Nocturnal Hermit ?

[samantha]

I know that there is nothing to stop this guy being up and busy in the day time , but in the decks that I have ( and these not so many !) he is usually shown when the light is failing . If he *is* nocturnal , why ?

I know you can link the card (9) to the moon (18) .....so ? If the moon withholds information from us , then the hermit and his lamp aim to seek it out . That seems ok ..... But I had always thought that the info that the moon guards is more unconscious and therefore harder to access than the tangeable answers that the hermit is seeking ? For this reason the high priestess and the Moon seem a much better pairing . But maybe I have missed something ?

 

[willowfox]

The Hermit is mentally in the dark, that's why he's searching for enlightenment.

 

[PAMUYA]

I think you are confusing noctournal with Spiritual withdrawal from the world. Many cultures seek seclusion in caves to escape the distractions of daily life. The Hermits holds the lantern of the spirit of virtue, faith, the light of showing life’s precious gifts. This is a time for you to seek understanding, to contemplate, meditate or to observe what is going on before any further action is taken. The key words are wisdom, maturity, to spot light the major issue, solitude, detachment and observations. Give or accept wise counsel, remembering what truly matter in one’s life. To satisfy, one’s inner needs. The Hermit can also signify a spiritual call, to seek out one’s meaning in life.

Hermit represents the journey, the High Prestess is already there.

 

[samantha]

For Willowfox :

Right . It's a mental / rational process . I can see that the hermit is a *thinker* , which is why I don't quite get the link to the moon ( where feeling , or sub conscious thoughts are really the order of the day ) Unless its just , as you say , symbolic ?

 

[willowfox]

For Willowfox :

Right . It's a mental / rational process . I can see that the hermit is a *thinker* , which is why I don't quite get the link to the moon ( where feeling , or sub conscious thoughts are really the order of the day ) Unless its just , as you say , symbolic ?

The Hermit is stumbling around in a world of confusion, he's in the dark knowledge wise, he looking in all the little hidey holes for that elusive gem of understanding.

And I don't see the Hermit being on a "spiritual" quest but rather a person seeking the Oracle at Delphi or some such thing.

 

[samantha]

I think you are confusing noctournal with Spiritual withdrawal from the world. Many cultures seek seclusion in caves to escape the distractions of daily life. The Hermits holds the lantern of the spirit of virtue, faith, the light of showing life’s precious gifts. This is a time for you to seek understanding, to contemplate, meditate or to observe what is going on before any further action is taken. The key words are wisdom, maturity, to spot light the major issue, solitude, detachment and observations. Give or accept wise counsel, remembering what truly matter in one’s life. To satisfy, one’s inner needs. The Hermit can also signify a spiritual call, to seek out one’s meaning in life.

Hermit represents the journey, the High Prestess is already there.

Ok ! Thanks very much for replying I think I need some time to digest this ! Now trying to work out whether the lantern is selective / partial in what it brings to light or not ! ( What *truth* would spiritual truth exclude ? ) It's getting late and I can't think . This lantern is burning low .........

 

[cricket]

I've got a completely different take on the Hermit. To me, he's always been the wise man who people seek counsel from. He's seen as nocturnal because... well...

In ancient times, and up to fairly recently in history, people looked to the stars for guidance. They learned from them, marked the seasons by their position in the sky relative to the position of the sun and moon, and literally used them as guidance (star charts for ship navigation and such things). It was only the wisest, most practiced men who knew the "secrets" that lay hidden in the dark and the light of the stars.

 

[Thirteen]

A Man of Knowledge in Search of Knowledge

I'll split the difference and say the Hermit is both. One of great knowledge and also a seeking of knowledge. Daylight is a time when anyone can go out and see whatever there is to see, and gain all the knowledge that is out there and clearly visible--obvious if you like.

Imagine the doctor or scientist or scholar or person on a spiritual quest who starts with all the usual books. A tarot reader even. You read all the books that everyone else reads, the stuff a teacher in a classroom will teach you, standard stuff form the textbook. The Hermit has all that knowledge and there's no more he can learn from what the usual experts and scholars know. If he wants to find out more, he has to find it out on his own and look in places that others have not.

He has to believe that there is more than what he sees during the day, and go against the conventional wisdom that says that everything he needs to know is already known. In this he goes opposite to the Hierophant who only reads what is written and follows what is traditionally believed. Thus, the Hermit goes out into areas not explored, unknown, maybe not even believed to exist by all those daylight experts and uses a different light to see what can be seen. And so he learns that certain plants fluoresce, which no one knew because they never looked at such plants in the dark. And certain insects light up at night, which no one ever knew because they only saw them during the day.

He is not quite related to the High Priestess in that he doesn't rely on instinct (The Moon). He relies on observation, on investigation, on finding out for himself, on that lantern light which is the "Sun" in miniature and at his command. But he does all his exploration at night, in that area typically ruled by the HPS, the "abyss" if you like. I like to think that it is his writings on all he's learned and discovered that are on the scrolls the HPS holds and sometimes hands to others.

Thus, the Hermit is nocturnal, because the world at night is where the "undiscovered" can be found, the new, the different, the unknown.

 

[samantha]

He is not quite related to the High Priestess in that he doesn't rely on instinct (The Moon). He relies on observation, on investigation, on finding out for himself, on that lantern light which is the "Sun" in miniature and at his command. But he does all his exploration at night, in that area typically ruled by the HPS, the "abyss" if you like. I like to think that it is his writings on all he's learned and discovered that are on the scrolls the HPS holds and sometimes hands to others.

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This was very helpful ! Thankyou !