The Star Tarot Card Meaning

The Star upright

Under one great star and seven smaller ones, a woman kneels with one foot in the water, pouring from two jugs onto land and pool. Waite calls it the water of life, poured out freely. The popular reading he records — hope and bright prospects — is the one most readers use: after the storm, a steady light returns.

The Star reversed

Waite reversed gives arrogance, haughtiness and impotence. When hope fades, the cure is humble and practical: ask for support, take small restoring steps.

A reversed card (What does Upright / reversed card mean?) is one drawn upside-down.

Is The Star a yes or no?

Upright: Leans yes. A hopeful yes — perhaps not instant, but things are moving in a good direction.

Reversed: Reversed, The Star reads as a gentle no: discouragement, pride, feeling powerless.

The yes/no lean is BornClock’s reading convention drawn from the card’s meaning — Waite himself did not assign one.

Symbolism in the The Star card

What appears in the 1909 Rider–Waite–Smith picture, as Waite describes it:

• Great eight-rayed star with seven smaller stars — Waite relates the great star to a Masonic emblem
• Water poured from two jugs — Waite: the water of life, given freely
• One knee on land, one foot in water — Waite: she is eternal youth and beauty, giving to both land and sea
• A bird on a shrub — a detail Waite gives no separate meaning

In Waite’s own words (paraphrased)

Upright: loss, theft, privation, abandonment; another reading — hope and bright prospects.

Reversed: arrogance, haughtiness, impotence.

Source: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910, public domain). Some of Waite’s 1910 fortune-telling meanings are old-fashioned; the plain-English reading above is ours.