Tarot Tuesday: The Star Point, Five Cards in One Stroke
Every eight years, Venus’s five retrogrades trace a five-pointed star around the zodiac. On Friday the Sun meets Venus retrograde in Scorpio, and that meeting is one point of the star: the exact middle of the loop that started on the 3rd, the moment the thing under review gets lit up and seen plainly. So this week’s spread is not a line and not a second look. It is a star, and you lay it the way you draw one, in a single stroke.
Five cards. Start at the top: Friday, the heart. Draw down to the lower left: September, the first pass. Across to the upper right: Sunday, the Full Moon. Across to the upper left: Monday, the test. Down to the lower right: Saturday, the reopening. Back up to the top. The stroke runs forward and backward through the week, which is what a retrograde does. The center stays empty.
Deal it now if you have a deck. If you don’t, pull five at SASS Tarot and lay them the same way.
🦢 THE TOP, FRIDAY: The Star
A white swan floats on dark, ice-edged water under one blazing star, with smaller ones scattered around it. The Star is hope with the lights left on. On Friday the Sun lights Venus at the center of its loop, and what you want stops being a secret, including from you. This card asks what you will see clearly once it is lit.
🥀 LOWER LEFT, SEPTEMBER: Five of Cups
A striped thylacine lowers its head to a scatter of tipped-over cups on a riverbank, pink trees and a small bridge fading into the mist behind it. The Five of Cups is what the first pass cost. Venus crossed this stretch of the sky forward in September, and the agreement, the price, or the person you settled on then is the thing the star is drawn around. Name what it cost you. Then count the cups that are still upright.
🍷 UPPER RIGHT, SUNDAY: Nine of Cups
A numbat stands upright on a stone ledge in windblown grass, red goblets ranked on either side of it, looking out at a pale sky. The Nine of Cups is the wish, got. The Full Moon in Taurus on Sunday shows what the New Moon on the 10th grew, and this card says the result is a real one, even if it is not the one you ordered. Count the cups you have, not the one you asked for.
🐐 UPPER LEFT, MONDAY: The Devil
A dark ibex with great curved horns stands on a rock ledge, a pale gold sun burning through the haze behind its head. The Devil is leverage: who holds whom, and the chain that is looser than it looks. Yesterday Venus retrograde squared Pluto, and the control question in the thing under review got asked out loud. This card asks whether the hold on you is a chain or a habit, because the Devil’s chains are the kind you can lift off.
🐇 LOWER RIGHT, SATURDAY: Seven of Cups
A hare stands upright in the snow behind a row of mismatched cups on a stone slab, a golden castle floating on the ridge behind it. The Seven of Cups is too many versions. On Saturday Mercury stations retrograde in Scorpio, and the conversation about the first pass reopens, by them if not by you, with more possible readings than facts. Pick the cup with something in it. The rest are the castle on the ridge.
Now read the stroke. Every line in the star crosses the center, and the center is the one place with no card on it. That is where you stand, with the week drawn around you.
The card you touched last is the one you are still arguing with.
Tarot Tuesday runs every week in Daily SASS, the free astrology newsletter. Get it in your inbox, or pull your own cards at SASS Tarot.
