The Stars is card number 16 of the Petit Lenormand, the thirty-six card deck read in the nineteenth-century French cartomantic tradition that took its name, after her death in 1843, from the Parisian fortune-teller Marie Anne Lenormand.
Image, meaning and playing card
The card shows a night sky of stars. In the tradition its core sense is hope, guidance, clarity and good prospects; a favourable card for plans and for spiritual matters.
Like every card in the deck it also carries an inset playing card, here the 6 of Hearts, a survival of the ordinary piquet pack over which the pictorial Lenormand was laid. Lenormand cards are read less as standing symbols than in combination, each modifying the cards to either side, so that the stars takes much of its final meaning from its neighbours in the line or the Grand Tableau.
In the original German tradition the card is Die Sterne. As House 16 in the Grand Tableau, any card landing in that numbered position is read as touching on hope, guidance and clarity of direction. In combination, Stars followed by Ship reads as a well-guided journey or clear direction toward a distant goal, while Stars preceding Clouds reads as hope obscured by confusion or doubt not yet resolved. The card is conventionally read as marking inspiration and long-term aspiration specifically, distinguished from the Sun's more immediate, concrete success and from the Moon's emotional recognition.