What is the meaning of the Star card in tarot?
The lovely Star card is always welcome and is the favorite of many. But what does the Star card actually mean in a tarot reading? Learn here about how to interpret the beautiful yet enigmatic Star card in your tarot readings. Sure, we can say that the Star card is the Aquarius card, but what does that mean?
Interpreting the Star card in tarot
Interpreting any card is all about context. Did you draw the Star card as a general “card of the day”, as the answer to a specific question, or has it shown up in a particular spread position? Every Major Arcana card tends to cover broad, overarching topics, the larger forces of life that are often beyond our mortal control – some call them “karmic” in nature. With such broad purview, the Major Arcana of tarot are often more difficult to interpret. But we can distill every tarot Major into (at least) three ways that they may be understood.
Spectrum Fari, the guidebook for our Pharos tarot, breaks down the Star card into three possible general types of manifestations:
- High ideals, hope and faith, renewal and cleansing
- Clear insight, vision, realizing possibilities, meditation
- Unexpected guidance, revelation
Many of these can be traced to the Star as the trump of Aquarius. Aquarius is an Air sign, and considered to be a humanitarian, visionary sign of high ideals and cool, rational intellect. It is far-seeing, often futuristic, and gives unusually keen foresight. Aquarius’ modern ruler is revolutionary Uranus, but the classical ruler is traditional Saturn. This gives Aquarius the unique ability to see far and visionary possibilities (Uranus), yet see the disciplined paths and boundaries need to actually reach them (Saturn).
The Star is a Sun, yet in another solar system so very far from Earth – so far that sometimes the card can mean things that are forever out of reach unless those visionary goals are pursued, making the message one of longing for an ideal. Aquarius is brilliant though – Aquarian ingenuity can see the way through to the vision.
Qabalah of the Star card
In the Thoth system, the Star corresponds to the Hebrew letter He, which means “window” – another suggesting that this is a card of clear seeing and vision. The letter is in the divine name YHVH as both the second letter (the Mother, Water and the suit of Cups) and the final letter (the Daughter, Earth and the suit of Disks or Pentacles): feminine intuition and powers of creation leading ultimately to manifestation. The path extends from Chokmah (the Zodiac; Wisdom) to Tiphareth (the Sun; Beauty) – that in itself is a message of divine guidance above opening the way to the inner light of truth and centered harmony.
The Star as card of the day
When the Star tarot card shows up as your card of the day, hope and ideals beckon like a beacon, asking you to consider your highest vision and how to navigate towards it. Unexpected guidance may come with meditation on your goals. Possibilities are in sight, but are they within reach? The meaning of the Star tarot card asks you to envision potentiality. Seek your dreams with devotion!
There are also astrological methods of getting meaning from the Star tarot card, the Aquarius card, as card of the day. If you know your astrology chart, you can also look to where the sign Aquarius shows up for you and which planets might be engaged. Let’s say you have a planet in Aquarius, and the Star card shows up as card of the day. Check to see if themes of that planet, and the expressions of Aquarian energy in general, combine and show up in some way that day.
The Planets
- The Sun: you, and how you shine, your inner wisdom
- The Moon: your emotional world, nurturing
- Mercury: your mind
- Mars: your drive, and how you go after things
- Venus: how you attract things
- Jupiter: where you are expansive
- Saturn: where you are contracted, but also where you are disciplined
Even if you don’t have any planets in Aquarius, everyone has every sign somewhere in their chart. You can look at the house where you have Aquarius to see what themes might be activated for you:
The Houses
- First house: the self, the body, the personality
- Second house: resources, including income and possessions, and whatever you value
- Third house: the local community, siblings and cousins, short trips, communications, short-term classes
- Fourth house: the home, parents, especially the mother or nurturing parent, ancestors, roots, family, security
- Fifth house: children, creativity and projects, romance and play
- Sixth house: the daily tasks, chores, employment and employees, health and wellness, pets
- Seventh house: the spouse, the business partner, the “other”, open “enemies” (ie lawsuits, or just those openly working against your interests)
- Eighth house: transformation, the assets of spouse and others, inheritance, death, taxes
- Ninth house: higher education, philosophy, religious beliefs, long distance travels, mind expansion, foreigners, legal matters
- Tenth house: career, public image, the father or structuring parent
- Eleventh house: friends, groups you belong to, hopes and dreams, social media
- Twelfth house: secrets, the subconscious, dreams, escapism, isolation, sometimes illness or imprisonment, secret “enemies” (people who secretly work against your interests)
But the Star card doesn’t have to always mean grand karmic themes as card of the day. Sometimes cards are very literal and mundane. Aquarius is the sign of friendship – perhaps there will simply be contact from an Aquarian friend, or even just a friend!
The Star card shown in this post is from Tabula Mundi Tarot. For our most beautiful luxury version of this deck, check out our Silver edition.