Major Arcana · IX

The Hermit Year

Earth

A Hermit year turns you inward to hear what's true. The clarity comes once you get quiet: the walk alone where the knot you couldn't untangle in a loud room comes clear, the evening by yourself you wake up steadier for. This is a year to turn the world down far enough to hear your own read on your own life. You carry the light and don't have to borrow it. Solitude isn't loneliness this year. It's where you go to come back to yourself, and the answers you find there are the ones you can trust.

What to do with a Hermit yearProtect real solitude this year, and use it to listen for your own counsel before borrowing anyone else's. Watch the line between reflection and avoidance, and come back to the world when you're ready, not when you're called.

Your twelve months

Each month steps one place forward through the cycle. The same twelve, in the same order, for any Hermit year.

January
Wheel of FortuneFebruary
JusticeMarch
The Hanged OneApril
DeathMay
TemperanceJune
The DevilJuly
The TowerAugust
The StarSeptember
The MoonOctober
The SunNovember
JudgementDecember
The World

Element weather

How the twelve months balance across the elements.

5Fire months3Water months2Air months2Earth months

The rest of the cycle

The nine Majors a Hermit year doesn’t touch.

The FoolThe MagicianThe High PriestessThe EmpressThe EmperorThe HierophantThe LoversThe ChariotStrength
The full year-ahead reading

The whole Hermit year, woven

This page is the theme. The full reading walks all twelve months in the Almanac’s voice, reads the element weather, brings in how your Bearing meets the year, and closes with the skills and reflection questions a Hermit year calls for.

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More on this card: The Hermit, the full meaning · The Hermit as a Bearing · all seventy-eight cards