WHEEL OF FORTUNE
-X-
Success arrives with the bubbles in a glass of champagne, the good beluga, and frosting on the cake. It's a heady exhilaration experienced solely by the audacious, the defiant. But the brass ring glitters for all without favor, and fools are content with the trappings.
The Wheel of Fortune looks like a meat grinder with a giant hand appearing out of the clouds, turning its handle to rotate the wheel. As befits a king, he sits at its summit, heavy booted, one leg crossed over the other, his arms extended, a wine cup in one hand, the other clasping the hand of his queen. She is turned from him facing a precipitous future while he peers back at his achievements.
The couple looks as if they are dancing a tango. She grasps her dress that has been caught by a man falling off the pinnacle of the spinning wheel. His obdurate hold drags the queen down. And so the tango continues and fortune grinds on. With patience, one learns what falls inevitably ascends. The wise woman sets greater goals; success is rarely more than a measure of what can be achieved or bought.
Upright: Fate brings prosperity. Success is at hand; choose wisely.
Reversed: Locked into pessimism and doubt.
Do not be fooled by the trappings of success.