Daughter of the Firmament, the dweller between the Waters

Hope, faith, unexpected help. Or dreaminess, deceived hope, etc.

No. 74 of Book T's 78 titles · The Star, Key 17 · letter צ Tzaddi · Aquarius

Read it on the 1912 page

Hebrew letter: צ (Tzaddi, 'fish-hook') — path 28 on the Tree of Life.

On the Tree: path 28 joins Netzach and Yesod · see it on the map

Attribution: Aquarius.

(Classical Golden Dawn / Book T attribution. Modern decks add an outer planet — Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto — to the three elemental trumps.)

A. E. Waite, a member of the Golden Dawn, in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London, 1911) · public domain · he describes the Rider-Waite-Smith picture of this card, not Book T's

A great, radiant star of eight rays, surrounded by seven lesser stars— also of eight rays. The female figure in the foreground is entirely naked. Her left knee is on the land and her right foot upon the water. She pours Water of Life from two great ewers, irrigating sea and land. Behind her is rising ground and on the right a shrub or tree, whereon a bird alights. The figure expresses eternal youth and beauty. The star is l'étoile flamboyante, which appears in Masonic symbolism, but has been confused therein. That which the figure communicates to the living scene is the substance of the heavens and the elements. It has been said truly that the mottoes of this card are "Waters of Life freely" and "Gifts of the Spirit."

The summary of several tawdry explanations says that it is a card of hope. On other planes it has been certified as immortality and interior light. For the majority of prepared minds, the figure will appear as the type of Truth unveiled, glorious in undying beauty, pouring on the waters of the soul some part and measure of her priceless possession. But she is in reality the Great Mother in the Kabalistic Sephira Binah, which is supernal Understanding, who communicates to the Sephiroth that are below in the measure that they can receive her influx.

Paul Foster Case, in An Introduction to the Study of the Tarot (New York, 1920), Chapter III, on the letter Tzaddi · public domain in the US · the whole booklet

Fish-hook: that which pulls the fish (Nun) out of water (Mem); to hook is to draw, entice, procure by artifice.

South-above: combines South (Resh) and Above (Beth); opposite of North-above (Teth); complement of South-below (Qoph).

Aquarius: diurnal house of Saturn (Tau); complement of Capricorn (Ayin), the nocturnal house. Meditation: Dhyana, “an unbroken flow of knowledge in a particular object”; a diving into the depths of the mind for ideas-a fishing for truth.

Natural Intelligence: joins Netzach to Yesod.