The Star

The Star (XVII) is the eighteenth card of the Major Arcana in Tarot, representing hope, inspiration, and spiritual renewal. In a reading, it signals a period of healing and quiet faith after difficulty · a sign that you are guided.

After everything has been torn away, this is what remains.

Not nothing. Not emptiness. Not despair. This: a quiet, luminous presence that was always there beneath the structures that just collapsed. The Star does not arrive from somewhere else. It was always shining. You simply could not see it until the walls fell down.

The Star is the card of hope after devastation, healing after crisis, grace after the long dark night. It is perhaps the most gently beautiful card in the Tarot.

At a Glance

Visual Traditions: Three Decks

The Major Arcana's imagery varies significantly across the three major traditions. Understanding these differences deepens your reading of any deck.

Rider-Waite-Smith (1909) · The image shown above.

Tarot de Marseille (17th-18th century) · The Marseille Étoile shows a naked woman pouring water beneath a sky of eight stars, one large and seven small. The image is simpler but equally serene. Some Marseille versions show birds in a tree, an element sometimes lost in the RWS reinterpretation.

Thoth Tarot (1943) · Crowley's Star features a celestial figure pouring fluid from two cups, surrounded by the seven-pointed star of Babalon and rotating discs of cosmic energy. The card is more abstract and cosmic than the RWS version, emphasising the Star as a universal principle of revelation and truth.

Key Imagery and Symbolism

A naked woman kneels by a pool of water, pouring water from two jugs: one onto the land (the conscious world) and one into the pool (the unconscious). The landscape is green and fertile. Above her shines one large eight-pointed star (the Star of Venus/Ishtar, hope, cosmic guidance) surrounded by seven smaller stars (the seven classical planets, the seven chakras).

A bird (the ibis, sacred to Thoth, representing thought and the soul) sits in a tree in the background. The scene is peaceful, spacious, and luminous: a stark contrast to the destruction of the Tower. The woman's nakedness indicates that all masks have been removed. She is completely vulnerable and completely real.

What The Star Means

Upright

Hope, inspiration, serenity, healing, renewal, faith, connection to the divine, generosity, the light after the storm. A period of calm and clarity following crisis. Seeing the bigger picture.

The Star upright is one of the most healing cards in the deck. It appears after periods of crisis, loss, or disillusionment to say: you are going to be okay. Not immediately, perhaps. Not without scars. But the universe is pouring grace into your wounds, and the healing has already begun.

Reversed

Despair, disconnection, lack of faith, hopelessness, discouragement, refusal to heal, cynicism, self-doubt. The star is obscured by clouds.

Reversed, the Star warns that you have lost touch with hope. Perhaps the crisis was too severe. Perhaps the grief has not yet lifted. Perhaps you are refusing to believe that things can improve. The reversed Star says: the star is still there, but you cannot see it through the clouds of despair. The healing is available, but you must be willing to receive it.

How Position and Surrounding Cards Shift the Meaning

Next to the Tower, the Star immediately follows destruction with healing: the most powerful hope-after-crisis sequence in the deck. Next to the Moon, the Star's clarity gives way to confusion: more darkness awaits before dawn. Next to Strength, gentle courage opens the way to cosmic healing.

The Star in a health reading is profoundly positive: recovery, renewal, and the body's capacity for regeneration.

The Archetype: A Jungian Perspective

Albedo: the alchemical whitening, the purification that follows the destructive nigredo. In Jungian terms, the Star represents the Anima as guide: the soul-image that appears after the ego has been shattered, offering hope, healing, and connection to the Self. The nakedness indicates that all persona-masks have been stripped away; the figure is completely vulnerable and completely real.

The Star is also Sophia: divine feminine wisdom that pours forth healing. Psychologically, this is the first genuine experience of the Self after the ego-defences have been demolished. It is fragile, luminous, and profoundly healing.

The Fool's Journey: The Star's Place in the Story

After the catastrophe of the Tower, the Fool kneels in the rubble and looks up: and sees the stars. The Star teaches: 'After the worst, healing comes. You are not alone. The universe is pouring grace into your wounds. Be still. Be open. Let the healing happen.' This is the moment of hope after the dark night.

Previous: The Tower · Next: The Moon

The Star in Love, Work, and Health

Love and Relationships

Upright in love, the Star signals healing, renewed faith in love, and the quiet beauty of a relationship that has survived crisis. For those who are single, the Star suggests that love is approaching in a gentle, unforced way: not the dramatic passion of the Lovers but the serene certainty of connection that feels right.

Reversed in love, the Star warns about losing faith in love, emotional numbness after heartbreak, or the inability to open up to a new connection because the wounds of the last one have not yet healed.

Career and Finances

In career readings, the Star signals inspiration, renewed purpose, and the emergence of a clear professional vision after a period of uncertainty. It favours creative work, healing professions, humanitarian endeavours, and any career driven by a sense of higher purpose.

Reversed in career, the Star warns about professional disillusionment, loss of creative inspiration, or the sense that your work no longer connects to anything meaningful.

For students exploring the Major Arcana in depth, Linda Marson's course TarotNav: A GPS for Life devotes a full lesson to each Major Arcana card, exploring its symbolism, reading techniques, and personal significance.

Health and Wellbeing

The Star is one of the most positive health cards in the deck. It signals recovery, renewal, and the body's remarkable capacity for healing. It favours water-based therapies, energy healing, and any approach that works with the body's natural restorative processes.

Reversed, it may indicate blocked healing, chronic conditions that resist treatment, or the emotional depression that can accompany long illness.

Esoteric Correspondences

Kabbalah

The Star corresponds to Tzaddi, the fish-hook, the letter the Golden Dawn assigns to Aquarius. Crowley later reassigned the Star to Heh in The Book of Thoth, swapping it with the Emperor. On the Tree of Life, the Star walks Path 28, connecting Netzach (Victory/Desire) to Yesod (Foundation). This is the path from emotional desire to the psychic foundation: hope and inspiration flowing into the deep structure of the soul.

For more on the paths of the Tree of Life and their Tarot correspondences, see the complete Kabbalah paths guide.

Astrology

Aquarius: the Water Bearer, pouring forth wisdom and healing. Humanitarianism, cosmic consciousness, the future, innovation, the collective. Though the imagery is watery, Aquarius is an air sign: the Star operates through inspiration, vision, and cosmic awareness rather than emotional immersion.

Numerology

Seventeen: 1+7=8, linking the Star to Strength. After the destruction of the Tower, the Fool finds a new kind of strength: not the muscular will of the ego but the quiet, naked courage of the soul exposed to the cosmos. Star-strength.

Element

Air (via Aquarius): the clear air after the storm, vision unobstructed by illusion or ego. The Star's air is not the Fool's wild wind or the Lovers' communicating breath but the crystalline atmosphere of a desert night: transparent, cool, and infinitely deep.

Card Pairings and Relationships

Every Major Arcana card takes on different dimensions depending on its neighbours. These pairings are not fixed rules but starting points for interpretation.

• The Star + The Tower (destruction and healing): The most dramatic hope sequence in the deck. Everything is destroyed (Tower), and then grace arrives (Star). After the worst, the best.

• The Star + The Moon (hope and illusion): The Star's clarity gives way to the Moon's confusion. Healing is real but not yet complete: the deep unconscious still awaits.

• The Star + Strength (two forms of courage): Numerological siblings (17: 1+7=8). Strength's gentle mastery and the Star's naked vulnerability. Both require the courage to remain open.

• The Star + The Fool (trust rewarded): The Fool's blind trust and the Star's earned trust. The leap of faith (0) and the landing in grace (17).

• The Star + Temperance (two healers): Temperance heals through skill; the Star heals through grace. The alchemist and the cosmic pourer. Together: complete restoration.

• The Star + The Empress (abundance renewed): The Empress's natural abundance (3) and the Star's cosmic generosity (17: 1+7=8... 3+10+17). Fertility at the human and divine levels.

• The Star + The World (starlight and completion): The Star's vision of wholeness realised in the World's dancing integration. Hope fulfilled.

• The Star + The Sun (two lights): Starlight and sunlight. The quiet, interior healing of the Star and the radiant, exterior joy of the Sun. Night sky and daytime.

Related Cards

Row 3: Superconscious / Cosmic Forces · the Star's place in the cosmic drama:
- The Tower · XVI · The destruction that the Star heals
- The Moon · XVIII · The darkness that follows even the Star's light

Numerological column (3-10-17) · cards sharing the Star's vertical correspondence:
- The Empress · III · Creative abundance at the earthly level
- Wheel of Fortune · X · The cyclical nature of hope and despair

Cards of hope and healing · cards sharing the Star's restorative quality:
- Temperance · XIV · Patient healing through skilled integration
- The Sun · XIX · Radiant healing through clarity and joy

Explore the Major Arcana Further

The Star is one of 22 archetypal encounters in the Major Arcana · and its meaning deepens when read alongside the cards that surround it. If you are drawn to the Tarot's psychological and spiritual dimensions, these courses offer a guided path from first reading to archetypal mastery.

Recommended courses:

• A Jungian Approach to the Tarot · Archetypal analysis and psychological depth through the Tarot · Taught by Mary K. Greer
• Major Arcana Only Readings · Reading techniques using only the 22 Trumps · Taught by Rachel Pollack
• GPS for the Soul · Using Tarot as a navigation system for life's deepest questions · Taught by Rachel Pollack

For the complete guide to all 22 Major Arcana cards, visit The Major Arcana: Complete Guide to the 22 Trumps.

For a comprehensive introduction to reading all 78 Tarot cards, see How to Read Tarot Cards: A Complete Guide.

Go deeper · explore our Tarot courses with Mary K. Greer, Rachel Pollack and more.

← The Tower · XVI | The Moon · XVIII →