The Star tarot card meaning: upright, reversed and symbols

The Star is card XVII of the Major Arcana, the quiet card of hope that comes after the Tower. Under a great star a figure kneels by a pool and pours water onto the land and back into the water. The sky is open again. This page explains what the Star means upright and reversed, the symbols in the 1909 card and how a card once read as loss became the card of hope.

At a glance

• Upright keywords: hope, renewal, inspiration, healing
• Reversed keywords: discouragement, lost faith, hope that feels naive
• Number: XVII (17) in the Major Arcana
• Element: Air Later tradition
• Astrology: Aquarius Later tradition
• Yes or no: Yes Modern

The element and astrology come from the Golden Dawn system of the 1880s and 1890s, not from the first tarot decks, and the yes or no lean is a modern reading habit. Use them if they help you remember the card, and skip them if they get in the way.

The card: what Pamela Colman Smith drew

The 1909 card shows an unclothed woman kneeling by a pool under a sky of stars, pouring water from two jugs onto the water and the land. Waite described “a great, radiant star of eight rays, surrounded by seven lesser stars”, and a figure who pours “Water of Life from two great ewers, irrigating sea and land”.

The great star and the seven stars

One large star with eight points shines among seven smaller ones. Many readers link the seven stars to the seven classical planets, or to the Pleiades. Whatever the reading, they are guiding lights in a clear sky.

Pouring water

The figure pours water from two jugs, one into the pool and one onto the land. Feeling flows back into life and into the earth. Renewal in this card is quiet and gradual.

One knee on land, one foot in water

Like the angel of Temperance, the figure balances between land and water. The healing touches both the practical and the emotional.

The bird in the tree

On a tree in the background a bird sits on a branch. Readers often call it an ibis, the bird of the Egyptian god of wisdom, Thoth. It is a small sign of thought returning after the storm.

Upright meaning

Upright, the Star brings hope, inspiration, healing and renewal. After the shock of the Tower, it is the first clear night. Water returns to the land and the sky is open again.

In a reading, let hope be specific and small enough to use: rest, beauty, a future worth watering. The Star often arrives after hardship as permission to trust a calmer current. Inspiration works best when you also keep pouring the humble daily water.

Reversed meaning

Reversed, the Star can mean discouragement, faith running thin, or hope that feels naive after too many disappointments. You may not be able to see the next light, or you may be refusing any light that is not dramatic.

Borrow hope in small amounts. Ask for company in the dark without demanding instant change. Loss of faith can be a season. Keep one practice that does not need belief to be useful: sleep, food, a walk, a phone call.

Reversals are optional. Many readers never use them and read every card upright, and that is a complete way to read. If you do use them, decide before you shuffle what a reversed card will mean for you, and keep to that choice for the whole reading.

In love, work and spirituality

Love

Upright, a gentle reopening after hurt, a healing relationship, hope in love. Reversed, feeling unable to imagine goodwill again.

Work and money

Inspiration returning after a hard season, a hopeful new direction. Reversed, discouragement that blocks even small steps.

Spirituality

Quiet faith after a crisis, a sense of guidance, healing practices. Reversed, numbness where devotion used to be.

As feelings

As feelings, the Star shows hope, gentle admiration and openness. The person sees something good and lasting in you.

The Star as past, present, future and advice

• Past: Healing after a hard time.
• Present: Hope is returning. Let it in.
• Future: Renewal and a calmer, brighter season.
• Advice: Water one small hope every day.

A Major Arcana card names a theme, not a sentence passed on your life. When the Star shows up among mostly Minor cards, give it extra weight: the theme of hope runs under the whole question. If it keeps coming back over several days, write down what was happening each time. Patterns like that teach you more about the card than any list of keywords.

Is the Star a yes or a no?

In modern yes or no readings, the Star leans yes. It is one of the most hopeful cards in the deck, so it says yes. Tarot is better at showing the shape of a situation than at handing down verdicts, so if the question really matters, turn it into an open question such as “What do I need to know about this?” and draw again.

Affirmation and journal prompts

Affirmation: I renew myself with steady hope and simple care.

Reversed affirmation: I tend one small light when larger faith feels far away.

Journal prompts:

• What small hope can I water today?
• What has healed in me since my last hard time?
• Where do I find my guiding light?

The history and art behind the card

In the Tarot de Marseille pattern the card is called L’Étoile, the Star. The early Italian Star cards show a woman holding a star, or astronomers looking up at the sky. The pouring figure under the stars became the standard image in the Marseille pattern.

The meaning changed over time. Waite was dismissive of the hope reading and wrote that “the summary of several tawdry explanations says that it is a card of hope”. Modern readers chose hope anyway, and today almost everyone reads the Star as the card of healing after the storm.

That change is a good reminder of how tarot works: meanings are not fixed by any single author. They grow out of the picture and the community of readers who use it.

When A. E. Waite published The Pictorial Key to the Tarot in 1910, he listed these divinatory meanings for the card: “Loss, theft, privation, abandonment; another reading says: hope and bright prospects.” Reversed, he gave: “Arrogance, haughtiness, impotence.” Waite himself called the fortune-telling meanings of the trumps “artificial and arbitrary”, and on this site I read the picture first and treat lists like this as history.

In the modern teaching map called the Fool’s Journey, this card belongs to the third stage, seeing through and returning (roughly the Devil to the World): bondage, upheaval, hope, uncertainty, clarity, reckoning and completion. This map is a teaching aid made popular by twentieth-century guidebooks such as Eden Gray’s, not a medieval doctrine. Use it when it helps.

A spread for the Star

Use this spread after a hard time, when you want to find hope again.

1. What has healed? What is already better than it was.
2. What is my guiding star? The hope or value that points the way.
3. How can I pour my water? One gentle daily practice of renewal.

Lay the three cards in a row, read each one on its own first, then read them together as a short story. Write one sentence for each position and one small action you will take.

Common questions

Is the Star a yes or no card?

Yes. It is one of the most hopeful cards in the deck.

What does the Star mean in love?

Hope, healing and gentle openness. It often comes after heartbreak as a sign that love is possible again.

The Star with other cards

• With The Sun: hope turning into joy and success.
• With The Moon: hope in uncertain times: keep the light in view.
• With Temperance: healing that takes patience.

Related cards

• The Tower: the storm before the Star
• The Moon: the next card: from clear starlight into the uncertain night
• Temperance: another card of pouring water and gentle balance

Keep learning

The Star is part of the lesson The Devil to the World in my free Tarot for Beginners course. To keep walking the Major Arcana, read the card before it, The Tower or the card after it, The Moon, or go back to all the card meanings. For every card with keywords, affirmations and examples, see my book The Novice’s Guide to Tarot. If you would like a printable cheat sheet for all 78 cards, my 45-page Tarot Workbook is on Etsy.

Sources

• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), Part II and Part III, section 3.
• Pamela Colman Smith and A. E. Waite, the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot (London: Rider, 1909).
• Nicolas Conver, Tarot de Marseille (Marseille, 1760).
• Eden Gray, A Complete Guide to the Tarot (New York: Crown, 1970), epilogue “The Fool’s Journey”.
• Lauri Mukkala, The Novice’s Guide to Tarot, entry for The Star.