Looking back at The Hermit Year
December 2025
As December draws on, I’m reflecting on how our card for the year, The Hermit, showed up in 2025 (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, go back and check out my original post on the topic from January, here).
For me? Well The Hermit Year has taken me outwards into the world much more than expected! But also just as deeply inwards as I might have imagined. I don’t know about you, but I definitely know myself better than I did in January.
How my year has looked:
In April and May I was in Indonesia, attending a funeral and learning about death rites and traditions as well as spending 10 days journeying with a shaman (solo underworld journey, tick!)
Then completing Community Death Educator training…
August saw me taking my little travelling tarot tent on the road for the first time - setting up and trying things out at Hardwick and Lindisfarne festivals, with the lush Shanti Bee healing area (stepping into the unknown, yep!)
Autumn was more grief-focussed, meeting with clients and fellow death doulas and grief-workers, holding circle at Shanti Bee and embracing the energy of Samhain and autumn generally (retreating inwards, embracing the darkness…)
And offering readings at Wonderland Wellbeing in the in-between times.
Lessons I learned from the card:
I felt the Hermit walking alongside me every time I remembered to check in with my intuition before acting. Listening in, I found I could follow my compass much more easily and clearly.
I noticed that when I felt stuck, becoming totally still helped much more than ploughing on. Retreating into my cave and regrouping created more space for progress than any amount of straining.
I could feel the card cheering me on every time I chose my inner peace instead of over-committing, or when I turned to Hermit-y pursuits like journaling or meditating (or putting my feet up in front of an episode of Riot Women).
But the biggest lesson for me this year was about tolerating not being able to see the road ahead clearly. Globally, uncertainty and unknowable outcomes are the new normal. And personally, so often in 2025, I’ve found myself with my view obscured, stepping into the fog without a map. I’ve turned up at events not knowing what to expect, advocated for myself without an indication of how it would be received, trusted many a ‘yes’ even though on paper they looked like ‘no’s (and vice versa). It’s helped to remember that the Hermit’s lamp only lights a little way ahead.
Yep, I’m more in love with this card than ever!
It already made me feel warm when it came up in a reading, like a permission slip to prioritise quiet ways of being in a busy world. But now I’m emerging from the underworld journey of 2025 even more pleased when The Hermit appears. What a beautiful invitation to embrace all that is unseen and unknown! An encouragement to retreat and seek the treasures of spending time with ourselves. Like a trusted friend who holds up their lantern so that we can make out the outline of our cave, and take a first step towards what we don’t know yet.
So… what about you? How did The Hermit show up in your journey this year (or how might you call in some Hermit energy now, in the last couple of weeks)?
Watch this space in January for some thoughts about our card(s) for 2026 - which are: Wheel of Fortune and The Magician.
I’m excited to see what medicine we can find from them.
Stay tuned for that, and see you on the other side lovelies 💗✨
