To the unconscious this card is Chance and Fate. To the conscious this card is Evolution and Destiny. It is neither male nor female. The action is Evolution.
If the Empress offers opportunities that can be chosen (career, mate, school) the Wheel does things to you, seeming without choice. Superficially, this appears to be chance or fate, but in actuality every event that happens to a person is chosen. The wheel shows good events, bad events and neutral events. It also conveys the concept of evolution and of time.
Imagery: Evolution is depicted by the snake (kundalini), the half-human half-animal figure on the Egyptian card, the Sphinx at the top (a shapeshifting image signifying time and advanced evolution) and the winged orb.
Note the devil figure on the left (STS) goes down the wheel, while the transforming part man/part animal/part winged spirit on the right goes up. We evolve. Once we reach a certain point in evolution, we can escape the wheel (the Earth Life School) and be on that platform. The man/lion is the culmination of evolutionary path of our many lives. The man/lion figure holds a spear pointing down. To achieve this ledge (escape from karma) takes effort and possible pain. The part man/beast/winged creature risks being impaled to take that platform.
I also think it is significant that the wheel does not turn. Instead, the figures appear to be crawling around and around the fixed wheel (the spiritual ledge on the top of the wheel would have no purchase if the wheel turned.) The wheel, with its seemingly fickle events and happenings, isn't a tricky apparatus designed to keep us from that platform, instead it is something the figures cling to and get entangled in. We are addicted to all the happenings down here in the Earth Life School. Addicted enough that we continually climb round and round, lifetime after lifetime, unwilling (or unable) to try for the stability and escape of that spiritual ledge. We need to achieve escape velocity.
Also note the winged orb near the bottom of the image. This winged orb also appears in the Hierophant and the Chariot images. Its placement in the image is significant. Both the Chariot and the Wheel are about grand spiritual purposes, so the card image is above the winged orb. On the other hand, the Hierophant is immersed in 3d, so that winged orb is above him.
There are also enough snakes and cobras on the card to suggest that achieving kundalini in the body is also a way to escape the wheel. As I am unfamiliar with the consequences of kundalini raising, I leave that suggestion unexplored.
If the Empress offers opportunities that can be chosen (career, mate, school) the Wheel does things to you, seeming without choice. Superficially, this appears to be chance or fate, but in actuality every event that happens to a person is chosen. The wheel shows good events, bad events and neutral events. It also conveys the concept of evolution and of time.
Imagery: Evolution is depicted by the snake (kundalini), the half-human half-animal figure on the Egyptian card, the Sphinx at the top (a shapeshifting image signifying time and advanced evolution) and the winged orb.
Note the devil figure on the left (STS) goes down the wheel, while the transforming part man/part animal/part winged spirit on the right goes up. We evolve. Once we reach a certain point in evolution, we can escape the wheel (the Earth Life School) and be on that platform. The man/lion is the culmination of evolutionary path of our many lives. The man/lion figure holds a spear pointing down. To achieve this ledge (escape from karma) takes effort and possible pain. The part man/beast/winged creature risks being impaled to take that platform.
I also think it is significant that the wheel does not turn. Instead, the figures appear to be crawling around and around the fixed wheel (the spiritual ledge on the top of the wheel would have no purchase if the wheel turned.) The wheel, with its seemingly fickle events and happenings, isn't a tricky apparatus designed to keep us from that platform, instead it is something the figures cling to and get entangled in. We are addicted to all the happenings down here in the Earth Life School. Addicted enough that we continually climb round and round, lifetime after lifetime, unwilling (or unable) to try for the stability and escape of that spiritual ledge. We need to achieve escape velocity.
Also note the winged orb near the bottom of the image. This winged orb also appears in the Hierophant and the Chariot images. Its placement in the image is significant. Both the Chariot and the Wheel are about grand spiritual purposes, so the card image is above the winged orb. On the other hand, the Hierophant is immersed in 3d, so that winged orb is above him.
There are also enough snakes and cobras on the card to suggest that achieving kundalini in the body is also a way to escape the wheel. As I am unfamiliar with the consequences of kundalini raising, I leave that suggestion unexplored.