Anyone use the Wheel of Change Tarot?

Just wondering if anyone of you own and like to use the Wheel of Change Tarot. The depictions of the Minor Arcana especially, and many of the Majors,too, are vastly different from more traditional decks encompassing ideas from many eras and cultures around the world. The art work is bright and colorful and cheerful. I love this deck, but would be honored to explore and discuss these cards in more detail with like minded people. Love and Light, Belladonna

I think my favourite card in the whole deck is the Strength card. I was lucky enough to get two Strength cards. I have one framed on my desk at work. The woman in that card looks so strong, so happy with herself. She radiates confidence!

Yes, I love the way this card has a special meaning for women. Menarche. And we probably all have experience with pms and raging hormones, mood swings, and strong emotions.. the beast within. But to access that "beast" and tame it- use it to our advantage, is our source of strength and pride. Our menarche can be a way for us as women to align ourselves to the energies of the moon and the waters of the earth. One of our greatest creative abilities, to bare a child, is due to our ability to menstruate. It represents a stage in the life of Woman that is severely overlooked in our culture. A coming of age when a girl begins to menstruate. One step closer to becoming a woman. A step we should acknowledge with pride.

4 Cards I Like

I haven't used the deck much but so far my favourite card is the 8 of Wands which depicts the painting of the artist's extra card with the solar wheel on it--it shows her card template with the painting centred on it and the registration marks in the corners, the drafting template for the circle and her paintbrushes and graphite and coloured pencil. It screams "creativity." The composition itself is marvelous and runs off the page, but it's the imagination and creativity that come through. I like that. It simply makes you want to sit down and do something creative.

I was always attracted to the 2 of Cups in online scans before I bought the deck. It seems to portray the feeling of two people in love with its champagne and strawberries on the table and the lace tablecloth and the flowers. One wonders if a married couple are celebrating their first anniversary or their wedding or engagement or what. Lovely image and really seems to nail the conventional feeling of the card.

The other card that intrigues me is the 6 of Disks and its depiction of money. I've done several digital collages myself that feature currency and coins of the world so I loved this card. It also depicts a blob of blood. I looked at the blood and thought of slavery in ancient civilizations like Greece and Rome as well as our own history of slavery in this hemisphere. Trading people, using them as currency, abusing them to grow rich. She also points out trade as a way to feed yourself so perhaps she also meant to signify the blood of animals that feed us. It gives a depth to the card that's unusual and startling.

And the Death card with its shockingly white shroud heavily decorated at the edge, was an unusual touch that caught my attention. Excuse the play on words, but it adds another "layer" to the card--the spirit spiralling upward like the shroud.

She's got all kinds of little touches like this in the deck. A very good deck for shrouding yourself in stories. <g>

One that I had a hard time with is the 4 of Cups. The images on the card seem so empty. So stark. It's kind of a lonely card. It reminds me of a table set and left waiting because nobody came home to eat.. forlorn. Does anybody have a different opinion of this card? I'm also interested to know what you felt the first time you looked at it.

well I am impatiently waiting for my Wheel of Change deck which should arrive today or tomorrow, and then I will be delighted to respond!

(and then NO MORE NEW DECKS!!)

4 of Cups Throws Meaning at You in a Subtle Way

Well, it's a bit of a stretch.

It's just that little bit different. AND it didn't look like the clay and water in a bowl that she describes in the book. It looked exactly like bread rising in a bowl to me. Perhaps I should have got that the object under the big central bowl was a potter's wheel but it could just as well have been a Rubbermaid turntable in the kitchen! Go figure if you've never thrown pottery.

I thought it was a very homey, warm picture with sunlight and warmth and bread rising. Safe, secure although symmetrical and somewhat static. It doesn't seem to convey the message of boredom or being listless. It's like Mom cooking good things in a warm kitchen and yeast and flour smells and cheerful sunlight.

All the things she said about the potter becoming the symbol of the Great Goddess is not something I would think of without the book. Her concept of duality with the bowl of water and the bowl of clay which might symbolize trying to harmonize relationships that are in trouble is also something I would never pick up unless I read the book.

I love the picture mind you, this is one of the reasons I love the deck, the way she does compositions of objects and light. Similar to the 10 of Swords with the garden shed or barn and tools in the moonlight. Very haunting images, but their meaning is iffy, or wait a minute, is it?

So let's see, if I was to use what I saw and try to correspond it to the conventional meaning I might note the stasis of the picture, everything laid out ready to work with, and lots of light and warmth for comfort and creativity and then.......nothing is happening. Perhaps ennui and boredom have overtaken the potter (or the baker!) and they have left the room to lie listlessly on the chesterfield, wondering why they never get anything done. Or maybe they are trying to recover their creativity after turning out bowl after bowl on that wheel and are completely satiated with the experience and don't want to do more.

If I think of it like that it's not a bad card, in fact it makes a lot of sense.

Freesiaskye,

Thanks for your insight! So different than mine- but that was exactly my intention in beginning this group. I'll probably never look at that card again without being reminded of your view. I think I was focusing on the boredom, feelings of unfulfillment, etc while taking for granted the stability of the situation which is exactly what ALLOWS for freedom of movement and exploration.
Great stuff!

Are there any cards you feel a blockage with?

Extreme Blockage on the 4 of Disks

Belladonna said:

Are there any cards you feel a blockage with?

Click to expand...

This card is forever linked to The Miser card in the Osho Zen to me, and more recently the 4 of Pents in the Fey with the miserly jester chained to his wheel. Hoarding, hiding, posessive, clinging to that which doesn't bring you happiness, selfish etc.

So in the Wheel of Change we have..........lovely apple blossoms and fruit from the tree with a beautiful ribbon tying it all together. Another one of Alexandra's drop-dead gorgeous cards, but Jeez Louise did I take a wrong turn?

The book says apples are for fertility and fruitfulness and they have a darker side of deceit because it is a Christian symbol of the fall from grace. The symbol of life and death, renewal, the awakening of sexual desire (I stongly disagree with this since Adam and Eve had gobs of sexual desire before their fall but weren't consciously embarrassed about it.) I think she's really stretching it with the Magic Triangle tie-ins and numerology. This is one card that read like gobbledygook to me and seems utterly senseless and out of context to convention.

Can I pull anything from it? Nope. Tell me how fruitfulness ties into miserliness and hoarding riches? Discuss please. It seems exactly the opposite of the conventional meaning.

Love that art though!

I couldn't help laughing when I read that one! I know, I know. But is the 4 of pentacles only about miserliness? A pentacle above the head- a head for money, understanding finances, can work with a budget, two pentacles in hand- money available to work with, to play with, to juggle, a pentacle beneath the feet- a strong foundation under you. Not riches, but stability.

But it you think of the four of pentacles as the natural outcome of the ace to the two to the three... you have a relatively strong foothold now. You are starting to understand the game, you've got some money to work with, money you can make work for you.

Maybe Andrea's point of view is that we can take the time to celebrate the fruitfullness of our situation, we deserve to enjoy it! We all experience the consequences of hoarding something to tightly- loss. But maybe we don't need to BE that extreme in our enjoyment of what we've worked hard to achieve. An apple harvest can be hoarded in your basement to rot, but the beauty of the apples that come across in her cards seem to carry the message: this is sacred, this is a gift to share. Encouragement in the "right" direction rather than a warning: "this is the old stinky miser that you will become if you don't share your apples!"

Sexuality... hm. I suppose in the timeline between the ace and the 10, a 4 would be coming into sexual maturity. I think I'll say no more on this subject lest I get into trouble!