The Star Tarot Card Meaning — Upright, Reversed, Hope, Love & Study

Follow the order of the Major Arcana and card 17, the Star, comes right after card 16, the Tower. That is no accident. The first thing to settle on the ground the Tower brought down, the ruins where only rubble is left, is starlight. The urgent run of lightning, collapse and falling finally goes quiet when it reaches this card. Card 17, The Star, is the card that arrives after the storm has passed.

Field	Detail
Number	17 (Major Arcana)
English name	The Star
Upright keywords	hope, recovery, inspiration, a bright outlook
Reversed keywords	loss of hope, low confidence

The Star — Major Arcana 17

The same card drawn in soft pastel — the cute deck in Tarot Ping

Reading the symbols

• One knee in the water, one foot on land — this stance, close to the one in Temperance, shows recovery with a footing in both the unconscious and the real world.
• The two jars — pouring water into the pool with one and onto the earth with the other stands for circulating your feelings while also sending nourishment into daily life.
• One large star and seven small ones — the big star at the center is hope itself, the thing that gives direction, while the small ones around it are the large and small openings that back that hope up.
• The bird on the branch — the quiet wisdom that returns once the turmoil has passed.
• The unadorned figure — a pure state with nothing hidden and the defenses set down.

Upright — light settling on the rubble

Upright, the Star means the recovery and hope that arrive slowly after you have come through something hard. It is not a moment of dazzling reversal but closer to a stretch of time where confidence and direction quietly return.

Reversed — when the star looks dim

Reversed points to losing hope or to confidence running low. It is more accurate, though, to see it as the starlight briefly hidden behind cloud rather than gone.

Readings by situation

Put simply, it reads like this.

• Love — Upright is trust being restored / reversed is expectations missing each other and hurt piling up
• Family — Upright is encouragement and hope filling up between you / reversed is hopes cut short and spirits sinking
• Study & Exams — Upright is a clear vision of the goal opening up / reversed is being drunk on vague expectation and short on real effort
• Daily fortune — Upright is a clear, bright day / reversed is a day where needless pessimism weighs the mood down
• Relationships — Upright is a connection where you encourage and inspire each other / reversed is a relationship where excessive expectation leads to disappointment

Of these, the two worth watching most closely are love and study. In love, the Star points to a phase where trust in the other person builds back up. It is less that one big event improves things and more that small considerations accumulate until your heart eases. In study, it is a time when the goal becomes clear again. If the card is reversed, though, that clarity can drift into optimism with nothing under it, so you need the balance of drawing the vision large while handling today’s page first.

Combinations that change the reading

If the Tower appears next to the Star, you can read it with confidence as a sign that the difficulty you are living through really is passing and a recovery phase is close. If the Moon lies alongside instead, some unease has not fully lifted, so read it as a signal to hold on to hope without rushing to a conclusion. When the Sun comes with it, recovery has given way to conviction, and you can take the outlook as much brighter than the Star alone would suggest.

Cards to read alongside

• The Tower — the card right before the Star. It leads into the recovery that comes after a collapse.
• The Hermit — the Hermit’s small lantern and the Star’s shining light are alike in that both are symbols of lighting the way through darkness.
• Tarot Card Meanings — All 78 Cards — the full card list

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News lands first on Instagram (@fadongkwon.soft).

These readings are for entertainment and self-reflection. For important decisions about money, health, or legal matters, always consult a qualified professional.