The Hermit
Definition:
Retreat to connect with your inner world, trust your spiritual path, and sometimes a call to seek a wise teacher.
Poem:
this path requires trust
with just a lamp to guide the way
we must travel into the darkness
no reward is promised
just one foot in front of another
and that while others can help us along the way
this is a path we walk alone
Invitation:
The Hermit evokes the image of a wise, older person who has retreated from society to engage in deep spiritual practice. It invites you to take time for introspection and retreat from your usual activities. It asks you to connect with your own spiritual path and not compare yourself to others. You are the expert on yourself. You have your own intuitive abilities. Others can teach you and support you, but it’s up to you to decide the direction of your life.
To work with the energy of The Hermit, you can…
Take a Social Media Break: While social media can be a powerful tool for connection and disseminating information, it is incredibly distracting and often draining. Intentionally taking some time away from the apps can clarify your thinking and help you reconnect with yourself. How long you can spend away depends on what is feasible for you, given your lifestyle.
Investigate your Intuition: Take some time to get to know how your intuition shows up for you. There are many ways to do this:
Look back to a time when you had an instinct about a situation or a person that turned out to be accurate. Do you remember how that knowing showed up? Was it an inner voice? A feeling in your body? Knowing this can help you hone in on your intuition as you make decisions going forward.
Meditate to turn down the noise on your everyday worries and thoughts. It can take some time to get to that place in your meditation practice (so don’t be discouraged), but once you do, you often can connect with that more wise part of yourself and ask it questions.
If you are someone who doubts whether or not you are intuitive, make an agreement with yourself to act as if you have a clear, accurate intuition for one week. For that one week, every time you get a notion to do or not to do something that feels like it is coming from your intuition, you follow it. See what happens.