X. The Wheel of Fortune
The Wheel of Fortune traditionally depicts the familiar medieval image of the turning spoked wheel, which at one-point lifts man up and at the next throws him down. The card communicates to us that those who remain transfixed by the material world of experience are destined to stay on the wheel, forever caught in an impermanent world of illusion and change, growth and decay, rising and falling through a series of lifetimes. Donoghue shows us a brightly lit spinning carousel in place of the spoked wheel. Despite our supposed progress and attempts to subvert the systems of power, the wheel still turns.
‘Regnabo, regno, regnavi, sum sine regno’
‘I shall reign, I reign, I have reigned, I am without reign’