The Hermit

Symbols

• The Six-pointed Star LanternThe six-pointed star within the lantern — not ordinary fire but the light of two triangles closed upon each other. What he carries is not knowledge but a joined order.+

  Waite names one change from the older Hermits: the lamp is no longer half-wrapped in the bearer's mantle. Kept hidden, it lit only his own way; held out in the open, it can be seen from below.

• The Long StaffThe staff in his left hand — not the Magician's short raised wand but a long plain staff set on the ground. He uses it now as a third leg rather than as an emblem of office.+

  In the Golden Dawn system the card's Hebrew letter is Yod, the smallest letter, whose name is usually read as 'hand'. The picture is built on two hands: one lifts the light, the other sets the staff on the ground.

• The Grey Robe and HoodThe grey robe all but erases him from the world — not a vanishing, but an arrangement so the wind, the snow, and anyone asking the way see the light in his hand first, rather than him.+

  The cloak is close in tone to the grey-blue sky behind it, so the figure barely separates from the background. What stands out is the white of beard and snow and the yellow of the lamp — the man recedes, the light does not.

• The Snow SummitThe snow beneath his feet — it keeps a record of every unnecessary step. He chooses to stand where no other footprints lie, because only there can the next step be clearly heard.+

  In the Golden Dawn system the card is Virgo, an earth sign, yet the earth he is given is a bare summit of snow and ice where nothing grows — earth as height and cold, not as field or harvest.

• The Bowed HeadHis head is bowed — not in humility but in attention. His gaze follows the lantern's small one-step of light and does not outrun it.+

  Waite insists this is a card of attainment, not of quest — 'where I am, you also may be'. So the lowered eyes are not searching for something lost; he is looking at ground he has already reached.

• White BeardA long white beard falls over the grey cloak — age written plainly, and the one bright mark on the figure itself.+

  Waite says the figure 'blends the idea of the Ancient of Days with the Light of the World'. Daniel's Ancient of Days has hair 'like the pure wool' (Daniel 7:9); the beard carries that half, the lamp the other (John 8:12).

• Dark SkyBehind the summit the sky is a dark grey-blue — not night, not day, a cold light with no visible source.+

  No star is drawn in this sky. Waite is plain about it: 'It is a star which shines in the lantern' — so the one star in the picture has been taken down from overhead and is carried in a hand.

Story

The card is cold and nearly colourless — grey cloak, grey-blue sky, white ground — and the one warm point is the lamp, so the eye goes there first, then down the long line of the figure to the snow. He has stopped. Nothing suggests a climb in progress; he stands at the top, turned to one side, head lowered, more like someone listening than someone looking. Around him the space is wide and empty. Whoever the light is held out for is somewhere beyond the edge of the card.

Correspondences

Shadow

Related Cards

The Hierophant

The World

Nine of Pentacles

Combinations with this card