The Hermit, Loneliness and Solitude

There are two kinds of being alone, and they can look exactly the same from the outside. One is a room you chose: a quiet evening, a long walk, a weekend without plans that you have been looking forward to all month. The other is a room you didn't choose: the evening when nobody calls, the walk you take because there is no one to walk with, the weekend that stretches out empty and makes you wonder whether anyone is thinking of you at all.

The first is solitude. The second is loneliness. The tarot has one card for both of them, and it is worth looking at closely.

A figure on the mountain

In Pamela Colman Smith's 1909 picture, The Hermit stands alone on a snowy peak, wrapped in a long gray cloak. In one hand he leans on a tall staff. In the other he holds up a lantern, and inside the lantern shines a six-pointed star. His head is bowed. He is not walking anywhere in particular. He is simply standing in the cold, high place, holding a light.

At first glance this is one of the loneliest pictures in the deck. There is no one else on the mountain. There is no house, no fire, no road. Even the color seems to have drained out of the world around him.

What the lantern is for

A. E. Waite, who wrote the companion book to the deck, didn't deny that the Hermit walks a solitary path. But he dismissed one occult reading of the card, Eliphas Lévi's idea of isolation as a kind of self-protection, as "frivolous", and insisted the card was about attainment. For him, the point of the card is the lantern, and specifically the fact that the Hermit is holding it up:

And then, in one short line, he says what the beacon means, that others can reach the height he has reached:

One way to read that line: a light held up on a mountain is not only for the person holding it. They already know where they are. It is for someone further down the slope, someone still climbing in the dark, who can look up and see that the path goes somewhere, and that somebody has already made it this far.

When the room is one you didn't choose

If you are lonely right now, the Hermit can feel like a cruel card to draw. It seems to say: this is your lot, the mountain and the cold. It doesn't say that.

What the picture shows is someone alone who is also, quietly, connected: holding a light for others, and almost certainly guided up the mountain by the lights of people who climbed before. Most of us, even in our loneliest stretches, are standing somewhere on a path that other people have walked. Other people have sat through the empty evening and the quiet phone. Other people have moved to a city where they knew no one, outlived their friends, or come out the far side of a breakup into a house that was suddenly too big. Their lanterns are out there, in books and songs and in the people around you who have been through it.

And sometimes, if you have the energy for it, the way out of loneliness is not to wait for someone to climb up to you, but to hold up your own small light: send the message first, join the class, sit in the café instead of at home. You don't have to be wise or finished to do it. The Hermit doesn't look triumphant. He just holds the lantern up.

If the loneliness has started to feel unbearable, please skip ahead to where to find help.

When the room is one you chose

For people who love solitude, the Hermit is a friendly card, and it is worth defending. A culture that treats being alone as a problem to solve can make you feel strange for wanting quiet. The card says otherwise. Some things can only be found in silence and distance: what you actually think, what you actually want, a sense of your own outline that gets blurred when you are always among other people.

The card holds one quiet caution, too. Solitude that stops looking up, that no longer holds its light out to anyone, can turn slowly into isolation without your noticing. The question worth asking, every so often, is simply: who is my lantern for?

Questions for the mountain

If loneliness has become too heavy

Loneliness is common, and it is also real pain. If it has been going on for a long time, if it has started to feel like proof that you don't matter, or if it comes with thoughts of not wanting to be here, please reach out to someone, even a stranger at a helpline. You will find helplines for many countries on our safety page, and talking to a doctor can help too. You deserve company on the mountain, wherever you are on the climb.

The light reaches a few steps

One more detail from the picture: the lantern's light doesn't reach far. It shows the snow at the Hermit's feet and a little of the path around him, and that's all. It is enough to walk by. On many nights it is enough for us too: a little light, and someone, somewhere, who can see that you are there.

Read the full meaning of The Hermit, or, if today is heavy, try a card for a hard day.