Tuesday 16th July 2019: (10) Wheel of Fortune

The (10) Wheel of Fortune that I have been engrossed with for the last couple of days is my sidereal natal chart as I mentioned when discussing the arcana of (8) Strength at the beginning of the week. Now, while the form of the natal chart is indeed that of a wheel, and while all the information pertinent to us occupies locations on or towards the rim of the wheel of the natal chart, the insights we glean from it ought to help us to reorient ourselves towards the centre, that is, “the still point of the turning world” as T. S. Eliot put it in his poem, Burnt Norton.

The purpose of sidereal astrology, or indeed, consulting the tarot, is not, or should not be, about casting fortunes, fatalism or determinism, but about how to orient oneself as a moral being in the world: it is by taking the inner path towards the axle of esotericism, away from any concern with the esoteric rim and whirl of daily circumstances, that one actually and more fully partakes in life as a pilot and not as a passenger.

The journey from the rim to the axis is that of philosophical idealism; yet the rim is as necessary to life as the axle, and we shall not cease to be creatures of the politic world until we cease to be, and so the necessary journey back from the axle to the rim is one that ought to be informed by political realism that understands the degree to which Fortuna rules the turning of the wheel. So we journey with Ficino from rim to axle, and with Machiavelli from axle to rim.