IX The Hermit
a.k.a The B.R.B. tarot card
Hi! If you are new here, WELCOME! I am so happy you happened upon my weird little misty corner of the intuitive tarot world. I recommend you start with the Intro to The Caravan Tarot post to get your bearings before sitting with this here hermit. Or not! It’s all invitations here. xo.
invitations
Crystal ally: Lapis Lazuli
Plant ally: Rosemary
Animal ally: Owl
Dating The Hermit: Take a walk in the dark, bring your lantern or head lamp or candle.
The Hermit in the RWS and The Caravan Tarot are outside. This is an important observation. While we think of cozying into a winter nest as hermit like behavior, which it is. It is also about being connected to each other, the earth, life, and our inner light through dark days.
The Hermit shines a light on our inner dark days too, this is an opportunity to observe and be honest with your thoughts and feelings, allow them existence within you. I invite you to journal your darkest secrets and burn them on your night time walk.
keywords
Upright: Solitude, soul searching, self aware, crone, self reflection, inner light.
Reversed: Withdrawn, reclusive, looking for external validation, isolation.
card analysis
A little child gets hot from playing in the fall sun, he intuitively leaves his hood up as if his role as the hooded man were predestined. He runs through the forest alerting the summer trees that winter is coming, by way of fall. The trees thank him and clue him into a secret, “the owl keeps the flame of summer safe in its eyes all through the cold, become wise and keep your lantern glowing all through nights of cold.”
Cicadas in winter
Arion leans on his walking stick like an old man as he sludges through the quiet forest due to his deafness, but the forest was far from silent. It buzzes and hums with cicada brood age.
In his pocket, Arion cascades the jade tongue amulets between his fingers. The carved cicadas dance glidingly through his hand. He becomes hot in the afternoon humidity and shorns his arms from his red jacket, allowing the hood to shade his forehead.
Arion stops in his barefooted tracks at a great cottonwood tree. Its deep grooves are highways of heaven bound cicadas. The vibration resounds in his chest and he begins to intone with the critters. A tear of awe threatens to spill from his eye.
He knows the owl will feast tonight, a wise creature who eats immortality before expiring himself. At this thought Arion remembers his task and keeps trudging towards the village that lost an honest elder just last night.
At his arrival he will place the jade cicada amulet upon the elder’s tongue, at which point the burden of living truly will become Arion’s. A young boy with old bones. One honest man.
*This story is inspired by ancient Asian burial rituals featuring jade plugs, used especially during the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E–220 C.E.)
My intuited art inspired by the story that came from the collage art! im spiraling, i know.
The Hermit in a love reading
In The Hermit’s chapter of The Creative Tarot by Jessa Crispin she reminds us that the origin story of The Hermit archetype is that of the Greek philosopher, Diogenes, who went out searching for one honest man with his lantern. The story goes that he couldn’t find one because we all lie sometimes. He becomes an isolated, pretentious, moralite whom cannot relate, not even to himself, due to unreasonable expectations.
As a woman who dates cis men, interpreting this card in an ever emotionally maturing society, I find this origin story relevant and depressingly hilarious.
“can i get one honest man!”
lol. I’ve dated liars, narcissists, cheaters, gaslighters, addicts, none of which I could call an honest man and yet in a twisted way were completely honest. Honest because they are living their pain the best way they know how.
Perhaps the quest for one honest man could be updated to one respectful man, if that is what you are looking for.
The goal here is to take hermitude to do your own emotional and spiritual work so that you can identify healthy, emotionally mature, secure partners who won’t have you running for the hermit hills.
know this
When reclusion calls, answer with respectful solitude. Being alone allows for a development of self no Hierophant can offer.
Take time to look at your spiritual map. See how far you’ve come, where you are, and which path or non-path to follow next. This is a practice of trusting your inner guide, your spiritual intuition.
Enlist your inner hermit when external influences feel too loud and you need to realign with your own feet and re-find yourself.
“Will I ever NOT be finding myself?”