After Strength, We Meet The Hermit

Lessons from Strength & Intentions for The Hermit

This Thursday, January 9, I’m hosting a workshop on The Hermit — its layers of meaning, its invitations and wisdom — and sharing a guided Tarot spread to help us set intentions for ourselves as this card steps forward to lead us on the next part of our collective journey. The workshop is hosted through The Creative Magic Collective, our nonlinear learning community for Creative Mystics. Through January 8, I’m offering a free trial month in the Collective (no payment info required, and you can let the membership lapse with zero clicks if it’s not your thing). So you basically get the Hermit workshop for free — plus lots of other good stuff! More info + grab your free trial month here!

Leaving Strength to Meet The Hermit

Strength and The Hermit from the Fyodor Pavlov Tarot.

If you care about Tarot, you’re likely well aware that last year (by the numbers) was a Strength year, and this year is a Hermit year. (It’s numerology!)

I really enjoy and appreciate this construct as a way of connecting with a certain energy for the year. It’s like the whole world pulled a card, and here’s what we’re all getting into as we make this next leg of our shared journey, another Earth-bound trip around the Sun.

As the year came to a close, I also hosted a workshop to reflect on what we gained in our Strength year, how we learned to love ourselves more fully, more deeply, more unapologetically. How we showed up for life in ways we haven’t before, how we faced things that felt impossible, how we came to understand our own endless capacity for love.

So, in case it helps, here are 8 things I took from the Strength year (since 8 is Strength’s number), and 9 things I’m intending, aiming for, or thinking about in terms of connecting with Hermit energy.

8 Ways I Got Strength-ier

#1. I self-published a book! I published a beta-version of my Tarot / journaling workbook in 2023 and tested it out with a few dozen loving, wonderful, creative people who helped me see how it could be better, richer, more potent. In 2024, I finished an even better edition. I worked with my friend and artist Ami Plasse to create illustrations that adorn the book beautifully (which you can also color!). I made it larger and spaced out the prompts so people could really work and play inside the pages. I could have tried to go to a publisher and waited that out eternal process, but I didn’t want other people’s approval to slow me down. There was a time (closer to when I was in my MFA program eons ago) that I thought self-publishing was for people who weren’t talented enough to get a publishing deal. Shame on me! I dropped that belief years ago, and wanted to see what it was like to publish on my own and maintain full creative control of every part of the process. I mean, with Ami, it was a collaboration (with lots of guidance from me), but I chose the size, the look, the feel, the design, the printing, the distribution, the marketing — A LOT of work but totally worth it. Very loving to myself, my creative desires, my hard work. I may seek a publisher this year, but I wanted to have this experience first! The book is awesome, and you can find it here.

#2. I picked up a new art form, let myself suck at it, and learned a lot. I started playing ukulele this year! I played piano and cello as a young person and learned to read music long ago, but since forgot that skill completely (except for middle C), and hadn’t played an instrument in decades. I wanted to learn guitar for a long time (both of my parents can play but never taught me more than a few chords, probably due to my weak little hands). Then a ukulele teacher came into my life, and I thought — hey, it’s smaller than a guitar, fewer strings, and ukes seem fun, jovial, playful. My teacher started me on the basics, relearning how to read notes, helping my hands do awkward things, supporting me in my suck-etude. But I got better and better, and in December, I performed on a coffee shop stage with some other uke players, and it was really fun to be amateur making music with other humans! If you want a uke teacher, wherever you are in the world, check out Kevin Carroll.

Not happy to see me.

#3. I gave a lot of love to the animals. This year was our first full year caring for a newly adopted dog who has a lot of anxiety, so lots of patience and tenderness and allowing and building trust. (She’s getting better, we think!) And I started volunteering at the local wildlife rescue shelter, working more closely with possums and squirrels and birds, befriending the neighborhood dog who hangs out at the shelter (who I love so much)!! I think a lot about the safety and prosperity of animals in our warming climate and ever-expanding human development. This year, I did more to act on that care. It’s smelly and I’ve been scraped by a couple angry possum teeth, but I love it and I believe this closeness and learning with the animals is its own kind of magic.