Normally when I draw a card each day I don't usually ask a question. I do pay attention to how the card relates to my life and perhaps to what is going on around me. Tonight I asked a closed question, which really doesn't lead to a very clear answer and opposed to an open ended question. What I think my psyche was really asking, was how to find the way to wisdom, and this is what my answer directly related to.
Often when it comes to reading the Tarot we might not like the answers revealed relating to our question. We want a happily ever after scenario, which is magical thinking and not realistic.
This was the case today when I pulled The Hermit in hopes I'd get an answer that I wanted to hear as opposed to what I actually needed to hear. This card is the image of The Fool's last moral lesson. Here is the mythic image of Cronos, who's name means time, carries the lamp of insight and understanding that has come from loneliness and patient waiting, which The Hermit card implies.
The lesson and the gift of patience with the limitations of our mortal life and with solitude, comes self-discovery and then comes acceptance. This is the way to wisdom.
There is no crystal ball into the future, and I'm sure as heck not a psychic. I think often times we know the answers to many of our questions before we even ask, but we often need to see a kind of tangible clarity that lies within the archetypal meaning of the cards, reflecting our present situation, and what's going on within our psyche.
We can't always get what we want, but I do believe we get what we need, and this will help us to find the way to wisdom. The Hermit's lamp is the beacon of light in the dark, pointing us in the right direction along our path.
Then flash the wings returning summer calls
Through the deep arches of her forest halls.
–Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841–1935)
2 comments:
I always welcome the Hermit because I relate to him so much. I don't draw him that often though.
Asking questions to the cards implies that we will receive an answer but maybe when the cards don't make sense we need to sit the question a little longer
Like you I rarely draw The Hermit.
I feel the same way, Ellen.
The Hermit is ultimately comforting to me regardless of what's going on because it reminds me of the spiritual road I'm travelling is the most difficult and longest path between the head and the heart. But it's the most important journey in life.
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