Hello you,
Before we get into The Wheel of Fortune, I wanted to tell you about Liminal Sleepover. Grab you cutest pyjamas and your cosiest blankets, we’re getting together for a slumber party.
The slippery liminal darkness at the threshold of the new year is my favourite time of year and I want to spend it with you. It’s a time when the grip of ‘everyday life’ gets a little looser and everything feels ripe with possibility.
Over two nights in December and January we’ll gather to release the old and dream into what comes next. But not in some solemn, dry way. This is going to be a party.
We’re bringing the energy of a high school sleepover to winter solstice and new year. Pillow forts and giggles, dress ups and trying on new versions of who you could be, riotous play and tender whispers in the dark.
There will be breathwork and rest practices, rituals for releasing and spells cast for the future, conversations, special guests, and tiny dance parties. You’ll come away feeling reconnected, rested, and clear about what you’re ready to grow into in 2024.
Early bird places are opening next week and come with a care package sent in the mail. Real tangible mail full of goodies! The best! These places will be limited so if you want first dibs drop me an email and I’ll add you to the waitlist.
Okay, now on to The Wheel of Fortune!
10.
The Wheel of Fortune
You are not The Wheel of Fortune. You are simply one of the beings that it spins. Sometimes The Wheel carries you up to the highest heights, the world full of possibility spreading out before you. Sometimes you’re tumbling down the other side with nothing going as you had hoped.
No matter.
Not really.
The Wheel keeps turning and we continue to dance through the cycles of life.
Meet The Wheel of Fortune
The Wheel of Fortune is the first card in our journey through the Major Arcana that zooms up and out of personal experience. We are not The Wheel, but we are in relationship with it. It stands outside of us.
The Wheel of Fortune is change itself.
For everything (turn turn turn!) there is a season (turn turn turn!)
This card, the 10th of the tarot, is a reminder that nothing stays they same. Things end, things begin. Everything changes. Sometimes Fortuna smiles upon you, other times not so much. It’s a card that nudges us in the ribs and says “Don’t worry, this too shall pass”. Whether the ‘this’ in question is delightful or devastating.
“All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change.”
― Octavia E. Butler
And we know that, right? At least cognitively. We know that change is inevitable but we also kinda hate it.
We resist. Long for permanence and predictability. It’s a deeply human thing to do. We cling on to the good times and try to make them stay forever, and we’re anxiously certain that the bad times will never pass. We want to trust the process but oh god it’s so scary to let go. It makes us turn brittle as we grip tight and try to control.
Plus let’s not overlook that old capitalist story we’re taught about constant production. A linear graph that goes up and up and up. Constantly consuming and producing more and more.
It’s insidious thinking, deeply disconnected from (and destructive to) the natural rhythms of the world, and it sneaks it’s way into our expectations of ourselves as well. We begin to believe that we should also be on the constant up and up. Always growing, always expanding.
But life moves in seasons and cycles, and we do too.
The winter melts into spring, the moon phases from full to new and back again, our cells die and renew, our breath fills and empties. Sometimes we’re shining and full of possibility. Sometimes we’re lost and fumbling around for a way forward.
So what if you let yourself be where you are right now?
Like really. What if you stopped trying to force things to be different and opened to your experience exactly as it is? What if the best laid plans of your beautifully clever brain aren’t actually the thing that’s going to get you where you need to go?
Life expands and contracts. When we stop expecting ourselves to be the same, forever and always, we can be present for the highs and lows – and the full spectrum of experience in between.
Opening to the changeability of this wild human life allows you to become more supple. More adaptable. More fully alive.
Embodying The Wheel of Fortune
You already are the embodiment of change. That’s just your nature. So instead of a practice to become The Wheel of Fortune, I offer something to help support you as it spins.
Whether you’re riding high on The Wheel of Fortune or being smooshed beneath its tread, you can be your own steadying force. This is a practice to move your nervous system to centre. I think of it as moving a little closer to the hub in the middle of the wheel, so that you can hold yourself in the midst of change.
Becoming the hub of The Wheel
Start by finding a space where you can be undisturbed and comfortable. Sit in a chair that allows you to place both feet steadily on the ground and scoot your bum back so your lower back is supported by the chair back.
Take a few slow, soft breaths and settle in.
Feel where you make contact with what is beneath you. Soften into that support.
Draw your awareness to your sacrum, that steady bone at the base of your spine. Imagine your breath flowing all the way down there. Gathering your energy back and down.
Keep dropping back and down, imagining stillness growing there. Everything else might keep moving and changing around you but your hold this still point within.
Stay here as long as you need.
When you’re ready to emerge, gently start to move your body. Perhaps bring a hand to your chest and blink your eyes open if they were closed.
Emerge back into the external world knowing that you still carry that point of stillness inside, accessible whenever you need it.
An invitation to practice
Want to practice staying with yourself in the expansion and contraction of The Wheel of Fortune? Become a paid subscriber and come join me for a live breathwork session this month.
Breathe with The Wheel of Fortune – 7pm UK time, Sunday November 26th
This is the most accessible way to work with me, and it also means you get to join an absolutely magical bunch of folks in practice.
All paid subscribers are welcome and there will, of course, be a replay for those who can’t make it live.