MAJOR ARCANA · TRUMP XVII
The Star
Tarot card meaning
UPRIGHT
Hope, renewal, inspiration, serenity.
REVERSED
Despair, disconnection, lack of faith.
The card
A naked woman kneels by a pool, pouring water onto land and into the pool. One great star and seven smaller ones shine above; a bird perches in a tree.
The Star is trump XVII of the twenty-two trumps of the Major Arcana.
In the Golden Dawn's attributions it carries the Hebrew letter Tzaddi (צ), “fish-hook”, and the sign of Aquarius. On the Tree of Life it is path 28, joining Netzach and Yesod.
In Aleister Crowley's Thoth tarot: The Star, XVII.
In Waite's words
Arthur Edward Waite designed the deck that Pamela Colman Smith drew, and explained it in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911). His text, with his spelling:
DIVINATORY MEANINGS Loss, theft, privation, abandonment; another reading says—hope and bright prospects,
REVERSED Arrogance, haughtiness, impotence.
The picture and its symbolism
A great, radiant, star of eight rays, surrounded by seven lesser stars—also of eight rays. The female figure in the foreground is entirely naked. Her left knee is on the land and her right foot upon the water. She pours Water of Life from two great ewers, irrigating sea and land. Behind her is rising ground and on the right a shrub or tree, whereon a bird alights. The figure expresses eternal youth and beauty. The star is l'étoile flamboyante, which appears in Masonic symbolism, but has been confused therein. That which the figure communicates to the living scene is the substance of the heavens and the elements. It has been said truly that the mottoes of this card are "Waters of Life freely" and "Gifts of the Spirit."
The summary of several tawdry explanations says that it is a card of hope. On other planes it has been certified as immortality and interior light. For the majority
of prepared minds, the figure will appear as the type of Truth unveiled, glorious in undying beauty, pouring on the waters of the soul some part and measure of her priceless possession. But she is in reality the Great Mother in the Kabalistic Sephira Binah, which is supernal Understanding, who communicates to the Sephiroth that are below in the measure that they can receive her influx.
A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: William Rider & Son, 1911), Part II § 2 and Part III § 3. Public domain; text from the 1922 printing on Wikisource.
Related cards
The numbered cards it governs
Five of Swords: a decan of Aquarius · Six of Swords: a decan of Aquarius · Seven of Swords: a decan of Aquarius
In three historical decks
The same card as it was painted in fifteenth-century Milan, printed in the French pattern of the Tarot de Marseille, and drawn by Pamela Colman Smith for the Rider–Waite–Smith deck.
In the Tarot de Marseille: L'Étoile, XVII.
Learn more in the lessons
- The Thoth Tarot · 12 min
- The Twenty-Two Paths & the Tarot · 18 min
- The Major Arcana Journey · 18 min
Images: Pamela Colman Smith, 1909 (public domain); the RWS1909 scans on Wikimedia Commons. Lequart, Paris, c. 1890 (public domain); scans from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica), via Wikimedia Commons. Attributed to Bonifacio Bembo, mid-15th century (public domain); scans by David Madore, via Wikimedia Commons.