If you are familiar with tarot, you are likely familiar with The Star (card seventeen of the major arcana). In the traditional tarot, The Star contains a visual of a bare woman pouring into her surroundings with large, bright stars overhead. The Star represents Aquarius in astrology and falls behind The Tower.

After major upheaval, The Star gathers her bearings to start anew. She disregards the conventional standards of society and instead creates her own through a process of healing and rebuilding trust within herself. Though she prioritizes her inner being, we can also recognize that she is generous enough to provide care to the living things around her. From an outside perspective this process may not seem linear, but the imagery of this card indicates that she acts intuitively. I identify the stars as intuition and inspiration provided from the higher self. On a grounded level, the water symbolizes the mind, and the land symbolizes the body. As she pours from each jug, the water from the land travels back to the body of water showing that nourishment of one is nourishment for the other.

Over time, I have developed a great bond with this card. Mainly because throughout my years of reading tarot, The Star has been a prevalent character that appears in my personal spreads. To start, I had always viewed the role of this card as an advisor. A spread of The Star, The Hermit, and the Nine of Pentacles became routine in my personal readings, almost as if a firm voice was commanding, “Do it alone.“

The Star is courageous enough to seek freedom, and optimistic enough to trust herself in doing so. The growth that occurs in this experience is not always comfortable, as this journey is usually navigated alone. This means that you will not always have the understanding and acceptance of others, or the guidance of another to point you in the best direction. Despite this, it is where major self-development occurs and where the connection to yourself expands beyond the limits that it may have been restricted by in the first place.

After developing an understanding of the direction I felt called to go in (and experiencing a few inevitable growing pains), I have adopted The Star as a symbol of myself. This comes with a great sense of self-acceptance and appreciation.

If you feel connected with a specific tarot card, which one do you identify with, and how have you interpreted the themes of this card in relation to your own life experiences?