The rewrite of the first few chapters is complete. After several back and forth e-mails of suggestions on her part and revisions on mine, Jessica, my editor, says it’s “in good shape.” She wanted me to tighten it a bit more, and I tried, I really did, but I was only able to pare it down by a sentence here and there. She doesn’t like the title either. She says it needs to be more active and let the reader know that this is a fantasy. I’ve thought about shortening it to The Remaking, or possibly Forging the Blade.
I also had Kris, a friend who teaches English and Writing at a community college, take a look at it. She critiqued the manuscript in a totally different way than Jessica. As an English teacher, she mostly looked at sentence structure and length and word usage. And because she’s only read the first three chapters she was able to give me a viewpoint of someone who’s just picked up the book. Her suggestions will be the subject of the next few blogs. The important thing is to get as many eyes on your writing as possible. Each pair will have different ideas and see different things.
I let the revised chapters sit for a few days before I did the final proof reading. It’s always a good idea to do this because it gives you a fresh perspective. New ideas come to mind and you catch glitches and typos that you would have missed before. A week or even a month break would have been better, but I wanted to get moving on the query letters.
Yesterday I sent query letters to six agents that are looking for YA fantasy. Most of them had rejected the manuscript two or three years ago, but they are top-notch agents and I wanted them to see the new query. I checked with few agents at the 2010 Willamette Writers Conference and Jessica, and they all said they had no problem with re-queries but the author needs to mention that this is a resubmission and the manuscript needs to be significantly different and hopefully better.
I pasted the first two chapters at the end of each query letter I sent. Looking back over my notes, I find that I should have just pasted in the first few pages. Oops.
In a few weeks I’ll send out 6 more.
So now the waiting game begins and Lady Luck is in control. If right person reads my query letter; or if she’s just sold a book and is searching for another; or if she’s feeling optimistic and ready to gamble on a newbie; or if a publisher has just asked her for a new YA fantasy; or even better, all of the above; then I will have myself an agent!
I was fixing breakfast when my husband walked into the kitchen and handed me the phone. “This man is saying Paris (our cat) is dead. Talk to him, I’m going up to get dressed.”
“Where are you?” I asked the caller.
He was right outside the house.
Two of the utility guys that were putting in a gas line at a neighbor’s house met me as I came running out. Their faces were grim with concern and sympathy as they handed me Paris’s collar. “We were over there working and when we looked up he was laying in the street. He was up on our rig earlier saying hello. Really nice cat.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s just over there ma’am,” One of them said. He put his arms around me when I started to cry and patted me gently on the back. “If you let me know where you want me to put him, I’ll take him there for you,” he said.
“No thanks, I’ll do it.”
I walked around the back-hoe and found our beautiful cat lying next to it. He looked like he was asleep. I scooped him up, but he didn’t open his eyes and yawn and stretch, he was limp as a rag doll. My husband met us as we were walking up the steps to the house. The utilities guy breathed and almost audible sigh of relief and handed me over to him.
The Techs at the vet clinic assured us he was dead and that they were so sorry.
“How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing, all we did was tell you he was dead.”
Paris’s vet and many other cat owners would say the lesson to be learned from this is that we should have kept Paris indoors full-time. A valid assessment, but not one I am willing to agree with. Paris loved being outside. He knew more people and dogs and cats in our neighborhood than we did. Total strangers were constantly coming up to me and telling me how much they enjoyed Paris. He had a good buddy next door, a tiny black and white kitty named Lorna. They spent hours romping in the yard and socializing with passers by. His life wouldn’t have been nearly as rich if we’d kept him inside.
So maybe we lost our cat to repay some sort of karmic debt.
Or maybe it wasn’t about us at all. Maybe Paris needed to learn to be careful around cars or had some sort of karmic debt of his own to repay. Or maybe he’d done all he came into this world to do and it was time for him to go.
Or maybe shit just happened.
We can drive ourselves crazy speculating, but we’ll never really know for sure why any tragedy happens. All we can do is love, honor, and appreciate everyone and every good thing in our lives, because we can never know what the next turn of the Wheel will bring.
The Wheel of Fortune’s number is 10 which puts it as close to the center of the major arcana cards as you can get, assuming The Fool, 0, is at the beginning, so it signifies a turning point or balance point. The number 10 is also the beginning of the next series of digits after 0-9 (The Fool through The Hermit), so it can be seen as the beginning of a new cycle. This cycle can be either “better” or “worse” than the one before it, but it is always a step up in complexity and challenge.
Jupiter is the planet assigned to the Wheel of Fortune. As the largest planet in the solar system, it is the planet of expansion, which is what the Wheel does—it expands not only our outlook, but our options. Astrologers also call it the Greater Benefic, or bringer of good fortune, with Venus, The Empress, being the Lesser Benefic.
Kaph, or Kaf, is its Hebrew letter. Its symbol is the palm, or open hand. The mystical interpretation of this letter is potential, which holds the possibility of that potential to manifest in the material world, in other words, serpent power bringing an event or thing into physical existence. This translates into Hand of Miriamthe symbol of the Hebrew Chamsa or Hamsa Hand (also known as the Hand of Miriam) and the Islamic Hand of Fatima, two folk symbols that avert the evil eye from the bearer and bring good fortune.Hand of Fatima
The Rider-Waite-Smith Wheel of Fortune card, shown above, continues the animal imagery of the Marseilles decks. The descending yellow serpent is, of course, the materialization of serpent power from The Chariot, Strength, and The Hermit. The red man-dog ascending from the low point of the Wheel is Anubis, the Greek name for the Egyptian god of death and mummification, who was therefore the one who made rebirth possible. He walked at the head of every ancient Egyptian procession. (Wikipedia, Anubis entry) The blue sphinx at the apex is our True Self, the part of us that is always in contact with the life force or serpent power and understands the riddles of the universe.
The wheel has eight spokes which remind us of the four turning points or the year, Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, and Fall Equinox; plus their four midpoints, Imbolc (Groundhogs Day, February 2), Beltane, (May Day, May 1), Lughnasadh (August 2), and Samhain (Halloween, October 31). Interspersed among the spokes are the letters R-O-T-A which can be rearranged into ROTA TAROT ORAT TORA ATOR. ROTA, of course means wheel, ORAT is Latin for speaks, the TORA(H) is the first five books of the Hebrew bible, and ATOR is an old Latin form of the name of the Egyptian goddess Hathor. The whole thing translates as “The Wheel of Tarot Speaks the Law of Hathor (The Law of Nature).” (Paul Foster Case, The Tarot, a Key to the Wisdom of the Ages). In between the letters R-O-T-A are the letters Yod Heh Vav Heh, the Hebrew name of God, which is their version of the power that runs the universe, or serpent power. At the four corners are an angel, an eagle, a lion, and a bull, which are the forms of Aquarius, Scorpio, Leo, and Taurus, the four fixed signs of the zodiac. They tell us that the universe has a set meaning and purpose, and the seeming randomness of the Wheel of Fortune turns within that meaning and purpose.
My favorite version of this card is this fairy-steam-punk image by angiechow.
It shows a fairy, or Lady Luck, leaning on the Wheel, which is turned by interconnecting wheels within wheels within wheels. She can nudge it one way or the other if she chooses, but look closely and you will see that all those wheels are ultimately geared into the great spiral of life, or serpent power, which has its own agenda.
In a reading, the Wheel of Fortune can be either fortunate or unfortunate, depending on whether it is upright or reversed, its position in the spread, and the cards around it. It tells the reader that things have happened, are happening, or are about to happen in the querent’s life. Or, if the card is reversed, they may be stuck in a rut. It may signify the end of a cycle, a turning point, and a time to reap the rewards or misfortunes of past. It can also mean a future that is undetermined, awaiting either effort in one direction or another from the seeker or some event that is yet to come. And sometimes shit just happens, and this card warns us of that as well. I can’t believe that all those people in the Haiti, Chili, and Japan earthquakes were supposed to die right then, they died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, what I would call true bad luck, not karma.
In the hero’s journey, The Wheel of Fortune is usually some unexpected event that brings about a meeting with an Ally, an Enemy, or an Ordeal. It can also be the Herald, or turn of events that begins the adventure. Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather
The story of Sleeping Beauty is a perfect example of this. It begins with the three good fairies in the process of giving the baby princess the traitsMaleficent that will determine her lot in life. The evil sorceress, Maleficent, appears and decrees that on her 16th birthday the princess will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die. The last good fairy has yet to grant the princess a trait, so she is able to soften the curse to just falling into a deep sleep. Here we have a story completely based on fate—right down to the three good fairies and Maleficent as the Moirae, and the symbolic spinning wheel.
The Wheel of Fortune as an unexpected event that brings about an Ordeal is behind the horrible surprise of a tentacled monster in the trash masher of the Death Star. It grabs Luke and drags him to a wet and dirty death. Right when we’re sure he’s dead, our hero erupts, alive and well, out of the watery goo. He has gained strength and experience that he will need later on.
The Wheel is always turning, presenting us with new challenges, pleasures, and points of view.
If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow,
Don’t be alarmed now.
It’s just a spring-clean for the May Queen.
Robert Plant
Stairway to Heaven
Beltane, the celebration of the union of the God and Goddess which brings fertility and abundance to the land, was probably celebrated in the British Isles in some form centuries before Christ was even a twinkle in God’s eye. I doubt that it was a coincidence that the wedding of the future king and queen of Britain was scheduled for this weekend.
Ixion was king of the Lapiths, a tribe in ancient Thessaly, and to my mind, one of the most notorious men in Greek mythology. He lived back in the day when gods and mortals still socialized and when possibly mortals were a bit immortal, since gods and mortals interbred with gusto. Depending on who you are reading, Ixion’s lineage goes back to Gaia herself, or he may have been a son of Ares, or he may have been a mere mortal. At any rate, he murdered his father-in-law, who was a guest in his house, thus becoming both the first kin-slayer and a violator of xenia, the Greek concept of guest-friendship. Because no one had ever slain a family member before, his neighbors had no idea how to perform the rituals that would cleanse him of his guilt. Ixion went mad and roamed the land as an outlaw. Zeus took pity on him, released him from his guilt, and brought him up to Mount Olympus. Ixion repaid his kindness by seducing Hera. Zeus, of course, found out and was furious. He’s the god of travelers and the code of xenia is sacred to him. The kinslayer had twice violated it, once as a host and now as a guest. Zeus fashioned a likeness of his wife from a cloud, and when Ixion coupled with it he sealed his doom. Zeus blasted him from mount Olympus with a thunderbolt and ordered Hermes to bind him to a burning (or winged) wheel that would turn forever through the universe. Ixion bound to a wheel of fire, Bernard Picart
Perhaps Zeus’s real punishment was to banish Ixion, and maybe the rest of mankind as well, from the immortality of Olympus and communion with the gods. He bound us to the wheel of mortality, to suffer the ups and downs of fate, death and rebirth.
Visconti-Sforza Wheel of FortuneThis is certainly the way the Wheel of Fortune is portrayed in the Visconti-Sforza tarot deck, one of several decks the Visconti family commisioned in the 1400’s.
It shows not one, but four people on a wheel turned by a blindfolded woman. Impartial fate? Blind luck? There are barely discernable banners coming from each of their mouths. The top figure says “Regno – I reign”, the descending figure says “Regnavi – I reigned”, the figure at the bottom says “Sum Sine Regno – I am without reign”, and the figure ascending the wheel says “Regnabo – I shall reign”. If you look very carefully, you can see a pair of ass’s ears on the figure at the top. Nothing really changes, does it? Yet another lesson of the wheel. Wheel of Fortune by Jean Noblet, Marseilles tradition, c.1650
In the Marseilles style decks done in the 1600’s, the people have morphed into animals and the wheel is now turning counterclockwise all by itself.A Kromski spinning wheel, designed to look like an antique wheel It looks a bit like the spinning wheels that were coming into common use. The visual metaphor would have been hard to resist, even though the Fates used a distaff and spindle. Spinning wheels weren’t invented until the late 1300’s.
Whether it’s Vanna White that spins the wheel,
The Greek Moirae, The Fates, or Moirae, by William Blake
The Norse Norns, The Norns, Opera Stories From Wagner, by Florence Akin
or Shakespeare’s Weird Sisters, The Weird Sisters by Henry Fuseli
this card is about Fate, i.e., Luck.
And as you can see, Luck is always a Lady, and she’s usually not real pretty.
Like the Three Fates, there is a remorseless inevitability about this card, and I have never understood why most readers regard it as benefic. Fortune is not the same thing as fortunate.
Seven days after a child is born, The Three Moirae, come to the infant’s hearth and determine the babe’s fate. Clotho spins the life thread, Lachesis measures it, and Atropos cuts it off. They are remorseless and powerful. Even Zeus bows to their authority. Once a destiny has been spun, measured, and cut there is no changing it. By motifake
But who wants to surrender their free will to three cantankerous old ladies? We live in a time when marvelous advances in medicine and technology have given us the illusion that we are actually in control of things. Most of us believe that if we make good choices, good things will happen and if we make bad choices, bad things will happen. So in this day and age, The Wheel of Fortune is often read as the working out of cause and effect—the Christian belief that we reap what we sow and the Hindu concept of karma.
Atheists and Agnostics would recognize the law of cause and effect as the main determinant of fate. But since an atheist believes that when you’re dead you’re dead and an agnostic believes that when you’re dead you’re probably dead, neither would buy into the law of karma, since it usually assumes a belief in reincarnation, which says that karmic debt from past lives carries over into one’s present life.
Since our present life is influenced by our past lives, I see karma as a sort of predestination.
The Tibetan Buddhist Wheel of Life, The six realms of existence are held in the grasp of the Lord of DeathBut who determines karmic debt and who finally frees us from The Wheel of Fortune? Is it the soul of the individual or the gods? Most Buddhists say it is the individual soul that determines its destiny, and most, but not all, of the Hindu sects believe that the gods judge a person’s life. I have noticed that those who are neither Buddhist nor Hindu, but believe in the law of karma are also split on this question.
Reincarnation was acceptable doctrine in the early Christian church until 553 CE when the Second Council of Constantinople ruled against it. Today it seems that most Christians believe that a combination of cause and effect and God’s judgment turns The Wheel of Fortune. Presbyterians believe in predestination, but put a different spin (pun intended) on it. They see it as the affirmation of the sovereignty and freedom of God and do not reject human choice and responsibility.
The Greek civilization has held many beliefs and philosophies over the centuries. One of these was the concept of metempsychosis, or the passing of the soul at death into another body, either animal or human. Perhaps The Fates don’t spin our destinies from a new distaff, perhaps they work with the wool we have gathered from our past lives to spin the most spiritually nourishing present life possible. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be a pleasant life, but it will be the one that will help us evolve into spiritual beings and reunite with the divine, which is the goal of all the major religions.
The Wheel of Fortune card can signify any or all of the above, depending on the belief system of the reader and the belief system and situation of the querent.
And androgyne looks up at the morning sky and dances on the edge of a cliff. He/she could be either going up the mountain or coming down. The point is, He/she is going. The Fool is a card of beginnings, of endless possibilities, the card of the seeker.
And old man stands at the very top of a mountain holding a lantern up against the night and looks down. He has arrived. There is nowhere higher for him to go. The seeker has found what he is looking for.
And to make sure the reader doesn’t miss that these two cards are related, Coleman-Smith and Waite made them the only cards in the tarot deck that place their subjects high up in the mountains at the edge of a drop-off. (The Emperor has rugged cliffs behind him, but he’s not so high up, there’s no drop-off, and he’s seated.)
The Fool (0) and The Hermit (9) are the beginning and the end of the ten-digit sequence that is the base of our number system. Once we’ve gotten to The Hermit, the endpoint, we can continue into another cycle with The Fool, or we can up the ante by adding the number 1 to the 0 to make 10, the Wheel of Fortune. But we always do one or the other.
The take home lesson here is that The Fool is both the beginning and the end of this basic sequence, the Alpha (Aleph) and the Omega. The ending of every cycle is the beginning of the next. With every question answered comes more questions, with every goal achieved comes a new goal, with every death comes rebirth.
We may think we’re finished, but we’re not.
A few days after I got The Letter I went to the library to find a book to read. I was too lazy to check my list of books that I need to read, I just wanted something to relax and entertain. It would be nice to be able to to say that a sense of foreboding settled over me as I approached the New Books rack, but it didn’t. I just picked a likely looking book, The Last Days of Madame Rey, skimmed the blurb, and checked it out. It was several days before I got a chance to sit down and begin reading it.
The prologue was titled “The Fool”. Oh good, I thought, a book with a tarot theme. When I got to the first chapter and it was titled “The Magician: I began to panic. I looked ahead. Sure enough, the second chapter was “The High Priestess” and the third was “The Empress”. To my horror, A.W. Hill, the author, continued chapter by chapter through the major arcana. He’d beaten me. My idea was no longer original.
Not only that, he’s done a good job of it. He knows his tarot and he’s done his magical and geological research. The book is one of several about a private investigator in Los Angeles named Stephen Raszer who runs a detective agency named Raszer’s Edge. His edge is that he’s a shaman. His specialty is freeing people from cults and returning them to their families. In this book, a lawyer and one time political candidate hires him to get his son away from a group of neo-nazis living on Mt. Shasta. They believe a forgotten civilization lives inside the mountain and is about to take over the world. The Hermit is a seismologist/mythologist who lives in a tiny shack on the mountain and monitors it’s rumblings for the USGS. A sequence of earth tremors, evenly spaced and of exactly the same magnitude, warns him that something strange and possibly dangerous is happening. The Empress is, of course, Mt. Shasta.
The High Priestess in Hill’s book is Madame Rey. The High priestess in my book is Madame Rue. A character in his book describes the tremors as feeling “Like some humongous snake slithering right beneath your feet.” About a month ago, I wrote a blog titled “The Earth Serpent” and described earth tremors this same way.
Synchronicity strikes again.
Jessica, my editor says not to worry. My book is young adult fantasy, a different genre, and the story is completely different. “Look at the way it’s blurbed,” she said, “and pitch your book the same way. Learn from it.”
The rewrite of the first few chapters is complete. After several back and forth e-mails of suggestions on her part and revisions on mine, Jessica, my editor, says it’s “in good shape.” She wanted me to tighten it a bit more, and I tried, I really did, but I was only able to pare it down by a sentence here and there. She doesn’t like the title either. She says it needs to be more active and let the reader know that this is a fantasy. I’ve thought about shortening it to The Remaking, or possibly Forging the Blade. 
