Blogging the Tarot: The Hermit (IX)
The next stop on our tarot journey is with The Hermit (IX).
This presents a good opportunity for some Tarot 101: Anatomy of a Tarot Deck.
The traditional deck is split into two sections.
The 22 cards of the Major Arcana
The 56 cards of the Minor Arcana – broken down further into four suits
14 Cups cards, associated with the element of water
14 Swords cards, associated with the element of air
14 Wands cards, associated with the element of fire
14 Pentacles cards, associated with the element of earth
Each suit in the Minor Arcana contains numbers 1-10 along with a court of Page, Knight, Queen, and King. The numbered cards point to snapshots in time, or our day-to-day life situations. These tend to show me the circumstances unfolding in someone’s life. This is where our Three of Swords from last week lives.
The Major Arcana, on the other hand, is a roadmap for our personal evolution.
It deals less with the details of our life situation and more with how we respond to it. It reveals our internal programming, the lens through which we see our current situation, as well as pivotal moments of change. It is in the ninth position (IX) of the Major Arcana that we find our Hermit.
The Hermit stands alone
…on a rocky hillside, shrouded in a hood and armed with only a staff and a lantern. It’s giving monk – someone who’s forsaken the modern world and all its intoxicating trappings for solitary quietude. On closer inspection, we see the light in his lantern is actually a star. When The Hermit comes up in readings, I’m always drawn to the lantern; the star makes me think of yellow ball of light in the solar plexus chakra . This is the seat of our Authentic Self, it’s the source of our intuitive knowing, it’s what makes us who we are. I like to think of that solar plexus flair as being the light source for The Hermit here.
The Hermit has found himself in a dark cave, and the only light for his path is this
solar plexus energy – the truest expression of his identity.
The Hermit stands in the ninth (IX) position of the Major Arcana.
The idea of solitude and aloneness is so interesting to consider in 2024. We are arguably more connected and yet more alone than any of the generations that came before us. Solitude is something that hits differently now than perhaps it used to because solitude often brings with it a bit of a dopamine crash. Have you ever gotten off your phone for a whole day? Restricted your scrolling? Put an embargo on the amount of news you consume? It’s a little disorienting at first, and maybe even in some cases anxiety-inducing. That’s because we’ve gotten accustomed to feeling like we have company even when that “company” is really just notifications. It’s not interaction, it’s not connection – it’s a computer simulation of connection. Even when we’re physically alone – like me right now sitting by myself in my empty house – we are still very much on the grid and only an app away from contact with humans.
Throughout most of my adult life, I’ve been what you might call a “relationship puddle jumper.” My whole dating history is a series 3-month, 4-month, 6-month rendezvouses with nary any breathing room between breakups. In my 20s I stayed high on New Love hormones. Just as they were starting to wear off, something shiny and different would come along to offer a new distraction. I got married at 27 after being with a partner for 3 years – the majority of which was long distance, which allowed those New Love hormones to reset every time we spent a few hundred miles apart. I was not ashamed to tell people, “This is the longest I’ve ever been with the same person without getting sick of them.” I thought that was a very valid reason to commit to a lifetime.
ShOcKiNgLy, that was not stable enough ground for our relationship to stand on. We separated less than a year after my daughter was born, and even in the midst of the worst emotional turmoil of my life, I was distracting myself with other romantic possibilities almost immediately. Not because I “need” a partner in any practical sense – I pay my own bills, I take out my own trash, I’m good – I’m just used to winning my dopamine by figuring out how to earn love from someone new (See, “attachment wounds,” in my mental health directory).
I’ve done a lot of therapy in the years since my divorce, and still I bristle when a new Hermit Season comes up. My ego fears the Hermit because he insinuates rejection and abandonment and unlovability. In reality though, Hermit Mode is where I am most comfortable – and not only that, most regulated! Without the constant energetic pull of managing someone else’s vibration, it’s so much easier for me to take care of myself. My nutrition is better, my skin is more clear, my habits are more consistent. My mood is stable, my battery is charged, and my creativity is soaring.
Still - when The Hermit comes up in a reading, I worry that he freaks people out.
I understand with the long white beard and the tattered robes the hermit gives the impression that he’s been “temporarily segregated” for like, decades. Trust that this isn’t the case.
The Hermit is meant to encourage a retreat from the noise and lights of our daily grind in order to examine our own Selves (that solar plexus star in the lantern) without the pollution of the Selves around us.
We resist this for so many reasons…
We are uncomfortable being alone with ourselves. We know what’s hidden in the depths of our subconscious, and quieting the noise can sometimes mean being confronted with that long-buried baggage. No thank you, next.
We are afraid of being alone. Humans are wired for connection, and our society emphasizes the notion that there’s safety in numbers. Isolating ourselves can feel vulnerable and unsafe.
There’s stigma attached to being a loner. If this hermit were a woman, she’d give very “witch in the woods” vibes. And while some of us have come to long for that lifestyle, traditionally it’s not exactly aspirational.
All of human experience comes back to overcoming fear, though. And if we can get over whatever fear prevents us from being alone with ourselves, just for a little while, there’s richness to be discovered there.
BECAUSE – and I need you to really hear me on this –
YOU ARE MAGIC.
Literally, the entire Universe exists within your physical body, in your consciousness, in your vibrational field. It’s all a wonder, just like the Milky Way we can see in the night sky. What a shame to go a whole lifetime on Earth and never get to see what the Universe looks like from here. Go out to the middle of nowhere just once and look up at the sky in the darkness – the sheer number of white dots in the blackness is staggering. Listen to what the world sounds like away from the hum of machines and buzz of traffic and chatter of other people. Find a way to hear what nature sounds like when humans aren’t causing a disruption.
Seeing the Milky Way and hearing nature makes me think of a camping trip, which I do endorse. That’s only adjacent to the point, though.
The Hermit doesn’t come up in a tarot reading because you need to go camping. It comes up in a tarot reading to get you to get curious about yourself.
In readings, people often want to know about their relationships and their life path – we want reassurance that we’re not going to be alone forever and that we’re making the right decisions along the way. The Hermit comes up to remind you that the only way to really get where you’re going is to calibrate your compass (I’m not sure why this metaphor has taken such a Boy Scout turn, but we’re going to roll with it). That lantern, that seat of the Authentic Self, is the greatest tool we have for uncovering the truth of our path. If we don’t know ourselves, our true desires and actual motivations, we are wandering around aimlessly. Or maybe even worse, we’re letting someone else’s lantern light our path. And all that does is help us walk in the direction another person has mapped out for themselves.
When a Hermit season presents itself, think of it as a chance at a cleanse. Remove or reduce the outside stimuli that keep you on a perpetual dopamine/cortisol hamster wheel, and clear the haze of hormonal dysregulation.
Take a deep breath.
Relax your jaw – your forehead – your shoulders.
Overcome the compulsion to check your phone.
Bleed dry the feeling of FOMO.
If we can eliminate distractions and take our Hermit season seriously, maybe we discover that the career we’re in is actually only satisfying for our parents, not ourselves. Maybe we discover that that relationship that just ended was actually way more toxic than we thought. Maybe we can finally hear that muffled cry from deep down in our belly begging us to create.
It needs to be said that I deepened my love for The Tarot when I was in a Hermit phase. The Tarot is great company when one feels uncomfortable being alone with oneself, and she’s a great little catalyst for exploring the deeper, darker corners of the cave. She’s a mirror and a communication device and lifeline between us and ourselves, us and our Guides, us and the Universe.
What moments in your life have led to your Hermit phases? Once inside, what did you find in your cave? If you’re resisting your Hermit phase, what beliefs are holding you back?
