Recovering a Sense of Creative Possibility with The Wheel of Fortune

Week Five of the Tarot Artist's Way...

This summer, I’m guiding you through a tarot takeover of Julia Cameron’s 12 week creative recovery program, The Artist’s Way. Each Monday, I’ll pair a key theme from the book with a tarot archetype, and share fresh insights on The Artist’s Way’s message, through a tarot-lens. Today, we’re diving into Week 5: Recovering a Sense of Possibility.

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Week Five of our tarot-informed journey through The Artist’s Way zooms out from the intimate experience of recovering our inner sources of creativity over the first four weeks and encourages us to realise that creativity actually is all around.

We can look to the Wheel of Fortune card as a symbol for this inexhaustible well of creativity… a reminder that no matter where we find ourselves, there will be creative energy and opportunities to plug into.

ICYMI, the replay recording of our latest Tarot Artist’s Way journaling session is here.

When I draw The Wheel of Fortune card for a client, the reveal is often met with a groan. And then, something along the lines of: “So... I just have no control over the outcome? I’ve just got to wait and see what happens?”

And yes, I’ll confirm that the Wheel is often an invitation to cede control, to ride a situation out, to leave things up to fate.

I’ll also admit that I’m the first to ignore the Wheel’s advice when it rolls in my own direction. I’m a double Taurus. I hate ceding control.

What helps, marginally, is remembering this: ceding control doesn’t mean sacrificing autonomy.

It means recognising potential is everywhere, and that we can choose to resist it, to let our singular idea of what “should” happen cloud all of the things that could happen, or we can choose to plug in to whatever source is available to us in the moment.

We can accept that we may not have all the answers, but that, when the Wheel spins… when it flings us off into some unknown direction and we imagine ourselves lost, the truth is that wherever we land is a place worth being.

The answers we don’t have yet can be found wherever we find ourselves.

Or, to quote Julia Cameron in Week Five of The Artist’s Way: “We must learn to let the flow manifest itself where it will—not where we will it.”

Her advice for Week Five is — in contrast to the severity and restraint of Week Four — all about shedding limitation. It’s about stepping beyond the confined space we allow our creativity to stalk around in and recognising our wild ability to creatively adapt anywhere, to anything.

I have often referred to the 78 cards of the tarot deck as “portals of possibility,” and no card better exemplifies this than Pamela Coleman Smith’s Wheel of Fortune. That’s not just because its surface-level interpretation is all about the endless turnings of Fate that make up life and all of human history, but because its rich and busy imagery offers its own lexicon of creative, interpretative possibilities.

In just a glance, we’re offered iconography from ancient Egypt and Greece, the Bible, the Zodiac. There are Roman numerals, Hebrew and latin letters. There are nods to other tarot cards — the Temperance angel, the Chariot Sphinx, the Lovers’ snake, the suit of swords, the way the layout mirrors the composition of the World. The curious anagram of Rota>Tora>Taro that points to layers of the card… the turning wheel, the Judeo-Christian symbolism used throughout Smith’s deck and many others from the period, the deck itself.

I could go on, but I’ll draw your attention to my favorite detail — the aspect of the card that compelled me to pair it with this week’s theme of “possibility”: The four corners, where mystical figures perch on clouds, holding books.

There are, of course, many possible ways to interpret this element. Tarot scholars have linked them to the cardinal Zodiac signs, the seasons, the suits of the tarot. The books specifically have been considered the four gospels of the Bible.

But to me, there’s something much more primal about these images.

A simple truth: Every experience is a story.

We can’t control where we’re flung off the wheel, but these fluffy cloud figures nestling in with their books suggest that whatever direction we fly into, there’s a landing cushion. No matter where Fate sees fit to send us, there’s a story there.

There is always something to work with, always a story to be told — something you can learn or something you can share. Creative possibility is everywhere.

It’s in the missed train, but it’s also in the conversation I overheard on the train I did make. It’s in the catastrophising I do when I wake up and my partner hasn’t made it home from a late shift yet, and it’s in the comfort that comes when he does walk in the door on time. It’s in the questions that pop into my head when I’m trying to focus on a boring task. It’s in the boring task itself, if I let it be. It’s in the idea that flows, as if dictated, through me onto a page, but it’s in the block, too. It’s in the solo success, and it’s in the request for help. It’s in the yes, but it’s also in the no.

There is nowhere you can land that doesn’t have something to offer you creatively.

You don’t have to (you rarely can) choose where the Wheel drops you off. But you can accept the cushion waiting for you wherever you fall. You can walk portal of possibility that’s open to you, and you can come out the other side with something — anything — to say. •

Join me live on Sunday, June 15th at 7pm UK / 2pm Eastern / 11am Pacific for a tarot journaling event where we’ll reflect back over the past week and pull cards for guidance on opening ourselves up to creative possibilities.

Below, full-access subscribers to The Shuffle can find:

• Morning Pages prompts

• Artist’s Date suggestions

• What’s next

• A discount code for my limited edition Inner Artist tarot letter