The Starfish is next in our continuation of The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit deck. The previous Water element cards that have been discussed are Crocodile, Stingray, and Fish.
I recommend reading the other posts to see how they build on each other and grow in consciousness.
Fish at position three invites us to grow, be flexible, and connect to our emotional truth and intuition. Now, at position Four, Starfish invites us to consider how to ground and root into our heartspace.
The numerology of Four can be found in depth here, but one of the most important things to consider with the numerology of Four is how to start creating long-term, lasting change. Four is about how we build the foundation for the things in our lives to thrive.
Four is about building a supportive, sustaining space for things to grow and expand with that protection we have fostered. Here, in the Water element, it is about our emotions, connections, intuition, and dreams that ask for these energies.
Channeling Beauty and Divinity with Starfish
Starfish, more notably called Sea Stars as they are not fish at all, are incredibly unique creatures. Looking at some facts about Starfish, without a brain or blood, they receive their needed nutrients by pumping seawater through their body. They can live a long time, regenerate limbs, and are needed for a healthy marine ecosystem.
They have an allure to them. They boast beautiful colors, have a unique and iconic shape, and are different from most of the marine animals to be found. This allure and magnetism are at the heart of reading this card and connecting to this animal in a metaphorical way.
Four may seem a strange position to place such an alluring and unique creature. Again, Four numerology is more about stability and structure as opposed to attraction and glamor. However, once you start to unpack the invitations with this card, and this animal, you start to see where the genius resides.
The card speaks to beauty, artistry, and a unique expressive self. Starfish is not about to hide or dim their glory for the sake of others. There is a sense of stability in that kind of nature.
When you find the ability to be unapologetic in yourself, you are creating a supportive foundation for your spirit to thrive.
When you find what makes you unique, and give that out to the world, you are creating a structure for others to do the same.
When your emotional truth and your beauty is not something that is up for negotiation, you are free to create and recreate, which is to say that you are able to evolve where others become stuck.
Here is the edge or the rub with Starfish: where do the beauty, glamor, and attraction start as authentic and unique, and end up as shallow and superficial?
There is nothing wrong with letting your beauty, your attractive qualities, and your artistic creativity lead you in how you show up in this world and connect, but the challenge with Starfish is knowing when to lean into these qualities, and when you need to dig deeper into a more emotionally authentic place.
Guidance from the guidebook
Some key references from the guidebook
Keywords / phrases: Beautiful, Alluring, Superficial or Shallow
When in balance: uplifting, artistic, expressive
When out of balance: gossips, feels empty
To bring into balance: positive friends
Following the guidance from the guidebook, the way to balance the natural beauty of Starfish is to be around others (I would include non-human interactions in this invitation) that bring out the most positive within you. It is easy to see where people with a natural beauty, talent, or creative gift can quickly become toxic, hostile, and focused on the wrong things due to their environment.
One of the most important things to remember with Starfish is that everyone has this side within them that can sway toward superficial, artificial, or vain. It isn’t wrong to value the external or to place importance on it. The problem occurs when the external is used to make up for everything that resides in the internal.
The internal is where your true beauty shines. The internal is where your divine connections and creative gifts hold the most weight. In the guidebook it says that this energy, when out of balance, has placed so much importance on the beautiful external, that the deeper calling of the internal has been forgotten.
This external energy isn’t just rooted in “beautiful, sexy, or hot.” This energy resides in any place where you have felt the need to look, act, be, or do a certain way to be accepted. Gender norms and societal norms tell us to behave and be a certain person because to be anything else is unacceptable. These norms are placed there because they are convenient and easy to understand.
Starfish wants you to be bold, striking, and allure all the things that you want and need in this world to come to you. When you throw away the norms and boxes and dare to be yourself, you become even more what your emotional truth wants to express, an authentic person. When that expression turns into something different, either diminishing your allure or elevating it for mere shock value, you have gone astray from Starfish.
Let your intuition and what emotionally speaks to you be the root between the internal and the external. Let others who see you for who you are be a balm and a breath of fresh air for when you need to be reminded of your true nature. Finally, let the beauty within you be a mirror for the beauty of others, and the world has a whole. When you let the beauty of the world around you deepen your exquisiteness, you are a natural channel for Divinity.
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Ashlie McDiarmid
Hello there! I hope you liked this blog post. As a tarot and oracle reader, my goal with my blogs is to offer you content, resources, and access to the tools that have transformed my life.
I believe that your own intuition is the deepest form of knowing, but here in my little corner of the internet, I share insights based in intuition and instinct. I share my love for nature, witchcraft, and the wild spirit.
- If your spirit is at home in wild places
- If you feel the need to claim your autonomy as ritual
- If you want to more deeply trust your own intuition
- If you want resources or connections to tarot, oracle, witchcraft, and wild sovereignty, then welcome!
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