The Hermit Will See You Now
2025 and the slow burn of creative self-discovery.
☆The Dreamer☆ is a free newsletter exploring the dream space between art, spirituality, and psychotherapy — in service of living your most creatively fulfilled life. If you enjoy The Dreamer, subscribe for free gifts. And pass it on! You can also support my work in the following ways:
꩜ Book yourself (or a friend) a tarot reading with me.
꩜ Preorder my latest book, Love Oracle, due in Feb 2025.
꩜ Purchase one of my other four books/decks incl. the award-winning Neo Tarot.
꩜ Learn about Come Alive, my 1:1 creative coaching program.
As we step into 2025, we’re entering a year corresponding to the Hermit card in the tarot, a figure whose quiet wisdom and introspective energy offer profound guidance in times of despair, division, and doomscrolling.
Numerologically, 2025 reduces to 9, the number of spiritual growth, the accumulation of experience, and potent insights coming into awareness. The Hermit’s presence is an invitation to slow down, zoom in, and confront the truths we’ve been too distracted to see.
What’s in the lantern?
The Hermit’s lantern is a whole metaphor for clarity—not the impatient or shallow kind. But the kind that builds up slowly through direct experience. The Hermit walks a path of devotion, true wisdom illuminated by the lantern they carry. Within this simple image lies profound symbolism: the lantern represents clarity, discernment, and the light we each hold to guide ourselves and others. But the light is dim; it illuminates only the next step, requiring patience, trust, and humility.
Their staff? That’s your stability, your connection to life force. Their cloak? A reminder that this life a game of mystery. And any spiritual realisation we achieve comes through committed practice to what’s important to us. Their cloak is also humble. True wisdom is unadorned and comes from renouncing worldly distraction and lust for material things. For us modern folk, inundated as we are with hyper-information and performative online displays, the Hermit calls us to strip away what’s unnecessary and focus on what’s real. The Hermit’s vibe is simple but loaded: bring only what you need and trust the process.
Why this energy matters now
Everything about our lives is a paradox. We’ve never been so connected, yet so alienated; so informed, yet so disoriented. So longing for quiet and so drowning in noise. The Hermit’s energy offers a necessary red pill (sorry) towards knowing thyself.
They ask: What actually matters? What distractions are you willing to ditch so you can find out? This isn’t about isolating forever, ignoring what’s important to you, or becoming a monk. It’s about purposeful retreat—pulling back to recalibrate yourself, so you can reintegrate with your world.
Jung’s idea of individuation syncs perfectly with this. Becoming your truest self isn’t about adding more; it’s about peeling back the layers, gazing into the shadows, and finding out who you really are beneath the noise. The deeper you go, the more you have to offer when you come back.
Creative ways to work with The Hermit
How do we embody the Hermit’s lessons in our daily lives? Here are some creative practices to align with this energy as you move into a new Gregorian year:
☆ Make a Lantern of Intentions: Grab a jar, decorate it with words or images that symbolise your intentions, and pop a candle inside. This is your guiding light—spend time with it daily, letting it remind you what you’re working toward.
☆ Write to Your Wise Self: In a quiet moment, write a letter to your Wisest Self. Ask yourself a question that’s been weighing on you and allow your Wise Self to respond through intuitive writing. This practice can reveal truths hidden beneath surface worries. No overthinking; just let it flow.
☆ Find a Wise Stone: Choose a stone that speaks to you, and let it become a tactile reminder of the grounded wisdom you carry within. Hold it during meditation or keep it with you as a touchstone, especially when things get chaotic.
☆ Schedule Solitude: Block out time for screen-free reflection. This could be as simple as mindful journaling each morning, or going away for the weekend (to somewhere where you can hear yourself think).
☆ Go for a Walk: Start going for walks in nature, a park, or somewhere outdoors. Pay attention to your breath, your sensations, and the small signs of life around you. Let walking become a metaphor for the Hermit’s path—each step a movement toward clarity. Bonus points if you go at dawn or dusk when you can’t see too far in front of you; how does it feel to trust the journey, step by step?
Sharing the Light
Here’s the thing: the Hermit’s journey isn’t just about self-discovery. The truths uncovered in solitude are not meant to be hoarded; they are meant to be shared. The Hermit’s lantern is a light for others as much as it is for themselves.
This year, ask yourself: What am I here to contribute, and to whom? How can I bring what I’ve learned back to my community?
The world is for realness and integrity, the Hermit’s quiet equanimity offers a model for leadership. True leadership is not about dominance but about trust, purpose, and the courage to move with discernment. By retreating to study yourself and your truth, you cultivate the strength to share it with others, not through noise, but through steady, grounded action.
A year for trust
2025 is not a year for quick fixes or superficial pursuits. It’s a year to dig deep, educate yourself, and embrace the bravery of introspection. Let the Hermit’s lantern guide you to what matters most. Be bold enough to gather experience with commitment and trust, brave enough to cut through illusion, and wise enough to ask yourself the hard questions.
To pull back from the noise. To walk the path of devotion, knowing that each step—no matter how small—is illuminated by the light of your own inner wisdom. Call it your wise self, call it Goddess, call it your creative consciousness, call it intuition. It doesn’t matter. All you have to do is choose to practice accessing it.
What truths will you discover by committing to turning your gaze inward? And how will you let them guide your way forward? I’m excited for you to find out.
xo Jerico
Thank you 🙏🏽
My personal number is 9 and something about me is I will set intentions with the best of them in January but not actually commit for 1-3months. I like to try a little, reflect, and plot before becoming fully devoted to what endured my months of mulling.
finally! the energy is here to support my foibles 😆
Thank you