FAQ — The Wheel of Fortune

Short answer (validated yes/no table): NO, ask your question again.

It is not about luck in the sense of winning or losing, but about movement itself: what rises, what falls, and what remains still while everything turns around it.

A three-bladed vortex, a symbol of primordial energy and inseparability in Dzogchen, traditionally the very hub of the Dharmachakra (the eight-spoked wheel) — the two motifs fit together natively; this is not a forced synthesis. Its form alone, a threefold rotation, carries the functions of ascent, descent and inversion.

A crowned Buddha wreathed in flame, seated in the lotus position and holding a sword of flame — the still point from which movement can be observed. Functionally, he mirrors the sphinx of the Rider-Waite-Smith, which already holds a sword, but in an entirely different visual language.

Anubis, the authentic Egyptian god, guardian of thresholds and psychopomp — consistent with what the image shows (jackal head, Egyptian adornment). The DAL thus allows a precise Egyptian figure to coexist within an otherwise deliberately Tibetan environment, rather than forcing a single tradition upon the whole card.

Eight letters, one per spoke, alternating Latin and Hebrew. Read on their own, the Latin letters spell TAROT in a loop; the Hebrew letters give YHVH, the Tetragrammaton — one word hidden within the other, exactly the mechanism of the original Rider-Waite-Smith.

The eight petals of the central lotus bear the Tibetan mantra Om Mani Padme Hum, distributed syllable by syllable over the first six petals — then the cycle begins again on the final two. This overflow is not a technical workaround: it echoes, as in a mirror, the overflow of the Major Arcana cycle itself (22 traditional arcana within the DAL's 24 cards) — nothing ever quite stops where one expected it to.

Neither by nature: it does not judge what rises or falls; it asks you to find the still centre from which to observe movement rather than become lost in it.

Reversed, the Wheel signals resistance to change: clinging to what rises, fearing what falls, enduring repetition instead of understanding the cycle. The vertigo of events then replaces the wider view — the still centre remains, but one has turned one's back on it.

The Tibetan Gankyil at the heart of the Wheel makes this card the deck's second Tibetan Buddhist anchor, after the one already present in The Hermit.