The Hermit — “A Time of Solitude”

Stopping after a long stretch

The Hermit is a loner. Solitude, pulling away. Looking for your own truth. It’s a time to slow down, step back from the noise and find the answers inside yourself.

The Hermit is card IX. It closes the first big stage of the path: a person has tried a lot out in the world and now, for the first time, really turns inward. By now they can do a lot. But a question comes up: “Why was I rushing so much, anyway?” The Hermit is the pause after a lot of doing.

The lantern only shows the next step

A person steps back from the outside world for a while. Not literally moving to the mountains and switching off the phone for three years — it’s an inner retreat. They start paying less attention to other people’s opinions, expectations and ready-made answers, and look for their own meaning instead.

The Hermit’s lantern is the inner light. It doesn’t light the whole road at once — only the next step. And the person realizes: “I don’t need to know the whole route. It’s enough to see the next step.”

In a reading this means looking hard at yourself. Working through your own patterns. Separating from what others expect of you. Choosing to be alone for a while, in a way that heals and gives you strength to change.

When solitude heals

The Hermit often asks for a pause. When someone asked me whether to buy a plot of land, the Hermit came up — a card of reflection and withdrawal. I strongly advised hitting pause: this isn’t the time for active investment.

In relationships the Hermit means needing distance to take stock. Needing your own space. On the good side — a grown-up relationship between two people who are whole on their own and respect each other’s boundaries. Sometimes it points to choosing to be single for a while after a relationship ends.

A woman once asked whether she would marry the father of her child. The Hermit showed deep loneliness or distance: even if you’re together, there’s an emotional gap between you — each of you is closed up and dealing with your own inner state right now. The Hermit says you need to take a pause, look at what’s happening, spend some time alone with your thoughts.

When solitude turns into running away

The Hermit’s shadow side starts where solitude turns into isolation. The person no longer goes inward to hear themselves. They’re hiding from the world.

It can look like: “I don’t need anyone.” Being too closed off, refusing help and closeness, emotional coldness, endless analysis instead of action, escaping into spirituality or knowledge so you don’t have to feel real feelings, believing “I know it all already,” being afraid to let someone into your life again, feeling that no one would understand anyway. And wisdom turning into sitting on the sidelines: I understand everything, but I change nothing.

And here’s an interesting difference. The mature Hermit: “I go inward to understand myself, and then I come back to the world.” The shadow Hermit: “I leave the world because it’s safer on my own.”

If the Hermit gets stuck in its shadow, the next stage — the Wheel — can’t happen: life keeps changing, and the person stays in their cave.

Not just loneliness

So the Hermit’s shadow side isn’t just loneliness. It’s when looking for yourself becomes a way to never expose yourself to life again.