The Wheel of Fortune - Ten

Tarot of Marseilles

The wheel of fortune is ever turning. Past, present and future are all on the wheel, and as the wheel turns, the present becomes the past and the future becomes the present. We can't freeze time, we can't stop the wheel from turning. It seems like history repeats itself, and we go round and round in circles. How does the number ten relate to this card? Humans have ten fingers to count, so ten represents a full set. A shape with ten sides is called a decagon, which almost resembles a circle or a wheel. In Pythagoreanism, the number ten played an important role and was symbolized by the tetractys, or tetrad. It's a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. It represents the order of the Universe, comprised of four elements. It's also associated with the ten sephirot of Kabbalah. The sephirot are ten ways in which the Supreme Being or Higher Power is known to us. The number ten represents the full circle, returning back to the beginning, zero or the monad, oneness. The Universe was believed to be comprised of ten spheres, rotated by the Prime Mover, or God. The central sphere was Earth, around which moved the spheres of the planets, then the sphere of the stars, and around all of these, the sphere of the divine.

It was believed that the sphere of the stars, also known as the wheel of the zodiac, affected human lives, as the stars one was born under would influence one's behaviour. The wheel of the zodiac was imagined as being turned by the goddess Fortuna, the personification of chance. This symbol was used by Christians to illustrate the transient nature of material things, and that whether you are rich or poor is just a matter of luck, but these things don't pass into the afterlife. How successful you are in life, your material gains, are not as important as your spiritual gains. The lesson this card teaches is that even when you feel down on your luck, when you have run out of money or your relationships have fallen apart, there is something more important to focus on. When you look up at the sky, the celestial spheres, you see a world much bigger than your own. You see a divine being much bigger than you. You realise that although your small life will come and go in the blink of an eye, the bigger life of the Universe will go on forever. You transcend your earthly worries and realise how insignificant your problems, or your success stories, really are. Whether you can afford to pay the rent or not really doesn't matter in the larger scheme of things. See the bigger picture. Material gains are not as valuable as the inner peace you achieve through knowing your true self, your cosmic self. This is what the tenth Tarot card means to me. "This too shall pass".

Anicca is Pali for impermanence. It's one of the essential doctrines of Buddhism. The Buddha taught that because earthly phenomena are impermanent, attachment to them becomes the cause for future suffering. This includes attachment to your individual life, which coincides with a fear of death. Once you accept the impermanence of your individuality, you no longer fear death. One method Buddhists use to cultivate awareness of the true nature of reality is that of vipassana meditation. This involves the development of a heightened state of awareness whereby one is able to understand clearly the true nature of reality. I feel pretty lucky that the word anicca sounds the same in Hindi as my name, and so I'm reminded of impermanence every time I'm adressed and every time I sign my name.