The Wheel of Fortune is a card that reminds us that what goes up, comes down and what is down, goes up. This is the cycle of life, grow, thrive, harvest, lie fallow, then round again. When it comes up in a reading it suggests you might be feeling a sense of destiny, opening to luck, witnessing miracles. Maybe you'll see life's threads weave together, coming to an understanding you haven't before. That would be lovely for me, I want to understand the bigger picture of my life. I want to know the why of the bad and the deep thanks for the good.
Sometimes the Wheel comes up when you're at a turning point. Up, down, round and round. You can find yourself surprised at the unexpected turns until you come to the wise place of knowing all turns are unexpected, hold good and bad that can only be determined as the story unfolds. Rumi writes: Misery and joy have the same shape in this world: You may call the rose an open heart or a broken heart." A friend, on reading this, sent me a Buddhist story about a man who approaches all events, seemingly good or seemingly bad, with the phrase: "How can you know it is a blessing?" "How can you know it is a misfortune?" What we think is misfortune may be a blessing in disguise and what we see as a gift can be a curse, depending.
The Wheel can also signal that you are feeling movement in your life, having the tempo of life speed up, being swept up in new developments. Life is definitely speeding up these days, a far cry from the timeless, otherworldliness of a year ago as I continued my recovery. And the Wheel can indicate you have found your personal vision. Perhaps you see at last how everything connects. Maybe you uncover patterns and cycles you never imagined. Either way you expand your outlook, gain greater perspective, and discover your role and purpose in life. I think this might actually be happening. I may at last be discovering my role and purpose in life.
This seems a pretty auspicious card on a bright, sunny spring day when anything and everything is possible. Of course, "how can you know?" I'll keep you posted.
, the Seven of Wands (Candlesticks) depicts 
giving Lady Catherine de Bourgh a piece of her mind. Elizabeth has refused the proposal of Lady Catherine's nephew, Fitzwilliam Darcy. That she has come to a place of realizing how wrong she was about this man and that she may indeed love him, hardly matters. By this point in the book she can have no hope that he will ask again. So when Lady Catherine comes and demands that Elizabeth deny the rumors and promise never to enter into an engagement Elizabeth refuses. Lady Catherine's rudeness was handled deftly, as only Elizabeth Bennett can, and the great lady leaves with no assurances.
, reading Shakespeare to Fanny Price and Lady Bertram. He hardly looks at the pages but regales them from heart and memory, and his passion and skill enchants them. Henry Crawford is not a particularly likable character. In this deck, the author has a different view of the Magician card, whose energy can be both positive and negative. It says that the querent possesses many gifts -- charm, fluidity of communication, and the ability to manifest goals seemingly without effort. Like every gift, they can be used for good or ill. The key is discernment. Where are you applying your considerable abilities? 
. Louisa Musgrove, a beautiful and impetuous young woman decides to jump again from the quay. Up she runs and impulsively leaps before Frederick Wentworth can ready himself to catch her. Louisa falls and loses consciousness. It is the quick thinking of Anne that sends someone familiar with the town for the doctor. It is this calm, competent response that reminds Captain Wentworth why he fell in love with Anne years ago and fans the flames of that love. It is a terrible event but from it comes joy for Anne and Captain Wentworth, and perhaps Louisa too, who finds a man more suited to her. This is perhaps the key to the Tower. Change is change, neither good nor bad. It's how we accept change that makes the difference. I wonder if I had faced the change that came to me 3 years ago in a more accepting way, if things would have turned out differently. I have come to a place where I have to believe it was for the best. 
. Catherine is a young woman of sweet disposition, intelligence, but an extremely active, some might say over-active, imagination. It doesn't take her long to come under the influence of the gothic novels she's read and the shadowed past of the people and home she is visiting. She grows sure that General Tilney has murdered his wife. The General is not a kind man nor a particularly good one. He is neither a loving father nor was he a loving husband, not surprising at the time of this novel. It was Jane Austen's world. Still, he was not a murderer. Catherine let her imagination run away with her and in so doing jeopardizes her new friendship and burgeoning love. 
. That is the 
of my Mars. In such a position, the red planet in the mercurial sign of the intellect, the mind often runs away with us. It works overtime, often to our detriment. My mind does that and my work it seems, these days, is to find other ways to occupy it, ways that don't rely on focusing on all that could go wrong. That will then leave it plenty of energy to form creative strategies to deal with the times things do go awry. The key is to come to discriminate between real and imaginary hurts and foes, to stay in the present even when the future calls, tugs, pulls me towards "what ifs". When those "what ifs" become "what is" then I'll worry about them.
. In the short term, Henry Dashwood's death negatively effects the girls emotionally and financially. They lose the house and status they were accustomed to as well. Yet from this one end, such repercussions come, bad and good. The two women might never have found true love without their father's death. This too is hard for me, to hope for good amid the bad. At this point, I can't say this way was the better way. I miss the things that are gone, the people too. And yet, gone they are and this is my life now. What's gone is gone. We can only keep walking along our path. As Machado said, the path is made by walking. So our paths are made by our feet and our movement and motion.
. This card is seen as an augury of love and happiness. It speaks of abundant blessings, hard won. You have been tested by fire and can at last truly appreciate the peace and harmony. Like the Bennett girls, you can expect happiness, both present and future when this card comes up. So enjoy it. You've earned it.
takes under her wing. Harriet Smith is not particularly clever and she is easily swayed. An amiable young woman, she can be encouraged in the best directions or the worst, depending. Emma encourages Harriet to think more of herself than her circumstances suggest. On the Seven of Cups, Harriet sits at tea and in her thoughts all the eligible bachelors of Highbury circle, as if any could be hers once she settled on one.
, the Jane Austen deck shows the union of two opposites, the animal pleasures of Henry Crawford and the more spiritual, heart-felt love of Fanny Price, the maiden and the roue. When it shows up in a reading, you may find yourself caught between physical desires and spiritual ones. It does not necessarily advocate one over the other but rather insists you have both at your command should you choose to take hold of them. It is also a card of trusting your gut. Fanny knows Henry is not the man for her but is pressured on all sides, including by Edmund Bertram, the man she loves, to marry him. She holds to the strengths of her convictions even though its unpopular. She is even sent from Mansfield Park as punishment for her disobedience. And she does waver a moment, before finding herself and refusing Henry for good. When this card shows up, call upon the courage of your convictions. Know valor is your birthright. Own it and persevere. It will be made right. It is this trust in the rightness of things, that life's endings are better crafted then my ego's that is my biggest struggle. 
