Wheel of Fortune tarot card meaning: upright, reversed and symbols

The Wheel of Fortune is card X of the Major Arcana, the card of turning points. A great wheel floats in the clouds, with creatures rising and falling around it. Fortune goes up and down, and your task is to respond with skill when it turns. This page explains what the Wheel of Fortune means upright and reversed, the symbols in Pamela Colman Smith’s card and the medieval idea behind it.

At a glance

• Upright keywords: cycles, change, luck, turning points
• Reversed keywords: a rough turn, resisting change, bad timing
• Number: X (10) in the Major Arcana
• Element: Fire Later tradition
• Astrology: Jupiter Later tradition
• Yes or no: Yes Modern

The element and astrology come from the Golden Dawn system of the 1880s and 1890s, not from the first tarot decks, and the yes or no lean is a modern reading habit. Use them if they help you remember the card, and skip them if they get in the way.

The card: what Pamela Colman Smith drew

This is one of the busiest cards in the deck. Waite wrote that the picture “stands for the perpetual motion of a fluidic universe and for the flux of human life”, and that “the Sphinx is the equilibrium therein”.

The wheel and its letters

The wheel carries the letters T, A, R, O, which can be read as TARO, ROTA (Latin for wheel) or TORA, mixed with Hebrew letters of the name of God. It is a word puzzle that Waite borrowed from the French occultist Éliphas Lévi.

The sphinx, the snake and the jackal

A sphinx with a sword sits on top. A snake slides down one side, and a jackal-headed figure, the Egyptian Anubis, rises on the other. Things go down and come up again. The sphinx in the middle stays still.

The four winged creatures

In the corners are an angel, an eagle, a lion and a bull, each reading a book. They come from the Bible, from the visions of Ezekiel and Revelation, and later stood for the four evangelists. Many readers also link them to the four fixed signs of the zodiac.

The clouds

The wheel floats in a blue sky. The turning is bigger than any one person. You do not spin the wheel, but you choose how you ride it.

Upright meaning

Upright, the Wheel of Fortune points to cycles, chance, luck and change that is larger than your own control. A turn is already happening. Good fortune may arrive, a door may open, or a long phase may come to an end.

In a reading, notice which part of the cycle you are in. Prepare in the quiet seasons and stay humble in the busy ones. Adapt to the turn, and keep your ethics when luck flatters you.

Reversed meaning

Reversed, the Wheel can show a rough turn, bad timing or resistance to a change that is already underway. Upheaval may feel personal when it is partly impersonal.

Loosen your grip. Do the practical damage control you can. Resistance rarely stops a wheel. It only scrapes your hands. Learn the pattern, so the next turn finds you less surprised.

Reversals are optional. Many readers never use them and read every card upright, and that is a complete way to read. If you do use them, decide before you shuffle what a reversed card will mean for you, and keep to that choice for the whole reading.

In love, work and spirituality

Love

Upright, a new phase in a relationship, a lucky meeting, a fresh start. Reversed, fighting a natural ending or repeating the same pattern again.

Work and money

A change in the market, a new opportunity, a lucky break. Reversed, refusing to adapt when the field has moved on.

Spirituality

Trusting larger rhythms such as the seasons, the moon or life stages. Reversed, reading every setback as a personal curse.

As feelings

As feelings, the Wheel shows that things are changing. The person may feel that this connection is meant to be, or simply that everything is in motion.

Wheel of Fortune as past, present, future and advice

• Past: A turning point that changed your direction.
• Present: Things are moving. Adapt to the turn.
• Future: A change of luck or a new chapter is on its way.
• Advice: Prepare in quiet times and stay humble in good ones.

A Major Arcana card names a theme, not a sentence passed on your life. When the Wheel of Fortune shows up among mostly Minor cards, give it extra weight: the theme of cycles runs under the whole question. If it keeps coming back over several days, write down what was happening each time. Patterns like that teach you more about the card than any list of keywords.

Is the Wheel of Fortune a yes or a no?

In modern yes or no readings, the Wheel of Fortune leans yes. It usually means a turn for the better, so it leans yes, though it reminds you that luck turns both ways. Tarot is better at showing the shape of a situation than at handing down verdicts, so if the question really matters, turn it into an open question such as “What do I need to know about this?” and draw again.

Affirmation and journal prompts

Affirmation: I meet changing cycles with adaptability and steady character.

Reversed affirmation: I stop clinging to a turn that has already passed.

Journal prompts:

• Which cycle in my life is turning now?
• What did I learn the last time luck turned against me?
• What can I prepare while things are quiet?

The history and art behind the card

In the Tarot de Marseille pattern the card is called La Roue de Fortune, the Wheel of Fortune. The Wheel of Fortune was one of the best-known images of the Middle Ages. Manuscripts and church windows showed the goddess Fortuna turning a wheel, with a king on top saying “I reign” and a fallen figure underneath saying “I am without a kingdom”. The early tarot cards borrowed this familiar image directly.

Marseille decks show odd animal figures riding the wheel. The Egyptian figures, the letters and the creatures from Ezekiel came from Éliphas Lévi in the nineteenth century. Waite said openly that he followed Lévi’s design and used Egyptian imagery “provided that no theory of origin is implied”. In other words, he did not claim the card was Egyptian.

When A. E. Waite published The Pictorial Key to the Tarot in 1910, he listed these divinatory meanings for the card: “Destiny, fortune, success, elevation, luck, felicity.” Reversed, he gave: “Increase, abundance, superfluity.” Waite himself called the fortune-telling meanings of the trumps “artificial and arbitrary”, and on this site I read the picture first and treat lists like this as history.

In the modern teaching map called the Fool’s Journey, this card belongs to the second stage, meeting the world’s tests (roughly Strength to Temperance): courage, solitude, change, fairness, surrender, endings and balance. This map is a teaching aid made popular by twentieth-century guidebooks such as Eden Gray’s, not a medieval doctrine. Use it when it helps.

A spread for the Wheel of Fortune

Use this spread when life is changing and you want to understand the turn.

1. What is ending? The part of the cycle that is passing.
2. What is beginning? What is rising into view.
3. How can I ride the turn? The attitude or action that helps.

Lay the three cards in a row, read each one on its own first, then read them together as a short story. Write one sentence for each position and one small action you will take.

Common questions

Is the Wheel of Fortune good or bad?

It is mostly a hopeful card about change and luck, but it reminds you that cycles turn both ways.

What does the Wheel of Fortune mean in love?

A turning point: a new phase, a lucky meeting or a change in a relationship.

What do the letters on the wheel mean?

They can be read as TARO, ROTA or TORA, a word game from Éliphas Lévi that Waite adopted.

Related cards

• Death: another card of endings and new beginnings
• The World: the completion of a whole cycle
• Justice: the next card, where cause and effect take over from chance

Keep learning

Wheel of Fortune is part of the lesson Strength to Temperance in my free Tarot for Beginners course. To keep walking the Major Arcana, read the card before it, The Hermit or the card after it, Justice, or go back to all the card meanings. For every card with keywords, affirmations and examples, see my book The Novice’s Guide to Tarot. If you would like a printable cheat sheet for all 78 cards, my 45-page Tarot Workbook is on Etsy.

Sources

• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), Part II and Part III, section 3.
• Pamela Colman Smith and A. E. Waite, the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot (London: Rider, 1909).
• Nicolas Conver, Tarot de Marseille (Marseille, 1760).
• Eden Gray, A Complete Guide to the Tarot (New York: Crown, 1970), epilogue “The Fool’s Journey”.
• Lauri Mukkala, The Novice’s Guide to Tarot, entry for Wheel of Fortune.