The Hermit, Part 1

I have felt a resonance with this hermit card of the tarot for a couple years now. At first, I noted the comparison in jest, noting that my reclusive behavior in plague times made me much more like the hermits of olde than my contemporaries. However, you know, the more time I spend underground with my records and looms, I realized I am not that dissimilar to the hermits of olde, who also hid themselves away from society with their little lights of civilization, books, in past times of war and pestilence. Indeed, the more I peeled back the layers of what the hermit archetype was, the more the aura of the hermit became an enveloping mystery that I knew I could unravel and integrate into my way of being. I could use the hermit as an archetype for how I may show up here in this time-space.

I have realized that I am the hermit, that bearded wanderer on the edge of established norms of reason. I am a hedge rider that resists the urge to be of and in society or established groups, preferring my own company and gnosis. I walk by the light of my own intellect, stitching my way through dualities into the liminal spaces tucked between them. I find no rest, preferring the ever-changing balance act of the grey, of flux. As like the other death workers I know, I sit aside the portal between this world and that of the next, tending to that liminal space of death and rebirth. That name, the hermit, rings as true to me now as my given name does. So, let us go now and unravel my own personal journey with the hermit spiritual exercise.

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Journey One

“Let us not fear, therefore, to become like the Hermit of the Tarot, who is clothed in the habit of faith and whose doubt fathoms the ground — with his staff! The light of the lamp which he holds is that which is emitted from the opposition of faith and doubt.” Unknown Dear Friend “Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism”

Duality.

I feel clothed in the humble faith that what I am doing with this writing, this weaving will lead to the fulfillment of my soul path. I will be comfortably supported in my real soul work. I am stripped bare with the doubt that this work will ever lead me to my hoped for end point of supporting my family financially through my writing. It will all just lead to ruin.

Duality.

I am clothed in the comforting faith that I will travel on to the Otherworld and be reunited with my mom and other beloved dead when I continue on. I will be the enlightened dead with my mom for the rest of my future ancestors and beloved chosen family. I am stripped bare in the doubt that tells me that I know any of this for certain. My light will just going to go out in a flash…poof.

Duality.

I am clothed in the enchanting faith that my words, my actions are a magical thread that connects me to the great web that connects us all. I am a conduit of something much bigger than myself that is speaking through me. I am stripped to my bone in the doubt that the connection that I perceive is real. This really is all just in my head. 

And so the pendulum of my thought swings in the between the frantic poles of faith and doubt. I feel the seductive power of the certainty that both poles offer. I feel the swirling, swirling, swirling pull of both faith and doubt each trying to pull me down its whirlpool into oblivion. You know, that sweet oblivion that quiets thought when you “have it figured out.” Yet, each is a comforting illusory mirror of the other, no? Each offers a compact, air-tight ready-made answer to a variety of vexing mysteries that this odd time and space experience brings up. I know I gotta get me that ready-made answer sometimes so I can tune out my existential crisis for the day and tune in to watching me zombie shows or the foosball game.

Our dear unknown friend in their Meditations on the Tarot counsels that there is another way through this impasse, the way of the hermit. The hermit embodies finding the proverbial impossibly small eye of the needle with an infinitesimally thin thread in the most graceful sweep of your hand. The hermit embodies finding the synthesis between faith and doubt, that liminal space that Jessica Dore notes in her book Tarot for Change: Using the Cards for Self-Care, Acceptance, and Growth opens up the possibilities of both/and thinking. Yes, this is the fruit of embodying the hermit. We can walk what Dore referred to as the Hermit’s middle way path, finding a way to both have faith in our dreams, beliefs, and convictions while also being grounded in the doubt that we know nothing so for certain that it cannot be undone in the shining light of a revelatory moment. 

So, we remain like the hermit is typically depicted: always in motion. Always open to the possibility of dying those tiny deaths of letting go of something we held to be true or a practice that no longer rings with a resonance of joy or the possibility of spiritual growth. Always open to having faith in what we hold to be true while also holding on to the doubt that we know anything for certain. This is especially true of me, dear reader. For the more I read and write, the more I am left dumbstruck at the insufficiency of my own ability to practice what the hermit preaches to both have faith and hold the doubt that I am but a fool playing at wisdom. I find myself all too often wanting to just chose one side of duality, ignoring that they are but two sides of the same coin. Yet, as I have said 2,000 times by this point, it is a practice, and we learn with each iteration of spinning around the wheel pondering how the hermit would have responded differently in a situation. At least, this is how I hope to become the hermit on the hedge, where town meets everything else. 

This little jewel of the hermit wisdom came through in my Spiritual Death Worker training with my friend Hannah Haddadi of Mourning Light Divination. Hannah asked us to talk a little bit about our views on the afterlife and the soul. I reflected in a rather straightforward manner that x, y, and z will happen as if my faith in that reality was unshakably real. This is a wonderful example of me embracing only faith and leaving no room for doubt. Interestingly, when Hannah shared her beliefs, she made an important caveat to her statement saying that she hopes x, y, and z will happen to her upon her death, but she will not know for sure until that time comes. Hannah’s answer is the perfect embodiment of the hermit in answering such a question. She expresses her faith in her vision of the afterlife but grounds it in the doubt that any one person is wont to hold onto when dealing with the mysterious or unknown.

Every time I feel paralyzed with indecision on how to move forward with this project it’s because I neglect to embody the hermit in this practice, putting faith in my own grand visions without grounding it with a healthy dose of doubt. There is nothing wrong with having faith in one’s beliefs but to have faith without doubt is what has led me to feel disappointed in the fruits of my own work in the past. I am sure I am not alone in this feeling, dear reader, that one has poured their soul into something and seen it not get the attention you thought it deserved while meme dumps or reels of someone falling on their face get thousands of engagements. In this very common conundrum, I have faith that this post, this essay, this weaving will light the world aflame and change everything. Yet, this is no different than me deluding myself into the doubt spiral of believing my work is worthless. It operates from a place of allowing oneself to get sucked down the whirlpool of the certainty of faith without being appropriately balanced by doubt. It operates from embracing the certainty of one side of the coin without just resting in the liminal space between those poles.

Yes, I will embody the hermit from here on out. I will say it. I believe that what I am saying is worthwhile, and I have my doubts that my work will ever be recognized in the way that I dream it will. Yet, I’m still gonna keep going. That is me embodying my dear hermit and finding a new way to approach my work via finding a both/and approach to the faith/doubt dualism. This is a big deal for me, because every time I have let this path go dormant, it was because I didn’t find some external validation to reaffirm my faith. I have from time to time shrunk in the face of my own doubts.

Recently, in the face of stagnant support and growth in this substack, the darkness of, “What is the pointism?,” a form of doubt, crept in. I had worked long and hard on my three part enchanting your fiber arts practice essay series and I guess I just thought that everything would change if I wrote that essay series. What do I mean by “everything would change?” Well, my hope deep down was that essay series would be the beginning of a process where my reach and engagement would dramatically increase to such an extent that I could leave my day job and just do this for a living. That seems naïve in retrospect, but aren’t we all just hanging on naïve dreams of transcendence in this capitalist hellscape? Yet, in this instance, I did not embody the hermit by tempering my faith with its own appropriate grounding in doubt. If I had, I would have been able to understand a more nuanced, “middle way” approach to the writing of such an essay series. I would have been able to see it not just as a lottery ticket that could give me another life, but the actual real-deal journey toward the hermetic dream life that I want to live.

I didn’t see it that way at the time. I got sorta bummed out and let myself wallow in video game land for a day or two. The time change and Juniper getting a 24 hour stomach bug also didn’t help either. I was just in this space of really being confused about what to do. Eventually, I saw how I was getting caught in a dualistic view of my practice and rebooted myself back at my altar with my devotional discipline practice and weaving. I returned to the real work of just exploring mysteries and trying to learn from my past mistakes. I retuned to the real work of being the hermit that I believe this world needs. I returned to the real work of showing up everyday to this practice.

I am going to start posting my essays on Sunday mornings, my own black sabbath. I hope that these little messages will find you in that reflective, open space that isn’t as available during the week. Honestly, I set Thursday as my post day based on reading about typical post days for substack writers. However, a lot of those folks are trade publication writers who are helping people advance their career or professional knowledge. I am not doing that. I hope you have freed yourself from wage labor. I hope you are laying in a bed of moss. I hope you have allied yourself with the great Gnomian Alliance led by Galendra, the warm-hearted, who is leading us into a new golden dawn of anarchic egalitarianism. I hope you have dissolved into a transparent mist that is everywhere and knows all.

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