The Star
XVII
The Star... but not as you might expect her. Here she stands—an enslaved woman finding her moment of sacred connection in the secret darkness of the swamp.
Look at how she positions herself—one foot on solid ground, the other in the water of the bayou. Perfectly balanced between worlds, between elements. In her hands, those simple clay jugs, vessels of her daily labor transformed into instruments of ritual and renewal.
She pours one stream into the swamp waters, returning to the natural world what belongs to it. The other she pours onto the earth, nourishing the soil that will sprout wild herbs and healing plants. A simple act of balance, of reciprocity with the land that holds her story.
The Star always comes after The Toweri. After destruction comes healing. After crisis comes renewal. This woman has known the tower's lightning—torn from her homeland, denied her freedom, forced to labor under the Louisiana sun. Yet here in the midnight swamp, she finds a moment of sacred autonomy. She reconnects with practices perhaps learned from her grandmother's grandmother.
The same guiding light that appears in traditional decks shines here too. Even in the darkest circumstances, celestial guidance remains. The enslaved people of Louisiana's plantations often used the stars to navigate—both literally for those brave souls seeking freedom, and spiritually for those seeking connection to something that transcended their bondage.
When The Star appears in this form, she speaks of hope that persists against all evidence—not naive optimism, but the deep, resilient hope that knows darkness intimately and still chooses to believe in dawn. She represents healing found not through escape from difficult circumstances, but through meaningful ritual within them.
The cypress trees watching over her—they too know how to thrive in seemingly impossible conditions. Their roots navigate both water and earth, their branches reach skyward despite the weight of Spanish moss, their trunks expand to accommodate rising waters.
There's a wound in your life that has begun its healing. A darkness where stars are becoming visible again. The Star doesn't promise immediate resolution or dramatic rescue—she offers instead the quiet miracle of renewed faith, of spiritual hydration, of remembering your connection to something larger than your current difficulties.
New Orleans knows about finding beauty and meaning amidst struggle. Our jazz was born from pain yet transcends it. Our cuisine transformed scarcity into abundance. Our second lines celebrate life in the very face of death. This woman in the swamp, performing her midnight devotions, is part of that same tradition of sacred defiance.
What ritual might reconnect you to your deeper purpose? What simple act of intention—like water poured from a vessel—might begin your healing? Where might you find your own sacred swamp, your own place of private communion?
The Star doesn't rush. Notice how deliberately she pours, how intentionally she stands. Healing has its own timeline, its own rhythm. But the stars themselves promise she is seen, she is guided, she is part of something vast and beautiful despite all human efforts to diminish her worth.
This card comes to remind you that hope is not foolish. That small rituals have power. That connection to earth and water and sky can sustain us when human systems fail us.
Find your feet between worlds. Pour out what needs releasing. Nourish what needs growing. The stars have not forgotten you.