No. 21: THE STAR (XVII)
Life is renewed in Beauty
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Writing through the TAROT deck, one card at a time. This is number twenty-one in a 78-week durational project.
QUICK HITS
Initiation / Infusion of Light / Luck / Otherworldly Communion / Illumination of Essential Truth / Hope / Celestial Currents / Primordial Waters / An Opening / Refreshment / Feminine Energies / Rebirth / Renewal / Deep Healing / Reception / Grace / Optimism / Peace After a Storm / Ecstatic Calm / Pure Joy / Sustainable Contact with Transcendent States / Transformation / Profound Self-Acceptance / Infinite Supply / Radiant Beauty / Pleasurable Rest / Cosmic Perspective / Arrival / You Are Here / Tending the Garden / Balance of Connection and Individuation / Radical Vulnerability as Superpower / A Blessing / A Pouring Out / Formlessness / Inexhaustible Creative Inspiration / Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent / Gnosis / “The Artist’s Card”
THE IMAGE
Most TAROT decks represent THE STAR with the image of a woman resting on her left knee at the banks of a pool or river, beneath a constellation of eight eight-pointed stars, as she pours water out of two jugs. Behind her, a bird — variously identified as an ibis or a phoenix — sits in a distant tree, wings raised for flight. In the Aquarian deck, the image of the bird and the female figure are fused into a dazzling, stylized peacock with long sweeping wings and a short, jewel-like tail. This bird is perched on top of what appears to be a Hawthorn, heavy with orange berries. In the background, we see the dark canopy of a verdant valley set between two austere mountains.
THE STORY
NOW DO YOU SEE
After the ringing of a bell
I did not hear my mind
full of sound they sang
waterfall of flaming coals
Get on your feet Goddess
and we will start to speak
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
Are you able to pause in this moment? What does it mean to you to live a beautiful life? Are you able to open to the beauty around you right now? How does it feel to accept yourself exactly where you are, knowing you have all the tools you need in front of you?
IDEAS FOR PRACTICE
Enjoy a ritual bath. Light eight candles in your studio. Maintain contact with the collective unconscious and your own individual reality. Link them. Shine the light and magic of THE STAR onto both the larger world and the garden of your own life. Take a break. Nurture yourself. Dance alone. Meditate on the petals of a late-blooming marigold. Work with dream images, especially ones that carry a sense of beauty and otherworldly calm. Write down the answers you know now so that you can mother yourself from here through future challenges. Take note of your coordinates. Sign your work with your true name.
THE READING
The combination between card number twenty-one, THE WORLD (XXI), and this week’s pull, THE STAR (XVII), is a powerful shot of good medicine. Secret doors you didn’t even know existed are sliding open for you. There’s no rush to act in this moment. Release any lingering self-doubt, wash the old wounds clean. Absorb the frequency of this light. This is where you belong.