Wheel of Fortune Soul Meditation

The Wheel of Fortune has always been a card I resonated easily with, right from the beginning of my tarot studies.  I understand it almost instinctively. When I was growing up if someone asked me what my religion was I would say, "The Balance of the Universe". I had noticed that for every truly sad or awful thing that happened, something equally beautiful and wonderful happened.  These things seemed to happen in cycles, and I knew that when things were bad, I could endure because eventually things would get better.  It just happened every time.  If you asked me what my goal in life was I would say, "to go out on an up cycle".  I just wanted to have a tiny bit more good than bad in my life at the very end ;).  Soul Meditations is helping me explore my spirituality on a deeper level, but this general idea of cycles is central to my understanding of spirit.  Here is my meditation experience:

The Wheel of Fortune meditation began with a relaxation leading down a staircase.  I saw in my mind a staircase taking me down much farther than the 10 steps initially described in the meditation.  The stairs lead from a door suspended in space, sloping down into a twilight cloud.  The puffy cloud was beautiful shades of twinkling blue, reflecting off a deepening evening sky.  The wooden gate at the bottom of the stairs scaled up into infinity, looming off into the night sky of stars far overhead.  I opened the gate with the tiniest of keys I wore around my neck, much like a key to a pocket diary.  I walked through the gates and traveled into the scene from the Wheel of Fortune card, although the sky was twilight instead of the bright blue of the Rider Waite Smith deck.

I went up to the Wheel and felt the rough, heavy stone and worn ancient wood out of which it was made.   When I touched it, the Wheel suddenly started spinning counter-clockwise as if to remind me that some cycles lead backwards.  I'm not on a continuous path onward and upward, but must often travel over well-worn ground in order to learn what I am here on earth to learn.

I then focused on each of the figures surrounding the Wheel of Fortune- the snake, jackal and sphinx.  When I gazed upon the snake it snapped viciously in my direction, wanting to drag me into a down cycle of the wheel through anger, hatred, hurt, and powerlessness. The jackal was menacing but familiar, his eyes glinting out of the shadows, his red body speaking of the danger that the snake foretold.  The jackal embodied my shadow self, the part of me that grows when it encounters hardships.  This growth lead up to the sphinx who is my wiser self.  But this wiser self is a mystery, as these lessons are still before me and I haven't the wisdom to know what the sphinx knows.   There is also the mystery of how the Wheel works, because it is out of our control.  We can enjoy and try to stretch out the upswings, and we can tell ourselves that everything will work out the way it is supposed to when we are on the downswings, but we can't control the Wheel.  We learn by living with it, but it will teach us things we may not consciously choose.

Surrounding the Wheel of Fortune in the tarot card are three winged angels representing the four fixed signs of the zodiac:  the angel for Aquarius, the eagle for Scorpio, the lion for Leo and the bull for Taurus.  In this meditation the Bull came up to greet me.  The energy the Bull conveyed to me was strongly rooted in the earth energy of Taurus.  The Bull filled me with a sense of my connection to the earth, letting me know that I'm a custodian of the earth and I should feel responsible for it's well-being.  The state of our Earth is constantly in the news these days, with concrete information about global climate change and our human impact on the environment in high focus.  The Bull pushed me to think of ways I could help with healing and caring for the Earth.  He gave me a gift of grass, hay and flowers.  The flowers encircled , dressed and protected me.  I felt beautiful and magical with these living flowers encompassing and weaving around me.  I think imagining myself covered in these flowers from the Bull could work both as a protective shield for me, and as a way to invite people in to interact with me.  What a delightful gift!

After the Bull, I talked with my spirit guide Gabriel, the angel in this card, who's touch caused my glower garment to swirl and grow.  The meditation was coming to end and I felt anxious and unready to part from Gabriel.  He infused me with calm and nonresistance-  if I need more time to speak with him, I should make more time to meditate!  I recognized that I do not make enough time to meditate and connect with my spirit guides, a situation that makes me feel anxious and unbalanced.  I slowly withdrew backwards, out of the massive gates, and up the stairs into the air, relaxed and ready to continue my day.

This meditation gave me a sense of the ancient energy of The Wheel of Fortune.  The place I visited was timeless and eternal, a constant point around which we all cycle around and around.  If we find a way to connect to that center, which is possible through Soul Meditations, we can gather resources to make our current cycle work for us.  I can use the earth energy of the Bull to ground me during my spiritual exploration of Soul Meditations.  I can protect myself with this energy, but also use it as a way to interact and invite others into my world.  Great meditation!  Can't wait for Justice next week :)!