Loved or Cursed

Most people are uncomfortable with the notion of fate.  We proudly declare that we don’t believe in it until something extraordinary happens – good or bad.  We like to believe that we are manifest destiny but what do we mean when we say this was fated to be?

The notion thrills us when the results are joyful.  But it makes us furious and despairing when the outcome is disastrous.  Loved or cursed.  “Why do all these terrible things keep happening to me?”, we wail.  Something is not right in the universe when we choose to be a good person (with considerable sacrifice according to our estimations) and never seem to get a break. Fate can make us feel pathetically victimized.  And unloved.  Ah therein lies the rub.  UNLOVED.  By whom I wonder?  Who exactly doesn’t love us when our fate is so dismally and perniciously miserable?

How Do We Know for Certain Fate has been Meddling?

Aside from good luck or bad, what makes us think something was fated to happen?  Is it because there was such a small window of timing for it to take place?  Did we dream the event beforehand?  Or is it perhaps because it feels like no matter what we do, the outcome is habitually positive or negative?

If everything in our lives is fated to be why make any effort at all?  There is nothing more astonishing than learning that someone won a lottery six times.  What did he do to warrant such a fate?  Notice the deserving part of this narrative?  Deserving plays an important role in our relationship to fate. Conversely hearing about someone who has suffered one calamity after another (unfortunately I’m often invited to be a witness to this very phenomenon more often than I care to document!) can raise our righteous hackles with, “How COULD this person be singled out to be the VICTIM of all this calamity?”  Hence notions of reincarnation leap to the fore as a means to explain this bald lack of justice in the world. She/he must have been a serious creep in a past life.  But that’s a conversation for another day.

Timing is Everything

The question that shimmers in the background of discussions about fate is, “Who or what authors our fate?”  A deity, ourselves or some other machination that is comprised of many factors and influences?  For example, if it is my fate to meet you, then we shared a thread of matching fates which led us to this point of joining.  Fate therefore is comprised of many threads and if any of those single threads were to shift then our joined fate would be affected.

We’ve all met someone special and felt that the timing was off.  One of us was on our way out of town, or just gotten married, or on our death bed.  Of course, that was our fate but that won’t stop us from shrieking, “Why now of ALL times?”  Being at the right place at the right time is everything.  Can that be arranged? We would like to think so.  Fate drives us to reach more deeply into our emotional core where fear and desire struggle in a bloody war.

There is a dearth of books on the market that promise that if you do the right thing; visioning a beautiful and abundant future for example, then it will come to us.  The problem has always been, what to say when that just isn’t the case?  Because the truth is that terrible things do happen to the saints and angels among us.  And glorious good fortune does come to narcissists and devils.

Glimpsing the Future of Our Fate

Are there ways we can glimpse into our fated future?  I’m a specialist in this regard since many do consult me as an oracle to see their destiny. The Tarot cards that I use even have a card which specifically addresses this concept of fate: The Wheel of Fortune.  I love reading what authors of the Tarot have written about the meaning of the Fortune card as they wrestle to balance personal agency with luck.  They speak of dharma and karma (we reap what we sow) and as an almost after-thought refer to luck and fate.

In classic meaning the Wheel of Fortune heralds a change coming in our fortunes for the better. But that became problematic.  It might work best for us (from a fated perspective) if we suffer because that is the mechanism that will initiate changes in our lives for ultimately the better but certainly in a reading today that won’t be a welcome bit of news.  It might for example take decades for the good of the bad to become evident.  Who wants to embrace poverty or loneliness for the next several decades of our lives waiting for the timing to be right for us to be well loved and abundant?

The Wheel of Fortune, not surprisingly, is the card that corresponds with astrology.  Astrologers for several millennia assert that the sign we are born under profoundly determines our fate. That’s why some love it and others hate it.  There is something so absolute and irrevocable about that notion.  If you’ve ever had your astrological chart done, you will likely be astonished at its insights.  It’s not of course just about where the sun was located at your birth but the moon and the rest of the solar system will have an influence on your fate.  When the Wheel of Fortune comes up in a Tarot reading, it points most significantly to changes coming to you which had been determined by your astrological chart.  Every astrologer will point to a “Saturn return” which happens to everyone approximately every twenty-eight years (not at the same time for everyone).  This astrological event in your life will signal a rather challenging and indeed painful year.  When it seems like nothing is going as planned it’s likely you are experiencing a Saturn return.

A Lesson in Control

Perhaps the true essence of fate is its lesson in control.  We don’t have control over everything and there are times in our lives when it becomes opportune to receive that message loud and clear.  When fate steps in to throw us a curve ball, it’s an opportunity to examine our lives from a whole new perspective. Maybe fate’s true purpose is to trigger us to ask ourselves some pertinent questions; such as,

“Is what I think I want, truly what I want?”

“Am I getting what I asked for and didn’t realize it?”

“What have I been missing that is more about what I need as opposed to what I want?”

“Does it really matter what I do or not?”

When Lady Fortuna takes charge of our lives, it will undoubtedly be a lesson about adapting to change.  About acceptance and resilience and being in the flow.  Those who survive are those who are good at adapting.

Is there a way to know your fate beforehand?  I like to think there is and that knowing your fate beforehand is all a part of your fated future.  In other words those clients who work with me are fated to hear what I have to say good or bad.  They are fated to be warned, prepared and flexible.