Tarot Journey with Leisa ReFalo

17. The Star

Number: 17
Card Title: The Star
Esoteric Title: Daughter of the Firmament, Dweller between the Waters
Astrological Atttribution: Aquarius
Elemental Attribution: Air (hot, wet)
Dates & Timing: January 20 to February 18
Hebrew Letter: Tzaddi Fishhook 90
Color: Violet
Intelligence: Natural Intelligence
Esoteric Function: Imagination
Qabalistic Path: Path 28: 7 Netzach to 9 Yesod
Translation of Path: The Victory of Foundation

Keywords: Idealism, Hope, Sense of purpose, Health, Peace, Clear Vision, Generosity, Serenity, Limelight, Spiritual Gifts, Revelation, Optimism, Insight, Self-recognition, Idealistic, Contentment, Abundance, Talent.

Ill-Dignified:Hopelessness, Dreaminess, Deceived Hope, Haughty, Arrogant, Depressed, Doubt, Pessimism, Stubbornness, Loss of friendship or love, Physical or Mental Illness, Procrastination, Sickness, Drained, Disappointed

Interpretation: Imbalances of form and function. Need to achieve equilibrium through proper creative energy. Bizarre Encounter. Situation will change rapidly. Destruction of old forms. Karmic clearing. Release old way, old life. A change for the better after a sudden loss or disappointment. Sudden truth. Flash of enlightenment. Changing a basic core belief. Spiritual renewal. Everything in life happens for the best. Things can not continue as they were before. Lightning of spiritual comprehension destroys error and ignorance.

Reversed Interpretation: Accident out of the blue. Change process has started, don’t resist it. See the writing on the wall. Clear rubble and start over. Downfall of selfish destroyed ambition. Broken partnership. High costs to gain freedom of mind, body and spirit. Self-knowledge brings traumatic but satisfying change. Gain of freedom of body/mind at great cost. False accusations. False imprisonment. Acceptance of collapse
Rider-Waite Imagery

Interpretation: Gaining an inner view. Higher purpose and soul path. Divine connection and inspiration. Bring Spirit (air) to emotions (water) and body (earth). Doorway to Spiritual transformation. Greater Destiny. Surrender to Higher Power. Long range vision, blessings and purification. Optimistic vision. Be true to yourself. Your star will shine. Great love given and received. Receiving help from above. Unexpected help. Blessing flow from above.

Reversed Interpretation: Denying true gifts. Interested in status or appearance. Life bogging you down. Worn down. Loss caused by lack of judgment, Wrong path. Pessimistic attitude may limit choices. Lack of self-esteem. Learn not to give too much. Look only at the positive in live can weaken ability to confront the negative.

Rider-Waite Imagery

A nude woman kneels while pouring water from a pair of vases. This is the same blonde goddess from the Empress-Strength.

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)

Part I: The Veil and its Symbols

17. The Star, Dog-Star, or Sirius, also called fantastically the Star of the Magi. Grouped about it are seven minor luminaries, and beneath it is a naked female figure, with her left knee upon the earth and her right foot upon the water. She is in the act of pouring fluids from two vessels. A bird is perched on a tree near her; for this a butterfly on a rose has been substituted in some later cards. So also the Star has been called that of Hope. This is one of the cards which Court de Gebelin describes as wholly Egyptian-that is to say, in his own reverie.

Part II: The Doctrine Behind the Veil

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.

The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]

Chapter X. The Symbolical Tarot

17. 17th Hebrew letter (Phe).

ORIGIN OF THE SYMBOLISM OF THE SEVENTEENTH CARD OF THE TAROT.

The Phe expresses the same hieroglyphic meaning as the Beth (2nd card), but in a more extended sense. For, whilst the Beth signifies the mouth of man as the organ of speech, the Phe represents the produce of that organ: Speech.

It is the sign of speech and of all connected with it. The Word in action in nature with all its consequences.

Astronomically this letter responds to Mercury the God of Speech and of scientific or commercial diffusion, the God of Universal exchange between all beings and all worlds. Phe is a double letter.

SEVENTEENTH CARD OF THE TAROT. The Star.

The ideas expressed by this symbol are those–

Of the expansion of fluids.
Of their eternal renewal.
A nude female figure pours the Water of Universal Life from two cups.

The genius of the Sun (14th arcanum) has now descended to earth under the form of this young girl, the image of eternal Youth. The fluids, which she formerly poured from one vase to the other, she now throws upon the ground (first idea).

This young girl is crowned with seven stars; in the midst of them shines a very large and brilliant one. Near her an ibis (or sometimes a butterfly) rests upon a flower.

Here we find the symbol of immortality. The soul (ibis or butterfly) will survive the body, which is only a place of trial (the ephemeral flower). The courage to bear these trials will come from above (the stars).

The fall of the Divine and of the Human into the Material has scarcely taken place, when a mysterious voice whispers, courage to the Sinner, by showing him future re-instatement through trial.

This card exactly balances the evil effects of the preceding one, and from it we derive the following significations–

Opposition to destruction. No destruction is final. Everything is eternal and immortal in God–IMMORTALITY. Creation of the human soul.

The fall is not irreparable. This is whispered to us by the intuitive sentiment we name HOPE.

The Visible Universe contains the source of its Divinization in itself. This is THE FORCE WHICH DISPENSES THE ESSENCE OF LIFE, which gives it the means of perpetually renewing its creations after destruction.

17. The Star.

Affinities

Primitive Hieroglyphic: Speech (the mouth and the tongue)
Astronomy: Mercury
Day: Wednesday
Hebrew letter: Phe (double)

Significations

IMMORTALITY
HOPE
THE FORCE WHICH DISPENSES THE ESSENCE OF LIFE

Major Arcana Signification from the Divining Point of View

17. The Stars signifies HOPE.

The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]

Symbolism of Each Key

17. The Star. A nude female figure pours water upon the earth from two vases. In the heavens above her shines the Blazing Star of the Magi (surrounded by seven others), trees and plants grow beneath her magic influence (and on one the butterfly of Psyche alights). She is the star of Hope.

Meanings of the Cards

17. The Star.–Hope, Expectation, Bright promises; R. Hopes not fulfilled, Expectations disappointed or fulfilled in a minor degree.

The Symbolism of the Tarot by P. D. Ouspensky [1913]

What is the Tarot? Card XVII.–”The Star”.

The real aspect of the Astral World. That which maybe seen in extasy. The imagination of Nature. Real Knowledge. Occultism.

CARD XVII. THE STAR.

A strange emotion seized me. A fiery trembling ran in waves through all my body. My heart quickened its beating, tumult agitated my mind.

I felt that I was surrounded by portentous mysteries. And presently shafts of Light penetrated my being and illuminated many things before in darkness, whose existence even I had never suspected. Veils vanished of which I had been before unaware. Voices spoke to me. And suddenly all my former knowledge took a new and different meaning.

I discovered unexpected correlations in things which hitherto I had thought foreign to each other. Objects distant and different from one another appeared near and similar. The facts of the world arranged themselves before my eyes according to a new pattern.

In the sky there appeared an enormous star surrounded by seven smaller stars. Their rays intermingled, filling space with immeasurable radiance and splendour. Then I knew I saw that Heaven of which Plotinus speaks: “Where . . . all things are diaphanous; and nothing is dark and resisting, but everything is apparent to every one internally and throughout. For light everywhere meets with light, since everything contains all things in itself, and again sees all things in another. So that all things are everywhere, and all is all. Each thing likewise is everything. And the splendour there is infinite. For everything there is great, since even that which is small is great.

“The sun too, which is there, is all the stars; and again each star is the sun and all the stars. In each however, a different property predominates, but at the same time all things are visible in each. Motion likewise there is pure; for motion is not confounded by a mover different from it. Permanency also suffers no change of its nature, because it is not mingled with the unstable. And the beautiful there is beautiful, because it does not subsist in beauty. Each thing, too, is there established, not as in a foreign land, but the seat of each thing is that which each thing is. . . . . Nor is the thing itself different from the place in which it subsists. For the subject of it is intellect, and it is itself intellect. . . . In this sensible region, therefore, one part is not produced by another, but each part is alone a part. But there each part always proceeds from the whole, and is at the same each time part and the whole. For it appears indeed as a part; but by him whose sight is acute, it will be seen as a whole.

“Where . . . is likewise no weariness of the vision which Is there, not any plenitude of perception which can bring intuition to an end.

“For neither was there any vacuity which when filled might cause the visible energy to cease; nor is this one thing, but that another, so as to occasion a part of one thing not to be amicable with that of another.

“Where . . . the life is wisdom; a wisdom not obtained by a reasoning process, because the whole of it always was, and is not in any respect deficient, so as to be in want of investigation. But it is the first wisdom, and is not derived from another”.

I understood that all the radiance here is thought; and the changing colours are emotions. And each ray, if we look into it, turns into images, symbols, voices and moods. And I saw that there is nothing inanimate, but all is soul, all is life, all is emotion and imagination.

And beneath the radiant stars beside the blue river I saw a naked maiden, young and beautiful. She stooped on one knee and poured water from two vessels, one of gold and one of silver. A little bird in a near by bush lifted its wings and was poised ready to fly away.

For a moment I understood that I beheld the Soul of Nature.

“This is Nature’s Imagination,” said the voice gently. “Nature dreams, improvises, creates worlds. Learn to unite your imagination with Her Imagination and nothing will ever be impossible for you. Lose the external world and seek it in yourself. Then you will find Light. “But remember, unless you have lost the Earth, you will not find Heaven. It is impossible to see both wrongly and rightly at the same time.”

The Tarot Trumps by G. H. Soror, Q.L.

XVII. THE STAR
This shows the seven-pointed Star of Venus shining above the Waters of Aquarius, the guiding force of love in all its forms and aspects, illuminates the soul during her immersion in Humanity, so that the bonds of Saturn are dissolved in the purified Waters of Baptism. The dove of the Spirit hovers above the Tree of Knowledge giving the promise of ultimate attainment – and on the other side gleams of the Tree of Life.

Pale colors suggest dawn and the morning Star – amethyst, pale gray, fawn, dove color and white, with the pale yellow of the Star.