Card 17: The Star

Emerging from the rubble of the Tower, we are now in the calm, nourishing energy of the Star. With the Star, we explore what it means to trust, surrender, and the courage to stay soft. 

In this episode, I share the main meanings of the Star, focus on symbolism from across my tarot decks, and end with the Star poem from my book, Major Arcana: A Poetry Collection (purchase below).

Key points from this episode:
• the Star as balm after upheaval, and a need to trust and surrender
• Lines from the Major Arcana to help you read the tarot cards
• numerology of 17 and 8 as evolution and strength 
• cultivating awe without bypassing pain 
• reading symbolism
• resilience as softness, not cynicism 
• signs, guidance, and rebuilding purpose

Links:

Tarot Key

Get My Poetry Book

The Star Blog

Numerologist Pro

Song 1: Room for Whatever is Left by Hanna Lindgren

Song 2: Shooting Star by Rachel Meyer

Chapters

• 1:32 Welcome And Today’s Focus: The Star
• 3:21 Why The Star Softens A Reading
• 4:38 Learning Tarot Intuitively And Resources
• 5:51 Moving From Tower To Star
• 11:44 Trust, Surrender, And The Void
• 17:08 Numerology: Seventeen And Eight
• 22:16 Creation, Destruction, Evolution Lines
• 27:52 Reading The Star: Nourish And Tend
• 34:01 Wonder And Awe After Loss
• 42:36 Resilience And Choosing The Light

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:46

Hello, and thank you for tuning in to the Wolf Child Magic Podcast. My name is Ashley, your tarot reader, Mountain Witch, and overall Wolf Child, and I'm thankful that you are here with me today. In today's episode, we are going to be talking about our wonderful, beloved, beautiful, just glorious tarot card, the star. The star is a truly special card. I mean, they're all beautiful, they're all lovely. I say that all the time. But the star is one that everyone kind of wants to come forward. And I know I have had moments sitting with clients when the star has come forward. And some of these people have never had a tarot reading in their life. They don't know the meanings of any of these cards. And yet when the star comes forward and I pull it over, you can see that energy shift happening in them. It's almost like they're softening a little bit, even with me. And in their reading, they're kind of like, oh wow. They lean in, they get curious. Some of the walls and the defenses that these people have built up, even with me, which I is totally normal. I don't take that personally at all. We just are living in hard times, and people, we don't know their stories, people go through so much. And so a lot of people come into a reading, and even being open and vulnerable, there's still some of those energetic, behind the curtain type of protections that people have, and yet when the star comes forward, it's it's game-changing. It changes the tarot spread, it changes a reading, it changes a person's energy. It's it's a wonderful card. If you are new here, first of all, welcome, welcome to my wolf pack. I am very happy to have you. I have been doing a deep dive of every tarot card up to the star, starting, of course, with the fool. If you are looking to learn how to read tarot from a more intuitive point of view, or you just want a little bit of an ally with you to help you learn the cards, I think that these podcasts would be a great option. I really work hard to make my deep dives as informative as possible, but always leaving room for your own intuition to come forward. That is the most important thing for me with you learning and reading your tarot cards. It's not listening to me or to your guidebook or to anything else. It's you listening to your own intuition. And these podcasts are here just to help, to serve in some capacity in that learning. So, just like every other deep dive that I have done, I'm going to talk about the ways that I read this card. And you can pull these straight from my tarot key, which will be listed for purchase in the show notes. This tarot key has keywords and short bullet point sentences for each of the 78 tarot cards. If you want a quick reference, I will be looking at the symbolism from across all of my decks. I'm not going to go as heavily into each one though, now that my tarot collection has amassed a little bit more. It's just too many to go through. So I'm going to point out some from the blog post, which is also listed in the show notes, so you can go and look at those cards. And I go into a little bit of understanding on each of my cards on the blog. So if you want to kind of get more into the symbolism, then go to the blog that of course makes the most sense. As you can see the pictures on a blog, you can't really see them on a podcast episode. And then finally, I will be reading my star poem from my book, Major Arcana, a poetry collection. I wrote this a couple years ago. I am so proud of it. And I would love for you to have a copy. If you love poetry, if you love tarot, it's one of my biggest labors of love, and I'm just again so proud of it. That is also available for purchase and linked in the show notes. If you are brand new to learning tarot, or if you are struggling to not reach for a guidebook, or if you just want a refresher, maybe you haven't pulled your tarot cards in a while, I would recommend starting at the beginning episode, which is The Fool, and then working your way through up to the star because these do lily pad off of each other, they do build on each other, and I go into that in these deep dives as well. So that could be helpful information for you to have as well. So let's get into the star. With the star, we are invited to just take a breath. We've made it through the tower. And again, if you go back and listen to that episode, the tower is one of the hardest tarot cards to go through. Now, as I said then, and I will say now, I am not one who thinks that the tower is a bad tarot card, but it is definitely no joke. And once we go through the tower, the chaos and the destruction have finished screaming and howling, and it's so loud and it's so chaotic. And as the dust is starting to settle with this image in our mind, we have this sense of finding some ease, a relief that it's over. Once the dust finally settles, it's easy to see that the tower no longer dominates the view, and that can be triggering because even a system or a structure that doesn't serve us or something in our life that doesn't serve us, but it's known and it's comfortable, is sometimes easier to manage than the void as we wait for the path to unfold again into our higher and better alignment. And that's what the star is opening us up to. As we look and for the first time, we can actually see the stars. There's no obstruction, but we also start to see something that we haven't maybe seen in a while. That tower was blocking those stars in the night sky, and we start to see and appreciate their beauty again, and that is what the star speaks to. The star speaks to us needing to find a trust, a comfort, a relief, or a sense of grace. That even if the tower falling, even if we know in our minds that it needed to fall, but we're triggered by its absence, that is perfectly okay. But the star is here to say we need to trust that stepping into the void, stepping into something so much higher than what the tower could ever be, is what we need to have happen in our lives. And if it's triggering, it's okay. But the energy of the star is kind of this balm that comes in and just softens us after this period of deep change. The star comes in after the tower and says, even if you're triggered, because whether the tower were was helpful or not, because it was known, because it was comfortable, that it's almost more triggering to not have it. It's triggering to have this absence, this void, this destruction left in its wake, even though we knew that those stones were going to fall and needed to fall, that is absolutely okay. But w we are in this space now of just needing to soften, to accept, and to keep leaning in to a situation with a sense of hope, with a sense of healing, because ultimately this is for our best self. This ultimately is for the betterment of our own lives. We just have to trust and believe that that's what's gonna happen, and can we suspend the comfort of the known, however much it was not serving us, and step into acceptance of a higher truth or a deeper calling or our wild evolution or wild reclamation? Can we embrace that even when our ego is challenged? The star comes forward and says, How can we create a sense of humbleness and grace within the ego, but also allow this opening to let the spirit emerge and find that higher guidance? The lines of the major arcana are never going to fully remove the ego. We have the ego embedded in us, and we need the ego. The ego actually serves some beautiful things. However, after moments like the tower, this is where the ego has to process, has to feel, has to take stock of what happened. And we need that softness, that grace, that balm, that nurturing energy of the star to let the ego get soft because when the ego is soft, the spirit within the self can more easily come forward. It's at moments like this as we hinge from tower to the star where the spirit comes forward and kind of starts to speak and says, What would it hurt to now trust more and surrender more? We have just gone through this monumental change. We've gone through this paradigm shift on a deep level. So at this point, what could it hurt us to trust and to surrender? And we will see this when we get to the imagery of where we find a sense of foundation, but also where we find a sense of just kind of letting go that we can't hold on fully anymore. And we've been slowly learning that lesson as we've been going through the majors. But here as we hinge from Tower to the Star, it shows us that this is where we really need to trust and let go and surrender because one, what harm could it do? We've we've already kind of are standing in the rubble here, but more than that, it's like this is our opportunity. It may not look it in you know a pile of rubble, but this is actually an opportunity to rebuild, and we just need to take this moment for what it is. Looking at the numerology of the star, we have this card sitting in the position of 17. So this can be 17, or we could add that together and be eight. Eights are all about transformation, they are all about cyclical energies, it's kind of the as above, so below number because if you turn it on its side, it becomes the limniscate, the infinity symbol. The number eight is also a number of presence, of evolution, of empowerment, of strength. Eight is a number that's highly driven, it's highly ambitious, there's a sense of balance too, because again, when we turn it on its side, it represents that infinity symbol. With eights, there's a sense of a lot of maybe more, I hate to use the word, but more masculine energy. It's a little bit more take charge and chart your course. And when we get to the star with the numerology of 17, we have that, but in a much more profound or deeper way. We have this sense of we're taking all of those energies that come with aid of transformation, of evolution, of empowerment, of strength, but we're using it in a way that creates a sense of harmony, of guidance, and of trust on the deepest of levels. And even the website that is linked in the show notes says, in relation to the numerology of eight and seventeen with the star, it says that the influence of the number 17 on the star card emphasizes the themes of hope, inspiration, and spiritual renewal. It suggests that through spiritual insight and introspection, one can find the strength and inspiration to embark on a new on new beginnings and achieve personal growth. So we see how some of the energies that we have with the numerology of eight are now kind of being um turned around and mirrored back on the self in a deep way. The star marks this incredibly significant shift and it speaks to this pivot in our evolution. Looking back at the lines of the major arcana, the three lines, if you were to lay all your major arcana cards out in the seven rows or the three rows of seven cards, the first line is the creation line. We've already spoken about those cards. The second line is the destruction line. Again, already spoke about those. So our third line is the evolution line. These cards are taking the energies of creation and destruction together and creating a culmination that evolves into something new, something better, something more in alignment. And we go throughout this cycle of creation, destruction, and evolution throughout the course of our lives. It's not a one and done. We will also talk once I am done with the three lines of the majors and we end with the deep dives into the world. I will go back and do an episode that talks about each of the doorways. And by those doorways, I mean again, if you were to lay out all the major arcana cards you have, then you also have seven columns of three cards. We have three rows of seven cards, and then we have seven columns of three. So, like the first doorway is the magician, because that's card one, and then either strength or justice, depending on which deck you're working with, and then the devil. So we have that doorway of creation, destruction, and evolution together, and we'll talk about some of those energies on a different day. I bring that up to say that because the star is in the evolution line, it's speaking to this energy, but the star is kind of special because we have this hinge again. I'm gonna keep using that word because we first start with the devil. We open into the evolution line with the devil, and we have to see where certain chains are holding on to us that are kind of preventing us from evolving. These chains with the devil are things that we have to address on a deep level in order to understand how to break those chains. The chains that hold us are going to inevitably be the chains that free us with the devil. And then once we break those chains, all of the systems and the structures and the byproducts and everything that was kind of helding, like holding on to those chains or a part of those chains starts to fall with the tower. And then we get to the star, which again marks this significant shift, this pivot where the loss and the destruction and the letting go are now over. Now we can take this moment and pivot towards our higher evolution and our wild reclamation. We can take this situation, whatever it is when the star comes forward, and let this card be a little beacon, a little guide that takes us into something new, something brighter, and something better. And the first way that I read the star from my key is that it speaks to energies of nourishing, of tending, of incubating, healing, and guiding energies within the spirit. After all of this wreckage of our tower moment, we have a moment here just to come back to ourselves, to feel our pain, to process, to lick our wounds, but also to find a sense of grace and healing. We have this sense of recognizing that we've just been through a lot. So let's again just take a beat and take a breath. There's this pause that is needed with the start. We have to pause so that we can look inward and tend and take care of ourselves. We have to be able to do this because if we just try to like pick ourselves up and go forward and act like nothing is wrong, we're gonna not follow the path that we're meant to walk. We have to recognize what we've been through because that is going to be the motivation, the true motivation to go forward. So we have to have a sense of guidance, of hope, and a trust in the universe that we are continuing on this path that we are meant to be walking, and the tower was just in our way. The next way that I read the star card is it speaks to keeping and chasing the wonder and the awe of your own life and all that is within it, even that which had to be cleared away and lost. No, I'm not saying that there has to be a sense of liking what happened with the tower, I'm not saying we have to enjoy it, we have to cheer it on. I'm also not saying that that is easy to do. But one of the things that I know from personal experience is that when we can still find a sense of wonder and awe at our own life in the face of such hardship, adversity, or moments that challenge us, moments that happen that we don't have any control over, and they're incredibly triggering. Again, this is not easy to do, and that's why all of the cards within the tarot have an edge to them, even cards like the star, which is one of the most welcome cards in the tarot deck. The edge is that we have to find this sense of keeping and chasing the wonder and the awe of our own life, not in spite of what happened with the tower or anything else that's going on in our life, but because of it. This is where the star really shows us some of the deeper transformation within it, because the star is not here to fix us, it's not here to just be kind, rewind, reset us back to factory settings or forget what we just went through. It's not here to erase what happened and just bring us back to mere love and light. When we just try to find this sense of love and light, but we do so at the expense of shunning the deep lessons, the inner truths, and the true transformation and evolution that comes from tower moments, that's spiritual bypassing, and we don't ever want to obviously be spiritual bypassing. With the star, there is an invitation to see and face all that we experienced and still find the beauty in life. The star invites us to continue to find that sense of awe even after we've gone through a tower moment, because when we find that sense of wonder, of awe, of transformation, of connection to a beautiful life or parts of a beautiful life, mere moments, even it doesn't matter how big or small it is. That is where we take the situation, the tower moment, and we say that my life is beautiful even with these moments in there. And again, that is so hard to do. And that's not saying that we have to love what happened, that's not saying that we have to just again clap and cheer that we went through this, you know. For me, obviously, my biggest tower moment lately was uh losing my cats, and it was so hard to find where the wonder and the awe and the beauty was in my life at that time. And some days it's still kind of hard, you know, and with the state of the world, with what's going on overseas, what's with going on here at home, some days that's really hard, but the star shines and they continue to shine on good days and on bad days, in good times of our life, in beautiful chapters or in hard chapters. And when we are working with the star, it's a invitation to again stop, to pause, and to reflect on what do we have here in our lives that is beautiful, that brings us back to a sense of wonder, that brings in the awe, that brings in these things, these moments, these energies that soften us. For me, with my kitties, it was obviously Grizzly. Grizzly was there for me and was strong for me, and then the days he couldn't be strong, I was strong for him, and it brought our relationship much closer together. You know, in ways that I didn't even kind of think possible because I was like, he's already my best friend, he's the love of my life, how can I be closer to this person? That was how that was how was us both going through such a hard moment together and recognizing that some of the you know the peddly bullshit that we get caught up in in our day-to-day lives does not matter, that this is the person who I'm leaning into and he's leaning into me. Nature was obviously another one, and that's where it doesn't have to be this life-altering moment with the star. It could literally be a sunset, it could be a bird or an animal in my case, it could be so many small little things, but it's the moment itself that drops us back into spirit and softens us, and we need to call on those moments after tower moments so that we continue to stay soft, but that we also are reminded that there is still beauty to be found, there is still good that is here in this world, and while it's also really scary, there's so many beautiful things that we need to um lean into as well. And there's no rush, there's no rush in finding that. It's about when you're ready and it's right, the star will come in and kind of shine and open this little door within the spirit that again softens us, nurtures us, heals, but not fully. I always want to kind of push back against this rhetoric that we just always have to be healed from everything because that's just not realistic. It's not true. No one is ever fully healed from all of their wounds in life. We are walking with our wounds all the time. We're walking with the wounds of our generations, we're walking with the wounds of each other, of the world. So to just try to be like healed, again, to the point of fixed, is not ever going to be realistic. And of course, that is not the point of the star. We need to look no further than either to some of the people in our own lives or to some inspirational people in history to see that those who have gone from tower to star moments inspire us and encourage us, not because they were fixed or healed. You know, again, it's they're not finding this wonder and this awe in spite of their tower moment, they're finding it because of their tower moment. So a few examples that I want to give here just quickly. One of the first for me personally is obviously Malala. In October 12, 2012, on her way home from school, a mass Taliban gunman boarded her school bus and asked who is Malala. This is from the Malala Fund. He shot her on the left side of her head. She woke up 10 days later in a hospital. The doctors and nurses told her about the attack and that people around the world were praying for her recovery. After months of surgeries and rehabilitation, she joined her family in their new home in the UK. It was then that she knew she had a choice. She could live a quiet life or she could make the most of this new life that she had been given. She was determined to continue her fight until every girl could go to school. She's spoken at the United Nations. She's won the Nobel Pri the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, obviously, Malala is just such an incredible figure. Another from me is Bethany Hamilton, who is an American professional surfer. And one day, back in 2003, she actually survived a shark attack when she was out surfing and she lost her arm. She ultimately, though, returned to professional surfing and continues to surf to this day. Another one would be Dave Peltzer, who first wrote the book, A Child Called It, I believe, in uh what does this say here? 1995, 1995, and describes basically the abuse that he suffered in his childhood, from which I I haven't read this book in forever, but I believe like he almost didn't survive it. It was one of the worst child abuse cases in the 90s. The second book that kind of follows up to a child called it is The Lost Boy, A Foster Child Search for the Love of a Family, and it describes this period where he goes into the foster care system, he faces a lot of emotional turmoil, he has to go into court to describe what his mother's done, he is acting out, he was just in this period of transition that was obviously incredibly hard. And then finally, the book, the end of the trilogy, A Man Named Dave, ends with this sense of self-acceptance and this recognition of self-reliance that he needs and compassion, and he has gone on to um you know win numerous awards for his books, and it says here that he invites readers on his journey to discover how he turned shame into pride and rejection into acceptance. Others could be Jim Carrey, Michael Jordan, Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela. There are people who do just such incredible work in this world, and they do it because of their tower moment, and then they become an inspiration for others. And that is what makes the star such a powerful card for us because it shows us that when we lean into whatever it is, and it doesn't have to obviously be as life-threatening as like getting shot for trying to go to school or losing your arm or child abuse, you know, it doesn't have to be that. A tower moment could be a hard chapter, a great change, you know. There's a spectrum to that, is what I'm saying. But whatever it is, we've all had a tower moment in our life. We we will always have tower moments in our life because again, we're always going to be in these cycles of creation, destruction, and evolution. And the star comes forward and says, Do we have the courage, the conviction within our spirit to look at what we just went through, lean in and face it, and then grow because of it. The last way that I read the star card is that after that clearing away, after the tower falling and that clearing away of what no longer serves you, the way is clear for your transformation. Again, the tower was in the way, and now it's not, and now we can have a bigger, more broader perspective of not only the path, but the journey. The path was blocked because of the tower, and now the path is open. There's a freedom to go forward. There's an understanding, again, where the beauty, the wonder, and the awe is in life, but it also shows us how the ways in which we are growing now, the ways in which we are evolving and claiming that sense of wilderness within us could have never happened without the tower. There's a resiliency that is built in this hinge between the tower and the star, and it fills us with hope and inspiration and also a renewed sense of purpose. And this could then also translate into any sense of divinity or divine perspective that we include from a faith-based uh perspective or just a sense of connecting to the bigger picture. But the star speaks to us saying that because we went through this, there's nothing we can't face. And if we have the courage to move forward and still have a sense of grace and softness, that is where the light and the star really shines. Because many people go through, you know, hard times in their life, and while they do technically survive it, they don't become better because of it. In fact, they become more pessimistic, more jaded, more cynical, and I am not here to cast judgment on anyone because I have so many privileges in my life and so many things that allow me the option, you know, to keep certain parts of me open because of those privileges that other people don't have, obviously. So I am not here to cast judgment. I am strictly speaking, from a very general sense, that some people, while they go through their tower moments, they be Become more closed off, they become more defensive, they become more cynical, less trusting, less vulnerable. They just start to lose that spark within them. The star says, how do we keep the spark within us open and alive despite what we have gone through, because of what we have gone through, so that we can continue to show up and live a life that is beautiful, that is thriving. We don't want to spend the rest of our days in darkness, in doubt, and in anger. That's no way to live. The star provides this opportunity for us to come back to some of the softest and most beautiful places within us. And sometimes these are the places that get shelved because of our daily lives. And then sometimes it is hard to find again in moments of struggle, whether that's personally or collectively. But with the star, there's this opportunity to find that and to come back to that, and it is incredibly beautiful. Someone else who really reminds me of the star, this time in the form of a fictional character, is actually Gandalf. Gandalf is someone who I think embodies a lot of star qualities because throughout The Lord of the Rings, he never once, whenever Frodo talks about or Bilbo, you know, when anyone's kind of talking about the hardships that they're going through, he never tries to push their feelings away. He never tries to just say, get over it, just move past it, it's fine. He actually holds space, beautiful space for them to talk about this real hardship that they're going through, obviously. And yet he still comes in and brings this sense of comfort. He always is bringing the light. He is literally a light carrier. Gandalf reminds me of what it means to have kind of brave hope and brave courage in this world. Because what else is there? Like, are we all just gonna, you know, roll over and just again let life happen to us and just keep beating us down? Because it can do that. Life can chew us up and spit us out so many times, and it has done that. But Gandalf reminds me that again, that's no way to live, that's no way to be. We have to get up and keep going and find the light where the light exists. He uses his light as a form of protection and illumination. His light is literally a way to fight back the darkness. And we see this multiple times in the books and in the movies. Like one of my favorite scenes is when he's running out to save um Faramir because Faramir has gone out to fight the Nazgul, and Gandalf just all he does is hold his um his staff aloft, and the light shines and it blinds the Nazgul, and that allows the soldiers to to retreat. And that's exactly what the star is again, it's not taking away the fact that there is true ugliness in this world, there is true hardship, there is true pain, but the light that Gandalf has and the light with the star comes in and says, Where can we still show up and fight for the light? And one of the reasons why we have to fight for the light is because each of us is a beautiful light. You are a beautiful light in this world, and in your tower moments, the star comes in and allows you that incubative space to nurture, to tend, and to lick your wounds and process what you've gone through. But the star also comes in and says that when you are ready, let yourself be guided by all the beautiful lights in this world. Let yourself contribute your light to those beautiful lights in this world towards something better, which is a space that is meant for the light within your wild spirit to shine. That is the way that I read the star card. I'm now gonna switch and talk a little bit about some of the symbolism that we see with the star. I'm not gonna go again into all of my decks. It's just become too cumbersome to do so. I'm gonna just highlight a few that I really think kind of stick out to me personally. I encourage you to click the link in the show notes to go to the blog and look at all the images though from across my decks to look at the star within your decks and see what you're seeing. Again, this is one of the best ways to build an intuitive understanding of all the tarot cards, not just the star. The main two cards that I want to highlight are the crow tarot and the tarot of dragons. These are found side by side about halfway down the blog post. These two show the most kind of standard imagery, I would say, with the star. So we have a figure here, a crow or a dragon. And this figure is at the shores between earth and a body of water, a pond, a lake, a stream, it doesn't matter. And the figure will most often have one foot on the earth, which shows this grounded, stable connection to our foundations and to the physical world. The other foot will be in this water, showing a need to surrender to the flow of life. When we are being asked to surrender, it doesn't mean that we give up all of the control that we have. The grounded or the foot on the ground shows that we will take the steps necessary and do what we need to do physically to go forward on our path. But the foot in the water shows this recognition that we don't control everything, that there is so much more at play, not only in our lives, but in the way that our lives interconnect to other people's lives, to our communities, to the world as a whole. And that's where we need to surrender. That we will do what we need to do, but we can only do so much. We will also see water being poured onto the ground and also back into the body of water. And we see that here with the Crow Tarot and the Tarot of Dragons. The pouring of the water to the earth shows this needed nourishing energy that we need to take with the body. We need to take that time to nourish and to soften. But this is also where growth comes from when earth meets water. The water being poured back into the body of water shows this connection of filling up our hearts and our soul. And like we've talked about now, that's what the star invites us to do, to really build up our reserves. It also shows how we are connecting in our spirit to bigger picture spirit. Again, insert any sort of divine or faith-based or just bigger understanding that you have, even if it's just simply that it's not about you, it's not about any of us. Whatever it is, the water being poured back into the body of water shows this connection to the bigger picture. And the final thing that I want to highlight here with both of these is that they show the eight-pointed star, which symbolizes balance, harmony, hope, protection, and spiritual guidance. The Tarot of Dragons, first is just a stunning card. Please just go and look at this card from my blog post. But around the eight-pointed star, we also have the seven golden dragons, which from the guidebook is meant to symbolize the seven chakras of the body, and that the more we open and align those, the more we have this sense of enlightenment and a deeper connection to the universe. Again, all things that we've talked about with the star now. The next two that I want to discuss are just right above those. On the left, we have the nightmare before Christmas tarot, which is one of my favorites, of course, and we have Zero as the star, which is one of the best things ever. Zero is one of my favorite characters, and he truly does show the qualities of the star. Not even just that his bright pumpkin nose guides Jack through the Christmas fog, but his essence and his love for Jack, his kind of unconditional love that only an animal can do, alleviates Jack's hardened obsession with Christmas. And even when that doesn't work, Zero reminds Jack and keeps Jack tethered back to a truth within himself that he is the pumpkin king. When Jack has fallen out of the sky from his coffin carriage, Zero brings him the portrait of himself as he was as the pumpkin king. And then it has this overlay of Jack and the Santa suit. And this is where Jack is reminded that he doesn't need to take over Christmas. He shouldn't take over Christmas because he is the pumpkin king. And it's Zero that does this. And that is what the star does for us is that it helps us evolve, but it doesn't change us. Jack can't be Santa because Jack is the pumpkin king, and Zero reminds him of this. So this depiction is so spot on. And again, looking at the blog post, you will see that it is just the sweetest thing. The next one on the right is from the herbcrafter's tarot. And here the herbal accompaniment is cottonwood. And from the guidebook, it says that cottonwoods indicate the presence of water. And this is one thing we haven't touched on yet with the star, which is why I kind of waited to talk about it here. Is that when the star comes forward, we need to, like using the stars as a guidance system, we need to also kind of be open to look for signs and clues that we are on the right path. If we kind of can get the general understanding of our landscape, like if we know that cottonwoods indicate water and we see cottonwoods, then we can kind of find that nourishment by going forward because we know these certain signs to look for. And you may even get certain signs that you never that you never thought you would see. But when they come forward, you want to be open so that you can really take them to heart. When I was going through all of my stuff with the cats, there was a moment where I was really in a fight with Lilith, and I was like, you know what? I'm done. After everything I've just been through, I'm done. I'm walking away. I'm hanging up Wolf Child Magic. I'm not gonna have an altar, I'm not gonna do this ever again. And about 20 minutes later, we walked outside, Grizzly and I, to go to the store, and our front patio has some latticing, so you can't really kind of see the full outside from because there's latticeing right there. And we have seen hawks, you know, but way off in the distance. And we walked outside, and I was like in this internal battle with Lilith, and this hawk was like sitting on our lattice and just flew like right in front of us into a tree above us, and I was like, I'll behave. Like, and I laugh about it now. I mean, you know, again, there's still a pain behind it, but it's true that sometimes these signs come in and just really kind of help set us straight. And in that moment, I was like, Okay, I can't, I need to stop. Like, not I'm still gonna feel the pain, but I need to stop kind of being like this. This is not helping. And that is what the cotton wood with herb crafters tarot with the herb crafters tarot deck shows is this need to kind of look for the signs and then take them as we receive them. And then finally, the last one that I want to speak to is our very beginning image. Right when you open the blog, we have this beautiful woman with the dark wood tarot. She's naked, she's sitting on this ancient tree, her toe is dipping into the water again, and the nakedness shows this lessening of our self-consciousness, that there's this confidence that we have now, and this just stripping bare of all of the facades of the ego. She is open and in her beautiful truth, and we see the cup being poured into the water. We also see this big, beautiful sky above her, and she's just, you know, there and she's just looking up, and we see all of these bats that are kind of flying around her, and she's just staring at them in this beautiful connection. And the bats obviously highlight this ability to find guidance through echolocation, but in a more symbolic sense, their ability to see in the darkness. And that is one of the things that the star asks us to do is to keep looking for the light and find guidance where we can, even when it's really dark and it's really hard to see. We can only see the stars when it's dark. So there's this reminder that even if it's going internal and having some introspection to find the internal light, there is always a light to be found. Those are the card images that I wanted to share with you. Again, please go to the blog post and just look for yourself. I've tried really hard to make the images clear, and again, I go more in detail on all the cards on this post. Because I want to end with the poem, I'm going to say thank you now to my patrons, Deb Guy, Bobby McDermott, Lisa Zimmerman, Nicole Smith, Tracy Lanham, Kim Hartnett, Chris Ree, Miranda Snow, Colleen Tue, Charlie Ruggles, Shannon Konendike, Makai Rose, and Danica Favorite. Thank you all so much for your support in me and in Wolfchild Magic. It means the world. And now here is my poem, The Star, from my book, Major Arcana, a poetry collection, which you can purchase through the link in the show notes. The Star. Although I have been orphaned from my makings, cast out into this vacant darkness, I shake off the demolished rubble, breathe the snap of lightning back into the vortex that sought to claim me. As I heave myself through this void that has claimed others, charred them down to the inch, I unearth the ways of grass. How it does not negotiate with the unbearable heat of the flames. This loss will not tighten around me like tornado to prairie, where the vultures circle, a reminder that something must always follow to clean up the mess. This drunken midnight, tipsy with the hour, could sink ships, sending all the pretty living things into the deep. Just when I thought the crash of waves would weaken me sick, I preened a war cry from my throat. Young battles make old generals. I shoulder these stars who speak of my story, saying that I made it through the darkness.