The Hermit
Major Arcana · number 9 · L’Eremita
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The Hermit asks you for prudence. It is the card of someone who withdraws to see more clearly, who walks with a lantern in hand and looks one step at a time. If these days you feel the need to be alone for a while, it is no accident: you need silence in order to understand. But the card also carries a serious warning: around you there may be someone pretending, dissembling, not playing fair, in business as in feelings. The practical advice: sign nothing and promise nothing this week. Observe, take notes, and trust only what you have verified.
Source: Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) · read the original passage
Reversed
Reversed, the Hermit hides out of fear. Prudence becomes caution without reason, a disguise, a strategy for not being seen. If you notice you keep postponing a phone call, an interview, a medical check-up because you dread what you might find out, this card is about you. In love you risk keeping a feeling hidden until it withers; at work, missing an opportunity through excessive reserve. It is not a judgement, it is an invitation. The practical advice: today, do that small thing you have been avoiding for weeks. Fear, looked in the face, always shrinks.