The Wheel of Fortune - Looking at Cycles

I will be perfectly honest with you. The Wheel of Fortune is one of the cards I find most challenging. It usually comes up for me in the position of what lesson I need to learn just as we saw in the Hermit's spread. I think this is because I am an admitted control freak and I often have trouble going with the flow. But I am going to do my best to explain this card in relation to teaching, so let's see what we've got here.

First of all, I am not going to give an in depth explanation of the imagery on this card. That would be very time consuming for me, not to mention the fact that there is already a sensational explanation of the symbols on this card on the Biddy Tarot website. So if you want to check that out, just click this link.

There are two basic ways I see this card - one is that everything happens in cycles and the other is that there is an ebb and flow to everything.

Cycles exist everywhere. We have the four seasons, the lunar cycles, our holidays, our 5 day work week and 2 sweet days of freedom, and of course, our school year calendar. You can even break down these larger cycles into smaller ones. Looking at the school calendar year, we have structured terms. Our school recently moved from five terms to four. Within those terms we have units of study. Depending on your preference, you may even be the type of teacher who schedules certain types of activities on certain days. Maybe you do SSR on Fridays. Right now I typically do a reading quiz on Wednesdays and a fishbowl discussion on Thursdays.

Cycles are important because they provide us with some stability and predictability. There is an incredible amount of comfort in this. It can help us to remain focused on our goals when we have a certain sense of routine in our lives. And research has also shown that students benefit from structure and routine. However, there is of course a downside to cycles and routine - we can fall into a rut and become incredibly bored and possibly stagnant. So as a teacher, it is important to strike a balance between structured routine and a sense of excitement and adventure. It's important to find a way to shake things up and keep things fresh while still maintaining a familiar sequence of events for our students.

Let's talk about the "ebbing and flowing" aspect of this card. I think sometimes people mistake this card for meaning that things just happen to us and it is out of control and we just have to deal with it. The end. But I think it is much more complex than that. First of all, if you subscribe to the idea of "the law of attraction" as I do, then you will believe that our thoughts have the power to manifest and that we are therefore in control of the things that happen to us. This can be incredibly empowering, but also frightening. Sure it's great to know that we have the power to make things happen in our lives by first thinking of them and then working towards them. But what about when something bad happens to us? Does that mean we did it to ourselves? This can wrack us with guilt and shame! But on the flip side, I still think this is better than having a fatalistic attitude in which people believe that everything is just happening to them and that they have no control about what transpires in their lives. With that, you just end up feeling lucky when things go right and unlucky when things go wrong and you ultimately lack any personal responsibility or accountability for your own present situation as well as your future situation. But I feel the Wheel of Fortune has a lot to teach us about how to look at the things that are outside the locus of our control.

Leaving philosophies of fate out of the equation, we can all agree that we all have moments in our lives where everything is going fine and then out of the blue something just happens - an illness, a death, a loss of employment, an earthquake, etc. The Wheel of Fortune would suggest that even though things may just happen to us - for good or for bad - we do have control of how we react to them. We also have the responsibility to work with the universe and never just accept what happens to us. We are co-creators with the universe and it is important to remember that we always have choices.

Getting off track for a moment, this relates perfectly to how I view Tarot. I always tell my clients that even if you do a past-present-future spread, nothing is ever set in stone. The cards only show you the best probable outcome for your situation based on the facts at hand. But if you don't like what you have been shown, you can always strive to change those outcomes. This is what the Wheel of Fortune is all about.

So how is this wisdom helpful to us teachers? Teachers are wonderful at manifestation. We plan, we gather our tools, and we execute those plans. But sometimes things can jump in our paths - a snow day, a student has an unexpected illness or accident, or students don't respond to a lesson they way we would have liked. Instead of throwing our hands up in the air in defeat, we always have to keep moving forward. We may not be able to solve the problem to our complete satisfaction, but we can do the best with what we have to deal with the situation.

The Wheel of Fortune is asking us to enjoy the ride with all of its ups and downs. How can we get in alignment with this card? We can practice gratitude in our daily lives whether things are going well or not. We can also decide whether we want to just ride the waves when the seas are stormy and just wait and see what will happen or we can swim against the tide and fight for what we want no matter what obstacles are standing in our way. Ultimately, we have choices and that is the main thing this card wants us to remember.

So the next post will feature a spread looking at what areas of our teaching we can relinquish some control over and what areas we need to take more control of. I hope you enjoyed this post and I apologize if I rambled for a bit. This card is incredibly rich and complex. It is a card I know I will be working towards fully understanding for the rest of my life.

I would love for you to share your perspective on this card. Thank you!

All my best,

Amy