Spending Time with the Star

Your Tarot Toolkit: Simple Activities for Your Daily Practice by Ru-Lee Story

Pulling a card each day is a favorite tarot activity, for both novices and experienced readers alike. Newcomers are sometimes overwhelmed with all the options available within this simple practice and would like guidance. Long-time practitioner’s often welcome new ideas to keep their practice fresh. Ru-Lee satisfies both these desires.

For each card in the deck Ru-Lee provides simple yet powerful affirmations, areas of reflection, and activities. The book is inclusive in language, but also inclusive in recognizing that people have different levels of ability physically, mentally, and emotionally. This quality is reflected particularly well in the activities. There are two for each card, each created for various abilities. If you love journaling, the reflections will give you plenty of inspiration. Today seems like a great day…or night…to study The Star.

THE STAR (17)

The Star is the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. That glimmer of possibility when all seems lost. That feeling you cling to recklessly and desperately in the darkest of circumstances. The Star, in other words, is hope. It is that snatch of music that makes you catch your breath and listen, even if you’ve been shrouded in silence. It’s the northern lights guiding you to a better, brighter, and more colorful future. The Star also stands for beauty, because beauty is something we can hold onto when everything seems lost. Beauty can remind us that even when things are at their bleakest, flowers grow and constellations twinkle.

When you draw the Star in a daily reading, take comfort and take notice. You may be at a moment in your life that feels overwhelming, but the Star urges you to hold on for the good things to come. Think of yourself as a child looking up at the night sky and wishing with all your might. There is a beacon of light reaching its hand out to you. Open your mind to accept it and follow its guidance to a brighter day.

Reflections

What makes me feel hopeful?

When you’re feeling particularly run down and stressed, what gets you hoping again? Note that this is not a question of what distracts you, what makes you laugh, etc. That’s good information to consider, too, but it has more to do with how you endure the darkness. This is a question of what reminds you of the light. What convinces you that a better future is worth fighting for? What bolsters you to face an uncertain tomorrow? When you’re in despair, what lifts your heart even the tiniest bit?

What in the future am I excited about?

Having things to look forward to is so important. It anchors something positive in the murky unknown sea of tomorrow and next week and next year. Personally, I find it more effective if I have specific dates nailed down that I can count down to (“Only eight days until I visit my family!”) but having more abstract future events can be helpful, too (“Sometime in the spring I’ll be getting a promotion!”). What do you have to look forward to? Roughly when will each of these events occur? Do you have exciting events coming up soon? Or are all of your events far away and unscheduled? If nothing comes to mind, it may be a good time to visit the actions below!

How can I bring beauty into my everyday life?

Have you ever suddenly become aware of something truly beautiful in your daily commute–a sunrise, a tangle of flowers, a group of kids chasing each other around a playground? Can you remember a moment when the mundane was transformed by a moment of brilliance? How can you invite more of those moments into your day-to-day? Maybe it’s as simple as putting some new artwork around your desk at work, or listening to a favorite song as you get ready for bed at night. Even an aesthetically pleasing new background for your phone can be enough to make you smile. What small tidbits of beauty can you weave into the hours that make up your daily life?

Actions

Find some good news

Effort level: Low to medium

It’s so easy to hop onto the internet and find bad news. And to a certain extent, that’s a powerful feature–the internet gives us the ability to share our suffering, to expose injustice, and to connect to others who are experiencing similar difficulties. But it can also be incredibly overwhelming, especially if you’re already in a diminished emotional space. So instead, use the internet to consciously seek out some good news. What’s going on in the world that’s worth celebrating? There are specific pages and sites curated with positive stories and uplifting news articles–those could be a great and quick starting place. (In fact, if you’re the type to read the news every morning, I might even recommend bookmarking one of these pages and making them a part of your morning routine.) You can create a dedicated folder for stories and videos that lift your spirits and restore your faith in humanity. Having a ready-made cache of good news can make a big difference when facing some particularly bad news.

Alternatively, look to your loved ones to find evidence of good things happening. Do you have a friend who’s expecting a new baby? Visit their social media page and scroll through their ultrasound photos. Did your sibling recently start a dream job? Give them a call and invite them to tell you how it’s been going. In today’s hyper-connected world, it seems unlikely that you don’t know anyone who’s experiencing some good things. Make the effort to seek them out and let their joy fill your heart, too.

Plan something to look forward to

Effort level: Medium to high

In the reflections above, we touched on the importance of having things to look forward to. But what if you don’t have much coming up in the near future? This is a GREAT time to plan something yourself. Especially if you have things scheduled that you’re actively dreading, this can help offset that entirely negative vision of the future. You don’t have to plan anything huge–it could be as simple as planning to get coffee and catch up with a friend you haven’t seen in a while. Or if you really want to go for it, you could plan something huge and elaborate like a trip.  But whatever you choose, pick a specific date for it and put it on your calendar. That way you have a concrete Something in the future that feels exciting and hopeful, something that will make looking ahead more of a positive undertaking. Ideally, you’ll always have a few events or activities planned ahead. And really do be careful to follow through unless something major prevents it! If you’re looking forward to getting lunch at your favorite restaurant but talk yourself out of it on the day of, it can actively discourage you from planning anything else fun like this in the future. Hold yourself accountable for this moment of joy just as much as you’d hold yourself accountable for a more neutral responsibility such as paying your bills.