my tiny tarot practice

Amelia Hruby: 01:45

Hello, and welcome to my tiny tarot practice. I'm Amelia Hruby. And on this show, I documented my tiny tarot practice by sharing tiny episodes on each of the cards in the tarot. At the start of each year, I like to share the episodes for our card of the year. And as we enter 2026, we actually have a few cards of the year because we calculate the card of the year by adding the digits of the numbers in the current year.

Amelia Hruby: 02:19

So for 2026, those digits are two plus zero plus two plus six, and that equals 10. Now we consider the Major Arcana, we have all of the numbers from zero to 21 and so 10 in the Major Arcana corresponds to the Wheel of Fortune card. That's our first card of the year. But if we look to more traditional numerology, then we always reduce numbers to a single digit. So two plus zero plus two plus six equals 10, but one plus zero equals one.

Amelia Hruby: 02:52

And in the major arcana, one is the magician. So for me, our two cards of the year this year are the Wheel of Fortune and the Magician. In honor of the new year, I wanted to reshare the episodes for these cards. So up next, you'll hear my interpretation of Wheel of Fortune. And after that, we'll go right into the magician.

Amelia Hruby: 03:14

Happy New Year, my tiny tarot friends. I wish you so much magic in the months ahead. Today's card is the wheel of fortune. In the Rider Waite Smith edition of the tarot, this card is rich with symbology. One of the few cards that doesn't focus on a human figure, at the center of the card, we see a wheel covered in esoteric symbols.

Amelia Hruby: 03:41

At the top of the wheel sits a blue sphinx holding a sword. To the right, an Anubis or a jackal with human form. To the left, a snake. This wheel and these creatures are in the sky with clouds in the background. And at the four corners of the card, we see an angel, an eagle, a lion, and a bull.

Amelia Hruby: 04:04

They're all winged and holding books. Common themes for the Wheel of Fortune are change and cycles. And to me, this card is always imbued with surrender. The wheel of fortune is a card that reminds us that we don't have control or power over the universe. I think that at its core, the wheel of fortune is a reminder that anything can happen.

Amelia Hruby: 04:35

And that while much is in our control in our lives, while we can take these journeys through our inner and outer worlds, so much is not within our power. I like how Jessa Crispin puts it in the creative tarot where she says, the wheel of fortune is about fate, about the things we cannot control and about luck, both good and bad. It is where our free will ends. And I think that it's a really interesting card coming after the chariot, which is the card of expressing our willpower out in the world, and strength, which is the card of directing our strength and power within to uncover new things about ourselves. The hermit as a card of guiding ourselves toward our unique path.

Amelia Hruby: 05:30

We have all of these cards about our abilities and strengths and our will. And then we have the wheel of fortune reminding us that even amidst all of that empowerment, we are not all powerful. And I think that this is an important moment of humbling on the journey through the Major Arcana, on the fool's journey that we are taking through these cards. It's a reminder of the randomness of the universe or the divine hand of any god that you may believe in. It's the insistence that no matter how much work we do as individuals or a collective, so many things will still be out of our control.

Amelia Hruby: 06:18

Our fate perhaps is not in our own hands. And I feel like the way I've described this so far may feel disempowering, like there is nothing we can do. And I don't think that this card has that sense of pessimism or fatalism in it. I don't think that this is a nihilistic card at all. Just because we are not all powerful, doesn't mean we're not powerful.

Amelia Hruby: 06:47

There is so much that we can do, and I believe through the tarot are called to do to shape our own lives. But we have to remember that we are not the only forces shaping our lives. And that's why at the very beginning I said that I think one of the major themes of this card is surrender. Because sometimes when we are working so hard, when we are willing something into existence through inner work or outer work, we actually need to let go. We need to surrender and we need to look to the wheel of fortune to see what arrives.

Amelia Hruby: 07:27

And so I love that in Tarot for Creative Spirits, when Cecily Sailor considers this card, she asks us, how do we want to relate to change? Do we want to be grasping tightly to the edge of the wheel? Or would we rather move to the peaceful center? So when this card arrives in a reading, I think it's an invitation to consider where we may be holding too tightly to control and what parts of our lives or situations or selves may we need to surrender our idea that we can have power over something or control something. Where can we leave it up to the wheel of fortune?

Amelia Hruby: 08:12

Or where has the wheel of fortune already intervened? If you look around in your life, where have you received gifts or challenges that were wholly out of your control and beyond you? These are the moments of the wheel of fortune. The times when we experience the unseen and unknown forces shaping our lives, our work, and our destiny. In the Rider Waite Smith edition of the tarot, the magician card features a person standing behind a table.

Amelia Hruby: 08:49

There are vines of roses both above and below them. We see lilies growing from the ground as well. And this person is wearing a white tunic and a red cloak, and they have one hand pointing up in the air and another pointing down. They're holding a wand of sorts. There is an infinity symbol over their head.

Amelia Hruby: 09:10

And on the table in front of them, we see the tools of the tarot. We see the four suits corresponding to the four elements, pentacles, cups, swords, and wands or earth, water, air, and fire. The magician is given the number one in the major arcana, and it is the first step of the fool's journey, the first person or teacher the fool encounters on this path. And I love how Cecily Sailor says in Tarot for Creative Spirits that, quote, before the fool learns anything else, they discover that magic is possible, that the combination of intention, belief, action, and collaboration with the universe can turn an idea into something real, something others can see, feel, and know. And like Cecily says, I too am always struck by how magic arrives at the very beginning of the journey.

Amelia Hruby: 10:09

And not just magic, but the magician, the one who wields magic, who uses magic to make things manifest. And in the gesture of this magician, we see very clearly this image of a person drawing magic down from the ethereal plane to the material one. They have one hand in the air and the other pointing toward the ground. They are, as Rachel Pollock puts it, a lightning rod drawing down, down, down, bringing magic to life, to Earth. And I think then that the role of the magician is to be this vessel for magic, to draw down, hold, and convert magic into the material, to make magic, as we might say thinking of sculpting and shaping with this elemental ether.

Amelia Hruby: 11:06

I also want to point out two symbols in this card that reappear in later cards in the Major Arcana. So above the magician's head, we see an infinity symbol, and that will appear again above the head of the figure in the strength card. Also, in the magician's hand, the one that's raised up, we see this white wand that will appear again held by the figure in the world card. And there, they will hold two wands, one in each hand. And so with the magician, we already see these symbols that will become so potent and important across the journey through the Major Arcana, throughout the fool's journey, throughout our own journey.

Amelia Hruby: 11:47

And both of these symbols here, the infinity sign and the wand, I think, point to the generative renewable nature of magic as an abundant resource. So when we approach this card, it always reminds me of the abundance of magic in the universe, as well as invites me to step into my power to wield that magic, to gather my tools, to become a vessel of energy, of the divine even.