The Wheel of Fortune and the Six of Swords

This is the first week in many months when all planets are stationed direct and, consequently, we all may feel a little shift or movement in our life this week. The Wheel of Fortune symbolises this shift beautifully. Have you ever had your car stuck in the mud and felt the relief and euphoria when the wheels suddenly break free and start moving again? That analogy can be applied to us too as we feel the effects of forward moving energy. 

However, rather than focusing on the wheel itself, I am drawn to the symbolism on the wheel, where you can see the twelve astrological signs all drawn around a sun, with a moon nestling on top of it. I feel this is drawing our attention to the last year of our lives and asking us to take a moment to reflect on the lessons we have learned, the obstacles we have overcome and the achievements we are most proud of in this time. 

So, what you were doing a year ago? Can you remember how you were feeling or the main focus of your life at that time? Do you recognise the person you were back then? Are you wiser, stronger and feeling more aligned with your soul’s purpose now? Or are you regretful and grieving for aspects of your past that are no longer in your life?  Or perhaps there is a mixture of emotions as you accept the ‘new’ person you are now, but acknowledge the harsh lessons you have had to learn as you have transformed.

This card has made me reflect on exactly this. A year ago, my partner and I were just starting a huge extension project in our new home. It was our first home together, as we had lived separately until this point, so we had certainly thrown ourselves in at the deep end by taking on this mammoth task as we got used to life as a family of three (and one dog!)

I can remember my incredibly stressed, focus, self as we had the daily tasks of liaising with contractors, designing a kitchen, dealing with unexpected emergencies (like the boiler deciding to die and needing to be replaced), and watching nervously as our budget was being quickly spent. Not to mention having to live in one, cold, draughty room and eat an endless supply of slow cooker casseroles, which were cradles on our laps keeping us warm as we wrapped ourselves in blankets to keep out the freezing temperatures. 

As I sit here and write this to you in our beautiful home that we have created, I am immensely grateful for everyone who worked here to make it happen, and am also proud of how we all managed to get through such a chaotic and exhausting period of our lives. But, I did learn one very valuable lesson – it was all a bit too much! But not the project itself, just the way I went about it; rushing to get everything done, not giving myself a break and literally decorating and painting until I dropped. I pushed myself to the point where I couldn’t function properly and I really didn’t need to, it was my mind set making me feel like that was the only way to be. So as I start this year, I am very mindful of learning from the negative and positive aspects of what has gone before.

The reason I am giving my own example is because it brings me nicely on to the next card, the Six of Swords. If The Wheel of Fortune is asking us to reflect on the last cycle of our life, then this card is urging us to look forward. This lady in the card is staring straight ahead and seeing the silver lining in the dark clouds that are overshadowing the sky. Six crows circle above her and she has dropped (possibly sub-consciously) six swords in the snow as she moves towards the dawn. 

I feel that the six swords being dropped are symbolising her making strong decisions to leave behind various thought processes, beliefs and negative thinking patterns in order to embrace the new version of herself she wishes to be. The crows circling around her head are showing that this is easier said than done, and, those thoughts and images will still try and distract her and drag her back to negativity, but she needs to remain focused on the positive white light ahead.

None of us are perfect; we all have positive and negative aspects that float around in our mind. But, what if we could all be promised a future where we could decide what thoughts we take with us? Imagine if, like this lady, we decide to re-organise our mind and only focus on what leads us to a lighter and brighter place to be. 

If we combine that idea with The Wheel of Fortune, then we are being given a choice as to how we navigate this next twelve months of our life and we can draw on what we learned last year to determine how we want our mind to work for us. 

I can’t go back and change the past, but, I can learn from it. I now know when your life is in chaos, becoming stressed about it doesn’t really help and that it all sorts itself out in the end. And as I move forward with phase two of our renovations project just starting, I am going to remind myself that I don’t need to run this project like a military operation and I should allow myself time off to carry on with my hobbies and to rest. I am choosing to shoo those particular crows away that can make my life harder than it need to be, and start a new adventure owning my power and energy without needlessly wasting it on thoughts and worries that are not in any way helpful. Perhaps this week will be a good opportunity for us all to find a way to do this?

The Wheel of Fortune also reminds us that we are not always in charge of our destiny and sometimes, we will be flying high on the top of the wheel or being dragged under it. We can’t always control what is coming our way, but, we can control how we react to it, which is the helpful message these two cards give us this week as we all start moving forwards and jumping on that wheel for another spin!

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