Draw a card · What is tarot? · Major Arcana

The Star

MAJOR ARCANA · XVII

The Star is card XVII of the major arcana. A great star and seven smaller stars shine in the night sky, and beneath them a naked woman kneels by a pool, pouring water from two jugs. Upright, it stands for hope, healing and inspiration; reversed, for disappointment and loss of confidence.

Name and number

Upright meaning

Keywords: hope, healing, inspiration, openness, faith in the future

On a quiet night after the Tower has fallen, you look up and a star is shining. The Star is that kind of card of recovery and hope.

Upright, the Star stands for a heart slowly healing after a hard time. Being able to stay open, hiding and pretending nothing. Being able to believe again in distant goals and dreams. It will not take shape all at once, but it is read as a card that quietly tells you the direction is right. It can also stand for creative inspiration and a wish to be of use to others.

Reversed meaning

Keywords: disappointment, loss of confidence, ideals too high, pessimism

Reversed, the Star is read as its light no longer being visible.

Being let down when what you hoped for fails, deciding "I can't do it," losing hope for the future. It can also mean ideals set so high that you cannot begin on the reality in front of you. It is read as a card for remembering that the star is still there even behind the clouds.

What the picture shows

• The great star and the seven small stars: in the Rider–Waite–Smith deck the great star has eight rays, standing for hope and guidance.
• The two jugs: one pours into the pool, the other onto the land: watering both heart and reality, and giving freely.
• The naked woman: nothing hidden, just as she is, a sign of openness and an unadorned heart.
• Five streams on the land: in the Rider–Waite–Smith deck, the water poured on land splits into five streams, read as the five senses.
• The bird in the tree: in the Rider–Waite–Smith deck said to be an ibis, the bird of Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom.

History

In the fifteenth-century Italian Visconti–Sforza deck, the Star showed a woman holding up a star in one hand: like the Moon and the Sun cards, an allegorical woman holding a heavenly body.

The pattern of today's Star card took shape in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Tarot of Marseille. Beneath a great star and seven smaller ones, a naked woman kneels and pours water from two jugs, with a bird in the tree behind her.

The Rider–Waite–Smith deck takes over this Marseille composition almost unchanged. So the Star is very different from the early Italian card, yet strikingly similar between the Marseille and Rider–Waite–Smith decks.

Correspondences

Previous and next cards

• Previous: 16 The Tower
• Next: 18 The Moon
• The major arcana

Lucky colors for The Star