December 11, 2009 - The Hermit

For the last few years, I've drawn The Hermit a lot. It has oddly suited my situation -- recovering from major surgery, weathering massive changes, navigating deep sorrows. It is a card of introspection and reflection, just what I've been doing, or trying. In the Rider-Waite deck, The Hermit is a bearded sage, holding a lantern (the light of knowledge?) aloft to light the path, his path but not solely. The Hermit is wise, certainly wise enough to know all that matters is the lighted path in the service of any and all who need it. The Hermit speaks of a desire to see deeper, to find meaning, to look beyond the surface to the soul of things. He also speaks of withdrawing from the world for a time to pursue this deeper wisdom.

Of course with every tarot card, there is a darker side, what happens when The Hermit takes his proclivity for withdrawal to extremes. There can be a kind of arrogance to this card, a cynicism that leads to a sense of superiority. The Hermit can love humanity in general, but not people in particular. And the retreat to reflect can smack of escapism.

In the Jane Austen Tarot, The Hermit card depicts Mr. Bennett, the father of Elizabeth and Jane, studious Mary, silly and giddy Lydia, and young, impressionable Kitty. Mr. Bennett is a scholarly man who married a foolish but beautiful woman. As the passion of his marriage fades, he retreats more and more to his study and books.

Mr. Bennett got me thinking about The Hermit in his less attractive aspects. Yes, he's a lenient father, but that's because he's not engaged. This parenting approach works well enough for three of the girls, but impulsive Lydia with her mother's influence to guide her, finds herself in devastating circumstances, faring as well as she does only because of the intervention of Mr. Darcy. Mr. Bennett makes me wonder if I am less engaged with my family or have been these last few years. The same is true with friends. Maybe there were good reasons for the withdrawal and distance, but when those reasons passed and the world called, I did not listen, held myself back, and The Hermits sense of isolation clings to me, sought perhaps but my state so long I'm not sure how to be different.

Now add to this Mr. Bennett's rather cynical view of the world and a preference for the company of books to people. Sounds familiar, this isolation as both temptation and trap. Hmmmmm. A man if integrity, a philosophical bent, but not wise in the matter of the heart. My heart and I have had an interesting relationship in 2009 and I have come to realize I hardly know my own heart and so ignorant, have no hope of guessing the heart of another. A pretty sobering realization smack in middle age. Like Socrates, I have come to realize I know nothing.

I think this time around, my hermit's light is held higher, glows brighter. I see his good points but also his flaws. I know there is peace in seclusion but understand also that it keeps me from the wisdom that we are all connected, all one. Contemplation is important, but action is too. Yin and yang, word and silence, flexion and contraction, pause and reflection, these are what makes a full life. Rumi wrote: "Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as bird wings." Thank God for 13th century Sufi mystics who help us make sense of our sometimes senseless world.

What Would Jane Do? After revisiting the novels in describing the card, this is perhaps my favorite part of each tarot explanation:

"While you may be surrounded by folly and conceit, you not only recognize it, you find some amusement in it. However, the light you hold up to the world can illuminate your own flaws, if you are but willing to examine them with the same dry and discerning wit you apply everywhere else. It is wise never to take any thing too seriously, but perhaps your light will shine the brighter if you take yourself a bit more than you do at present."