The Wheel · La Roue de Fortune

The Wheel is the tenth trump, and nobody stands in it, because there is nothing to stand on. Pamela Colman Smith hung a great orange wheel in open air, grey cloud heaped round it, blue sky, the numeral X above, no ground below. Clockwise from the top the rim reads T, A, R, O, a Hebrew letter between each pair; inside, an eight-spoked wheel carries four alchemical marks, mercury at the top, dissolution at the bottom, salt and sulphur to either side. A blue sphinx in a black-and-white striped headdress lies couched on top, a bare sword rising from its forepaws past one shoulder, looking straight out. A red jackal-headed figure climbs the right side, its body running under the wheel; a yellow serpent comes down the left, head-first, tongue forked. In each corner a gold winged creature rests on cloud with an open white book: angel and eagle above, ox and lion below. It names itself below: WHEEL OF FORTUNE.

The rim moves. The readers in the corners keep their place.

Classically the card takes Jupiter: the turn you did not author, luck and its bill, timing on its own clock. The sphinx keeps its seat above the turn, holding nothing but a sword.

Upright, the dial reads as motion in your favor: a door that opens because the hour opened, a cycle closing where it should, fortune received without earning.

Reversed, the same wheel is resisted or badly timed. What comes round comes round against the grain, the account falls due, the turn has you on its descending side. Both faces are one movement: the jackal climbs the right while the serpent goes down the left, one wheel.