Dark Grimoire Tarot - The Star

[teomat]

I tried to study this card yesterday, but found that I couldn't really get a grip on it. It's a powerful image to me, but I couldn't seem to articulate what it could mean. However I had another look at it last night and had a 'penny drop' moment.

To me, this card seems to be a 'positive' version of the Devil card. In the Devil card, the primal, animal instincts are brought to the surface. The Devil is monstrous, dark and chaotic. It arises from the sea (the subconscious) to wreak havoc.

In the Star card, we see another being emerging from the waters. However this being holds aloft a light. This is the emergence of the inner light, spirit and life force within our subconscious. And as this is the Star card, it is the hope and strength within us to conquer the dark. It clears away the fog of uncertainty to shine above us like the stars in this card.

The Tower card (showing a church being attacked) shows the destruction of external institutions of faith and belief. The Star card shows us that a faith in ourselves, our inner light, can overcome the darkness around us.

 

[Zezina]

Dark Grimoire Deck: The Stars

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To me, this card seems to be a 'positive' version of the Devil card. In the Devil card, the primal, animal instincts are brought to the surface. The Devil is monstrous, dark and chaotic. It arises from the sea (the subconscious) to wreak havoc.

In the Star card, we see another being emerging from the waters. However this being holds aloft a light. This is the emergence of the inner light, spirit and life force within our subconscious. And as this is the Star card, it is the hope and strength within us to conquer the dark. It clears away the fog of uncertainty to shine above us like the stars in this card.

The Tower card (showing a church being attacked) shows the destruction of external institutions of faith and belief. The Star card shows us that a faith in ourselves, our inner light, can overcome the darkness around us.

Yours is a perceptive insight into this card, teomat. You've identified the positive side - the Hope, that initially eluded me.

I too looked at this card a couple of days ago, thinking I might find the positive side of the Dark Grimoire here, and I looked forward to writing about that.

But I could find little that was not so dark that I felt pulled into the relentless depths of this deck, even more so because this is the last card one would expect to have a dark quality.

The traditional Star, balanced between water and land, has gone, along with all her usual positive symbols. Not just a foot in the water now, but a clothed woman crotch-deep, and no connection to land at all.

Yes, teomat, you could be quite right - the woman's clothes could be wet and she may be rising out of the water.

Floating between her open hands at the ends of her up-stretched arms is a ball of light in which floats a star, or a reflection of a star. A reflection, perhaps, of the star that is the brightest in a dull cluster visible in the gap between the swirling red clouds.

The card is labelled The Stars; I think the only name that is altered in the Major Arcana of this deck. There must be some significance in that use of the plural.

Nearby is a small clear waterfall as a distant reminder of the water that usually pours from one of The Star's now absent jugs.

Yes, she does have Hope in her reach for this reflection. She reminds us that there is hope in the darkest of situations.

*Z*

 

[Myrrha]

This is such a beautiful, amazing card.

The woman from the Lovers card is immersed in water to her hips. She wears a blood-colored gown and the clouds behind her also glow red. It is night and the sunset is long past so what is this red glow that lights up the sky? The color seems passionate and willful. The water, the sky the green plants, all of nature seems to be glowing and alive. The feeling is serene but also very aware and focussed.

The stars are in a certain configuration and she is bringing down the light and essence of the ones trapped there and using this energy for her magical work. Or else she is working on keeping them imprisoned. Or on letting them out.

She has made her decision to follow a magical path and here she is practising some of what she has learned. It would be interesting to follow her through the deck.

Magical practices especially starry or astrological ones; extraordinary mental states; meditation; heightened awareness; timing; serenity.