1. Tarot
2. Card meanings
3. The Star

Major Arcana · XVII

The Star

• hope and bright prospects
• eternal youth and beauty

Upright meaning

Hope and renewal. Waite records the reading of hope and bright prospects, and calls the figure an image of eternal youth and beauty: quiet restoration after strain.

Reversed meaning

Reversed, Waite gives arrogance and haughtiness. A prompt to keep hope humble and open.

• arrogance

Symbolism

Under a great eight-rayed star, a woman kneels at a pool, pouring water onto the land and into the water.

Group

Major Arcana

Element, astrology

Not given by Waite, so we give none

Source

Our own plain-English summary of A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1911), Part II §2 (symbolism); Part III §3 (divinatory meanings). The keywords are Waite’s own words. Waite’s fortune-telling lists also contain harsher terms; we keep to the reflective readings he gives and never state an event as certain.

Tarot is a tool for reflection, not a prediction of fixed outcomes. This is not medical, legal or financial advice.