The Hermit – Meanings & Interpretation – Major Arcana

The Hermit Meaning In A Tarot Reading

In the Middle Ages, The Hermit was most often a man of spirituality. They are religious men separated from the world to study the nature of God better. If this Rider Waite tarot card is in your reading, then solitude is a part of your current position, whether literal or figurative.

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The lamp of the Hermit represents the light of knowledge and enlightenment, but the hermit is always alone. Sometimes coming from solitude, moving towards. Read on to know more about this Major Arcana card’s upright and reversed meanings in tarot readings.

The Hermit Tarot Card Meanings – Upright

Overview:

In its upright position, this tarot card represents the positive side of solitude and knowledge gained. When the time comes for us to move on to college, it is common for this card to appear.

You have the knowledge of your youth to carry with you your recent diploma and are moving forward into a new place. Whatever the case, the Hermit Upright represents all the good of solitude.

Past Events:

You have completed a healthy time of Hermit or are just departing it. This period has been a time of self-reflection and growth that can only occur when we are free to examine our thoughts. This time is passing now, though, and it is time for you to return to the world.

Present Events:

You are currently in your time of solitude. Use it wisely. It is bound to continue for some time, and you should use this time to reflect upon your present circumstances.

There is growth to be had and time to advance and grow. But it would help if you learned from where you’ve been, and now is the time for that.

Future Events:

This card can be a positive omen for those who are in a bad situation. It often turns up in the tarot readings of abused men and women who have finally seen how things are and are moving to protect themselves.

In any case, it represents that you will soon be entering a period of beneficial solitude. You may not desire it, but it will be a needed time for you.

The Hermit Tarot Card Meanings – Reversed

Overview:

An enforced solitude, against one’s will. There are many ways this can come about, from incarceration to a move to a place away from friends and family.

It will be a difficult time, and no doubt sorrowful, as loneliness often accompanies enforced solitude. The inverted hermit can also represent willful ignorance, not just a lack of knowledge but a choice to correct that situation.

Past Events:

You have been in a period of enforced solitude or ignorance. This time has neither been productive nor beneficial, but it is passing now. You are in a place now to choose to end this isolation. You may set yourself free at this time.

Present Events:

Your current circumstances are lonely, and isolated, either from people or from knowledge. Someone in your life is likely enforcing this, keeping you ignorant, or you are choosing to be in your current circumstances. Now is the time to take those steps to change this fact. Look for the keys out of your cell. They are at hand!

Future Events:

Beware, traveler. Ignorance and isolation are in your future if you aren’t careful. If you keep your head about you and watch the road ahead, you can avoid this situation.

And avoid it you should if at all possible. If not, you should make the best of your current circumstances and enjoy it while you can. A time of sorrowful loneliness is ahead.

Associated Colors:

Gray for contemplation

Meditation For The Hermit – Upright

This tarot meditation on the hermit card will focus on solitude and meditation. It is the contemplation of gained wisdom and a period of respite before we set forth over the seas of life. Lay your gray cloth out, with its matching candle, and place the card upright upon it.

As you slip into the meditation, you will be overcome with a profound sense of peace, a knowledge that you know your place in the world fills you. As you go down, you will hear the sounds of a clear spring day outside, birds singing, and the soft sigh of the wind through the trees.

Your inner eyes flutter open to see yourself inside a modestly appointed space. A soft bed, a simple lantern, and a jut out from the wall serve as a table.

It takes only a moment for you to identify that you are within the hollow of a tree. The shape of the opening bears the unmistakable shape of every human’s point of origin.

Tarot Meditation Techniques For The Hermit Upright Card

About you are the marks of a life spent in quiet contemplation, the observation of life from an outside perspective. Or perhaps the living of life from the inside, without the need for outer things to justify it.

You step outside, mimicking each day as the birth into life, and find that the ancient oak you call home is situated next to a small pond, where mosquitoes buzz overhead.

You take a moment to contemplate the simple life of animals, secure in their knowledge and moving forth from one moment to the next, blissfully free of the meaningless wants of us humans.

And yet you recognize that the ability to have those wants is what makes us human, and all things must be done in reasonable measure. You sit alongside the lake, thinking to yourself that this time is a time for you to study. This is the time for you to learn and absorb the knowledge that your life before had brought you.

Needs and The Hermit?

And, you are whole and without the need of others, without the need to validate your existence by others. You recognize that it may be time to return to the world, but there is no rush.

The world will be there. For now, you must complete this study of self, this examination of priorities, and prepare for your next step in the world.

As you come out of the tarot meditation, think about the lone, contemplative Hermit lessons. In this glimpse of his quiet, contemplative life, record it in your journal if you have found something of value. Think about the benefits of solitude and if you may be well served by time spent alone.

Associated Colors:

Gray for loneliness and isolation

Meditation For The Hermit – Reversed

The tarot meditation of the reversed Hermit is a painful and perilous place to be. It represents enforced isolation, willful or forced ignorance, and sorrow in loneliness.

Prepare yourself for this journey, for it is to be a dark one. Perhaps even as dark as the path of the Lovers reversed. Layout your gray cloth, with its candle placed at its top, and the Hermit reversed placed in front of you.

As you begin to slip into the meditation, feel the departure of all you’ve loved and cared for. The touch and warmth of a life of love and learning, of friends and companions, fade away as you slip into the shackled mind.

Your eyes open to the dim light of a cell. Light filters in through the bars of the window, but the walls are bare, dripping stone. There are others near you, in their cells.

But they do not seem to recognize your presence. They do not respond to speech or prodding, turning away from you at the slightest provocation.

Tarot Meditation Techniques For The Hermit Reversed Card

As you wander through the halls of this prison, you find that all is the same. You find your way into a library and find there is a librarian. As you ask for a book to read, you find them all empty, not a word on their pages.

Should you ask questions, none of them are answered, and in all cases, no one will speak to you, or respond to you at all beyond the silent librarians handing out wordless books.

You realize you are utterly alone here, and there is no door. You can find no way out, no exit. Even the windows are covered with frosted glass. You have no way to know if there is a world outside these walls.

Your Mind

The prison, you realize, is that of your mind. The only way to break the bars, to free yourself, is to know that you can be free, to accept it as truth. These are the keys that will bring down your prison. It’s up to you to make that choice.

As you come out of the tarot meditation of this Major Arcana card, think about this solitude and loneliness, think about how our ignorance is so often of our own doing.

Think on your journeys through the cells, and see what messages are there for you to lead your way out of the darkness. Record them in your journal for your meditations, and work to free yourself from what bonds hold you!

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