The Star
The Star
Number 17 Air Aquarius
A major arcana card: the big weather rather than the daily forecast.
Upright
hopehealingcalm afterbeing seen
The quiet after something hard. The Star follows the Tower in the deck and that order is the meaning: this is the card of repair, of the first night you sleep properly again. It is gentle and it is not naive: the figure is pouring water back into the pool she took it from, which is what recovery is. Also a card about being seen without armour.
Reversed
discouragementfaith knockedhiding
Hope knocked about. Reversed, the Star is discouragement after effort, faith in something (a person, a plan, yourself) that has taken a hit. Rarely permanent. The card reversed is usually about the gap between the healing having started and it being felt.
What is in the picture
A woman kneeling by a pool, pouring one jug into the water and one onto the land, under eight stars. She is unclothed and unbothered by it, the first card after the Tower where nothing is being defended.
What it says about…
The line a reading leads with, depending on what you said you were asking about.
A bit of everything
Upright: the hard part is behind you. This is repair, and it is real.
Reversed: you are further along than you feel. The discouragement is lagging behind the facts.
Love and relationships
Upright: being known without performing. Rare, and here.
Reversed: hope in this knocked back. Not gone, knocked.
Work and direction
Upright: recognition, or work that finally means something to you again.
Reversed: effort unnoticed. Say what you did; nobody else will.
Money and security
Upright: the pressure easing. Slowly, genuinely.
Reversed: recovery slower than you were promised. It is still recovery.
Me, honestly
Upright: you are healing. Let it be undramatic.
Reversed: be careful of the story that this never gets better. It has already started to.
A decision I am stuck on
Upright: yes, and it is the hopeful option for once.
Reversed: decide when you are less discouraged. This is not the mood for it.
With other cards
With The Tower
The Tower and the Star together is the whole story rather than half of it: the thing falls, and then it is quiet, and the quiet is the better part. If you are in the first half of that, the deck has told you there is a second half.
With The Moon
Fear, then relief. The Moon exaggerates and the Star corrects it. Read the Moon card as smaller than it feels.
With The Sun
Repair followed by daylight. If a hard year is behind this question, that is what these two are describing.
With Three of Swords
Heartbreak with recovery written directly after it. Rare, and worth saying out loud: the hurt is real and it is not the end of the account.
If this card leads
Let it be easier than you think it is allowed to be.
As a yes or no
Upright, it reads as yes. Reversed, maybe.
“The hard part is behind me.”
Draw it in a reading
The meaning above, applied to something you are actually asking about.
