are to learn anything, it will be from trying to merge the what and why of our past. There's no point in looking forward for the what and why of the future, because we cannot know what lighting the universe will throw at us next. If the Sphinx turns to peer deep into the future, the balance will be lost and the wheel will resume its movement. People being people, turning to look is inevitable.

I guess I should tell you why this card always reminds me that life's things and events are not represented on the opposite side of a coin very well. After all, that's where this post started.

The wheel of life does not flip. It does not have heads or tails. It revolves around a hub. The animals, representing creation, balance, and destruction, do not sit on one face or the other. They ride the rim, diminishing and expanding continuously - never appearing or disappearing in an infinitely small moment in time.

Life is not, can not, be the opposite of death. The wheel is the very representation of life and it turns, not flips. Health and sickness are not opposites either. Getting sick happens over time, so does regaining our health, and maintaining it is a balancing act. This is no more apparent than in trying to live between mania and depression. Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it permanent? Absolutely not. I will make some choice that will start the wheel turning. Lightening, far beyond my control, will strike. Do I hold on to the wheel, trust that it will not stop at the bottom? Will the momentum of its movement be enough to carry me through the low point?

I've lost count of how many times I have been so afraid of the motion that I have tried desperately to climb back up to the top. When I was on the downward side, trying to climb back up only made the wheel turn faster and faster until I couldn't hold on anymore. I had no more control. My fate was dictated by the powers from above and it was my own fault. Learning to hang on is one of the hardest and most painful lessons of my life. Riding the wheel is hard, that's true. It hurts and I selfishly think sometimes that it hurts me more than others. The wheel keeps moving and it always brings beautiful things with it along the way. They are not permanent but neither are the ugly things. There's one exception to that. Letting go.

Letting go meant I was always at a low point, lower than the wheel would have taken me if I had only held on. I could have closed my eyes and screamed in terror. Instead, I let go and screamed a silent sort of terror. I could not close my eyes. It was as if my eyelids had been torn away. I was ignorant of how far I would fall, when and if the divine would finally pull me back up within reach of my life, and what the divine would put me through next. My life stopped, suspended in that terrible space I should never have entered. The swirling motion of existence continued without me because I was stuck in a single moment. That which should have disintegrated, what should have fallen from the wheel instead of me, stayed there. It left no room for that which should have developed in my life.

There I remained, experiencing the pain and anguish created by the enormous power from above and the choices I made in response that lightening and thunder. Angry, desperate, screaming in pain, I learned what hell truly was.