the star at work, career and business ✨
May you open yourself to the possibilities. May the possibilities inspire you to be more of you. May you give of yourself to the world. Magic still exists & the world needs yours.
themes: hope, opening, nourishment, faith, healing, inspiration, authenticity, generosity, dreams, restoration, settling, reflection, magic
how this plays out:
[work/career]: you’ve been laid off (the tower) and for the first time since, you're excited about something again
[work/career]: there’s been a difficult reorg (you’ve lost peers to a RIF or layoff), and trust is beginning to come back (for you, for your team, within the org, etc.)
[work/career/biz]: after burning out in your work, you feel inspired again
[work/career]: you’ve dreamed about writing that book (or story, or article, or unknown genre and form) and without knowing where it will go, or if anyone will care, you begin
[work/career]: you take a small, meaningful step toward the career (or life) you’ve always wanted, even though you aren’t yet sure how it will work out financially (yet)
[work/career]: you’ve chased promotions and external recognition for years and now you’re redefining what success at work actually means to you (which maybe has nothing to do with the promotions and external recognition)
[biz]: you’ve been struggling to secure clients, but then you receive an unexpected referral that restores your faith in your business/yourself/what you’re working on
[biz]: after a period of financial uncertainty, you reconnect with your work and purpose in a way that leaves you inspired
[biz]: your launch fails, you’ve reflected, you know what to do next time and you’re excited and ready to try again
invitation: there are four main invitations when we see the star in tarot.
To hope again, and to be receptive to what’s possible — to be receptive to life, to work, to business, to career & what’s possible. There is a particular kind of vulnerability in letting yourself experience something good (even just a good feeling), after experiencing something terrible (something terrible, because the star follows the tower in line 3 of the major arcana). The star is inviting you to feel good, to feel hope and inspiration, and to be receptive to experiencing the possible.
To develop a relationship with hope that doesn’t depend on certainty. The star(s) may be bright, but they typically are not bright enough to illuminate your entire landscape. And they appear visible only in the darkness, at night. That can feel scary. Yet, the star is a powerful point of orientation. Can you find meaning right now, inspiration right now, hope right now without knowing exactly where it’s going to take you. And further, can you use this renewed sense of meaning, purpose, inspiration, and/or hope to be your guiding star. Can you orient yourself on these alone? (Note: night doesn’t last forever)
Who are you when everything else has fallen away? The star brings an invitation to show up unarmed, raw, and open to whatever is. In some illustrations of the star, there is a naked woman. The performance has dropped. And so the invitation is *not* to rebuild an old identity, but to explore what remains when we no longer need to perform. In work and business, we can become so attached to our titles, the amount of money we make, our accomplishments, our expertise, or our professional reputation. Sometimes we lose touch with the human occupying the space beneath. The star invites that human to come out. Unmasked. And in this, healing might not be about returning to who you were, but rather discovering who you are without everything you thought you needed to be.
The star asks us what we have to give. This isn’t just about individual hope, renewal, restoration or inspiration. The star is ruled by Aquarius, which is concerned with the collective — specifically, collective well-being, humanity, and contributing to something that is greater than ourselves. Therefore, it calls us to examine the relationship between nourishing ourselves and contributing to the world around us. Professionally, this is a moment to consider how your renewed inspiration (or new idea, or perspective, or career path) might benefit others and the world. And it’s not about making your healing more productive — it’s about understanding that when you are nourished, you have way more to offer. AND, because this post is focused on work, career and business, it is important to explore how our work impacts and contributes to the collective wellbeing.
I like to think of the star as the moment that Daenerys walks out of the fire, naked and unharmed in Game of Thrones. Or, like the flowers that bloom immediately following a forest fire. It’s the marriage of destruction, renewal and the courage to become something new, something real and something true to you.
If you’ve recently seen the star in tarot, I’m excited for you. May you open yourself to the possibilities. May the possibilities inspire you to be more of you. May you give of yourself to the world.
