The Star: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Star upright means: Loss, theft, privation, abandonment; another reading says: hope and bright prospects, Reversed: Arrogance, haughtiness, impotence.

The picture

“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, 1910

Upright

Loss, theft, privation, abandonment; another reading says: hope and bright prospects,

Reversed

Arrogance, haughtiness, impotence.

In one line

Hope and bright prospects, after the loss. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

The Star is card XVII of the 22 Major Arcana, the trumps. Before it comes The Tower; after it, The Moon.

In Esbat

Esbat deals a card of the day, face down until you turn it, and holds all 78 cards in the 1910 pictures with Waite's meanings, upright and reversed. The Star can be shared as a picture. All 78 tarot card meanings.

Sources

Meanings and picture descriptions: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), public domain, checked against the Wikisource transcription. Picture: Pamela Colman Smith, 1910, public domain. Like the app, this page records what the book says; it does not promise outcomes.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

Esbat: Tarot & Book of Shadows, on Google Play

A card of the day, face down until you turn it, and all 78 cards in the 1910 pictures with Waite's meanings, upright and reversed. For Android.

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