A Year of Soul-Searching, Authenticity, and Service
Seeking the Hermit's Lantern in 2025
2025 is a 9/Hermit Year, holding themes of seeking, soul-searching, self-determination, solitude, dedication, service, and authenticity. What does this mean for our year?
Welcome to your Hermit era! We’re already a couple weeks into 2025, so perhaps you’re already getting a taste of 2025’s Hermit vibes—I know I am. This year is the year of the Hermit because the digits of 2025 add up to 9 (2 + 0 + 2 + 5 = 9), the number of the Hermit in tarot. Here, we’ll delve into the Hermit and the nines of the tarot through the Hermit themes of seeking, authenticity, illumination, and service and peer ahead at what this might mean for 2025. Please note that this is a long one—too long for your email inbox! So please be sure to click through to read this on Substack because the email will get cut off before the end.
Before we look ahead into 2025, it’s a good idea to reflect on 2024 and digest its lessons, so make sure to check out my most recent post reviewing the 8/Strength Year of 2024 if you missed it.
Take Heart
Strength asks us to take heart as in reconnect to the heart, touch the heart, take your heart and carry it with you because its capacity for love and joy is what will ultimately keep us fighting against the odds.
The Hermit Seeks Authenticity
In Radical Tarot, I write about the Hermit as a rebel archetype. Hermits care less about society’s rules and judgements and more about finding their own way in the world guided by their authentic values and desires. In other words, the Hermit knows themself and the life they want to lead, and they don’t care what anyone else thinks about it. Biblical hermits exited society to find God in the desert or live in contemplative solitude in a cave. Ascetic hermits, Buddhist monks, and Hindu sadhus make vows of poverty or silence, eschewing human contact and/or earthly pleasures to become closer to the holy or to enlightenment. Modern-day hermits like the North Pond Hermit live off the grid in the woods or in anti-social eccentricity in the city. They often break rules, both social/cultural rules and legal ones, especially when they perceive those rules to be silly or unjust. Sometimes, hermits are artists, writers, scholars, scientists, or inventors, their gods residing not in some abstract heaven but in the perfection of their craft. Think Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond—though his was less of a wilderness hermitage and more of a rustic writer’s retreat where friends would visit and bring food and treats every weekend.
Tarot author Robert M. Place traces the tarot card’s image to Renaissance images of philosophers pursuing the Anima Mundi, the “World Soul” that vivifies the cosmos and connects all living souls. These be-robed hermits lean on walking sticks and hold up their lanterns, following the elusive World Soul from the city into the wilderness. Place notes that the Anima Mundi is invisible; the philosophers are only able to track her by the footprints or evidence that she leaves. “Although she leads him away from the town, the crowd, or from popular opinion,” Place writes, “the Hermit follows his invisible guide.”1
There’s something deeply desirous about hermits, an almost lusty devotion that hungers to know the self, the world, and the beyond in a way that surpasses knowledge and wisdom and reaches toward the mystic. The Hermit departs society for the wilderness not to get away from other people but to get closer to the Anima Mundi, the stuff of life. The Hermit doesn’t want to be alone; they simply thirst for a different kind of intimacy—a spiritual intimacy with their gods, with the World Soul, with their own soul.
Does this mean that in 2025 we’re all going to become reclusive hermits, living lives of seclusion for spiritual or misanthropic purposes? Not at all. (Or at least not all of us.) The most important part of the Hermit’s spiritual quest is not necessarily isolation but the ability to separate their authentic beliefs and unique perspectives from those of society and the willingness to do some deep soul-searching to get there. Sometimes, that means removing themself from the noise so they can hear themself think, but it doesn’t necessitate loneliness. The Hermit does not necessitate departure either; although in their spiritual quest, they may find that aspects of their life must change in order to live in line with their authenticity.
2025 is a year for coming to know yourself deeply, thoroughly, and in detail. The Hermit Year is not necessarily about being alone, but about gaining total clarity on your place in things, your desires, your beliefs, your soul. This year asks you to become your most authentic self and be willing to go against the grain in order to live in your authenticity.
While the Hermit’s themes of spiritual seeking, soul-searching, authenticity, and forging unconventional paths can lead to wonderful personal breakthroughs this year, the global stage is primed for some of the worst Hermit-reversed manifestations of these themes. In 2025, we may see themes of isolation (Trump’s tariffs and trade wars, the TikTok ban and other fractures in social media); exile and exclusion (mass deportations of immigrants, trans girls barred from women’s sports, bathroom bills, trans families relocating to safer states); autonomy and self-determination and challenges to it (the ceasefire deal and the rebuilding of Gaza, body autonomy for women and transgender people, state authority vs. parental authority, states’ rights vs. big government); spiritual bypassing; religious exceptionalism; escapism; avoidance; delusion; and wild goose chases.
The 9’s, Dedication, and Completion
The Hermit is characterized not only by spiritual seeking but also by dedication and diligence. We can see this in the archetype—it takes a whole lot of commitment to take a vow of poverty and live in a cave to be closer to god, after all—and also in the tarot card’s astrological ruler: Virgo. Virgo exemplifies qualities like attention to detail, precision, refinement, diligence, and service. This sign shows up with integrity or not at all. Virgo doesn’t fake it and doesn’t do anything by halves. The sign gets a reputation for perfectionism, but if Virgo insists on perfection it’s only because they don’t see the point of working hard on a thing if you don’t make it the best it can be. Virgo rules the digestive system, highlighting the Hermit’s focus on digesting (analyzing) and processing raw input into useful nourishment. If our heart and back are in a project (remember that the heart and spine are associated with last year’s card, Strength/Leo), the Hermit/Virgo can translate that strength into the diligent hard work that gets shit done.
I’ve been in a personal 9/Hermit Year2 since my birthday in 2024 (see the end of this post for how to calculate your personal year card), and, appropriately, this was the year I wrote my forthcoming book, Queer Devotion. (Coming May 20th! Pre-order now!) The inspiration for the book came to me in my 8/Strength Year, a year characterized by creative expression, hope and inspiration, fortitude, and devotion, but the hard work of actually researching and writing the book happened in my 9/Hermit Year of seeking and discerning (researching it), diligence and determination (writing it), and, yes, hermit-ing, because writing a book requires a whole lot of alone time.
We can see the 9’s focus on hard work and determination in the Minor Arcana 9 of Wands, where the energy and pizazz of the 8 of Wands transitions into the perseverance and (weary) persistence of the 9. The 9 of Wands acknowledges that completing anything worthwhile is usually hard and tiring at some points, while the 9 of Swords reflects the mental tangles, worries, and self-doubt that can crop up in any meaningful search or project. At the same time, the 9 of Cups reminds us that our dreams can be fulfilled and wishes can come true, and the 9 of Pentacles shows us the abundance that can come as a result of hard work.
Speaking of completion, the 9 is the final single-digit number and the last card before the 10, and the Minor Arcana 9s each demonstrate themes of culmination in some way. The 9 of Wands is the final push before the finish; the 9 of Cups is hopes and wishes coming to fruition; the 9 of Swords is the dark night of the soul just before dawn; the 9 of Pentacles is enjoying the rewards of hard work well done.
Rebecca Scolnick, numerologist and author of The Witch’s Book of Numbers, points out that the number 9 added to any number reduces back to the original number (ex., 5+9=14; 14 reduces to 1+4=5, the original base number), and in this way the 9 serves to enhance or amplify the original base number.3 We can see this in the tarot’s 9s, as well. The 9 of Wands amplifies the fire suit’s energy to the point of excess and burnout. The 9 of Cups elevates the water suit’s dreaminess to the level of wish fulfillment. The 9 of Swords turns up the volume on the air suit’s mental spirals and anxieties. The 9 of Pentacles indulges in the maximum luxury of the earth suit. According to Scolnick, this quality of the collective 9 Year can amplify the themes of whatever your personal year number is, too. So if you’re in a 5 personal year, the collective 9 year may make your personal year even more Hierophant-y (Major Arcana 5) than would usually be expected. I highly recommend checking out Rebecca’s excellent post on what to expect from the 9 Year below!
Illusion, Illumination, and The Moon
We can’t forget about the other Major Arcana 9: number 18, The Moon. (Eighteen [18] reduces to 1 + 8 = 9.) The Moon is dreams, illusions, fantasies, and the sub- and unconscious mind. It’s the wild, the irrational, the emotional, the underneath. It’s everything the conscious, rational mind fears because it doesn’t understand.
The territory of The Moon is tricky but essential to traverse because it’s the only way to separate fact from fiction, truth from illusion, reality from fantasy. Of course, fiction and fantasy are delightful indulgences from time to time—I perpetually have at least one fantasy novel checked out in my Libby app at all times—but that’s not the kind of fantasy fiction we’re talking about here. The Moon represents the fictions we mistake for facts, the fantasies we get so lost in that we believe they’re reality. It’s the difference between independent thought and conspiracy theory, reasonable suspicion and paranoid confabulation, spirituality and escapism, seeking and following.
The Moon is the wilderness that The Hermit must wander on their spiritual search. It’s the unknowns and illusions through which they must find their way in search of truth. But how to we find our way through this dark night? The Hermit’s lantern can help. The Hermit’s lantern is the light of their soul, illuminating their path with their authenticity and self-knowledge. It’s also the light of intellect, shining that Hermit/Virgo analysis and discernment into The Moon’s mysterious unknowns. The Moon is a card of strong emotions and intuition, and it’s important to note that The Hermit does not shine their light of intellect into The Moon’s territory in order to vanquish emotion or intuition, but rather to connect to it and understand it without getting lost in its powerful tides. The Hermit is not interested in dominating or rationalizing, but in understanding the mysteries of life to the best of their ability, all while knowing that ultimate understanding is impossible.
The Hermit is not all-knowing. They can only see as much as their lantern can illuminate, making them as liable to subjectivity and bias as anyone else, and they can wander through loops and down dead ends on their search for truth. In its best manifestation, The Hermit is aware and mindful of their own subjectivity, bias, and the limits of their knowledge, and this awareness helps them navigate the Moon’s wilderness. They seek to grow their understanding from a place of humility and to share their wisdom, talents, and skills to help others.
Of course, as with any card, the opposite (reversal) of these qualities is also possible. In its worst manifestation, The Hermit thinks they hold the only correct opinion, the only true knowledge. They do not seek further understanding because they believe they know it all. They share their knowledge and skills not to help the community, but to gain power and control over others “for their own good.”
In 2025, we may encounter charismatic leaders, zealous followers, power grabs, manipulation, savior complexes, and spirituality or religion leveraged to control or oppress people. It doesn’t take a tarot reader to make this prediction: we’re two weeks into 2025, and we’re already seeing themes of religious exceptionalism such as in Meta’s decision to allow hate speech calling LGBTQIA2S+ people “mentally ill” on the basis of “religious concerns about transgenderism and homosexuality.”4 The last 9 year was 2016 — the year Trump was elected to his first term as president. That year was characterized by fake news, fear-mongering, misogyny5, conspiracy theories (remember Pizzagate?), and a rising tide of zealous hate under the banner of patriotism and Christian family values. In 2025, critical thinking will be more important than ever. It’s easy to get swept up in the noise, panic, and/or hype and lose yourself, or to follow what charismatic leaders say uncritically. This year, The Hermit calls for maintaining intellectual integrity and critical thinking amidst misinformation, deep fakes, groupthink, and pressure to conform or comply.
We may find ourselves more lost in the dark of the Moon than ever, but if we remember the Hermit’s best qualities of soul-searching, authenticity, diligence, and understanding, we can find our way through.
The Practical Spirituality of Service
Another aspect of the Hermit I think will be especially necessary in 2025 is service. The Hermit does not embark on their spiritual search merely for their own benefit. In the end, they bring their newfound knowledge and wisdom back to the community, or they help other seekers along the way. The Hermit archetype is not just one of lone seekers but one of mentorship. The Hermit-as-mentor usually appears as an unlikely or unexpected mentor bearing unconventional teachings, either outside of or against institutional teachings (the domain of The Hierophant) or popular opinion. Figures like Yoda, Gandalf, and even Baba Yaga, who was sometimes a baby-eating villain and sometimes a maiden-helping savior, appear in mentor or helper roles in story and myth. Maybe you’ll find yourself learning from an unexpected mentor in 2025, or maybe you’ll become one yourself.
If we consider The Hermit and Virgo together, we discover an intersection of practicality and spirituality. While spirituality and practicality may seem to be opposites, in my experience many spiritual endeavors are also practical, and many practical endeavors can be mighty spiritual. In my personal Hermit year, I enrolled in a year-long herbalism course through Rowan + Sage. This interest caught me by surprise—herbalism had never much appealed to me before—but I felt a deep need to learn a practical skill that I could share with my community. (I like to joke that I’m learning herbalism so I can have a practical skill in the End Times, but I’m only half kidding.) I don’t have plans to become a professional herbalist, but I’m greatly enjoying making my own herbal concoctions to share with my friends, family, and neighbors. Learning herbalism has also profoundly shifted the way I understand plants and relate to the natural world in a simultaneously practical and spiritual way.
Virgo is service-oriented sign: Virgos like to be useful, helpful, get things done. This, in turn, illuminates the service-oriented side of The Hermit. The Hermit may seek in solitude, but they do so in order to share their newfound knowledge, skills, or resources with their community. In 2025, identify your skills and talents and how they can be of service. Share your knowledge with others or learn something new. Pay attention to how practical things can be spiritual, and spiritual things practical. This year is an excellent time for learning or honing a skill or craft, especially one that can be shared or connects you with community.
The Hermit in Community
Against Individualism, Escapism, and Abandonment
In Radical Tarot, I compare the Hermit to Diogenes the Cynic, a philosopher in ancient Athens who lived in a large ceramic jar in the market square and liked to wander through the crowded marketplace during the daytime with a lit lantern in his hand, as if searching for something. When shoppers asked him what he was doing, Diogenes would reply, “I’m looking for an honest man.” The implication being he’s having a hard time finding one—no one in the bustling marketplace being honest. Honesty for Diogenes was not just about telling the truth, but about living a life of authenticity, free of the comfortable illusions of civic society. For the Cynics that Diogenes inspired, nature was the only real thing and civilization was a grand, destructive mass delusion.
The interesting thing about Diogenes is that despite his disdain for society and his emphasis on nature over civilization, he didn’t escape to the wilderness—he was an urban hermit, determined to forge an authentic life against the stream of society and do it loudly so others might see the proverbial lantern light and seek an authentic life as well. Of course, Diogenes also seems to have enjoyed being a public nuisance, disrupting the orderly days of the privileged, and generally ruffling people’s feathers. He was something of a cross between a cultural critic, a performance artist, and a gutter punk, bringing his outsider’s perspective and incisive criticism to the public square in ways designed to trouble, disrupt, and make people think—or, failing that, at least to be loudly, defiantly himself.
Diogenes is an example of a hermit who does not live in isolation but in public, who does not take vows of silence but speaks out, who eschews society at the same time as he purposefully, persistently interfaces with it to try and effect change. One of the pitfalls of The Hermit is escapism, fleeing the problems of society in favor of a personal spiritual quest. In this way, the Hermit can be hyper individualistic and enable avoidance, spiritual bypassing, and abandonment of our fellow humans in pursuit of a “transcendent” life. (Looking at you, Thoreau. The Transcendentalists were the original “love and light” crew. I said what I said!) But Diogenes offers a model of a counter-cultural hermit who does not abandon the populace, who brings their lantern light to the public square and shares their unorthodox wisdom with any interested to listen.
We can observe this type of Hermit energy today in writers and creators who call out issues in popular narratives, beloved media, or cultural institutions—even when it’s annoying. We can experience it in counter-cultural groups, i.e. communities of outcasts, and collectives such as mutual aid groups, communes, or autonomous zones that operate independent of or outside of the government and mainstream cultural institutions. We can find it in underground punk shows, in activists, whistle blowers, and investigative reporters. In 2025, become inconvenient, defiant, ungovernable, noncompliant. Subvert systems, break the rules, question authority, refuse conformity, and piss people off because it’s the right thing to do. The Hermit is a rebel with a cause. What’s yours?
Of course, like any other card, the Hermit can be positive or negative, upright or reversed. There are rebels on both sides of the spectrum: from antifa to the Proud Boys, Henry David Thoreau to Ted Kaczynski, Occupy Wall Street to Waco. The difference between upright and reversed Hermit often comes down to integrity and illusion—are we guided by authentic, well-informed, spiritual integrity or by power, fear, escapism, control, or other ulterior motives? Are we being manipulated or misguided? Are we following uncritically? Remember: cult followers, political crusaders, and extremists often believe they are acting from a place of deep integrity, a result of getting lost in the illusions and delusions of The Moon. This underlines once again the importance of critical thinking, discernment, and humility for 2025 and beyond. In 2025, expect rebels and renegades; surprise reversals and defections; spotlights on outcasts and marginalized groups in both good and bad ways (trans folks, immigrants, religious minorities, people of the global majority, far-right fringe groups and extremists); and breaking with tradition and convention in both good and bad ways (first transgender U.S. representative Sarah McBride, first American president who is also a convicted felon).
A brief nerdy side note: Interestingly, Diogenes actually appears on a very early tarot card—but it’s not The Hermit. A mid-15th century tarot made for the Duke of Ferrara pictures a famous anecdote from the legendary meeting of Alexander the Great and Diogenes the Cynic on The Sun (above left). As the story goes, Alexander heard of the great philosopher Diogenes and visited him to grant him one wish. In response, Diogenes tells Alexander the Great that he wishes he would move; he’s blocking Diogenes’ sunlight.6
A Beacon in Darkness
Aside from continued rise of the far right and the very real dangers that entails, the biggest potential dangers I foresee in 2025 are escapism and individualism. When times are hard, people look for comforting answers in spirituality and religion, even if those answers are false. We must be brave enough to sit in the uncertainty and mystery of The Moon without succumbing to comforting illusions. When faced with rising fascism and a rapidly worsening climate crisis, it is imperative that we come together in solidarity to fight back with everything we have. I fear that we’ll do the opposite. I fear we’ll lean into the escapist qualities of the Hermit, detaching from the harshness of this reality to float in feel-good waters of spiritual bypassing. I fear we’ll withdraw into ourselves, become more individualistic, retreat into the reactionary mindset of “every man for himself.” I fear we’ll trade autonomy for acceptance, authenticity for approval.
But I hope that we won’t.
In 2025, may the Hermit’s authenticity and soul-searching lead us away from tyrants, conformity, and compliance. May their diligence, analysis, and critical rigor enable us to pierce through lies, propaganda, and misinformation. May their bravery in the wilderness embolden us to defiantly forge our own paths. And may their spiritual intimacy gift us the faith and devotion not to quit when the going gets tough, not to get lost in the darkest part of the night, but to use our lanterns to find one another and guide each other through the dark.
Despite its solitary reputation, the Hermit and their lamp is a beacon that can lead us to one another. This year, find your people, stick together, organize, and be of service to each other. Love each other as hard as you can, and spread that love to your wider communities. The only way through is together.
Calculating Your Personal Year Card
The collective year card is calculated by adding the digits of the year, but you have a personal year card, too! The collective year card affects all of us broadly in a big picture way, while your personal year card is individual to you and will usually be felt in a more personal, intimate way than the collective year card.
To find your personal year card, add the month and day of your birthday to the current year, and then reduce the sum by adding the individual digits until you get a number between 1 and 22.
Birth month (MM) + birth day (DD) + current year (2025) = WXYZ
W + X + Y + Z = Your personal year card
I’ll use my birthday, February 17th, as an example.
2 + 17 + 2025 = 2044
Then, add the individual digits of that sum (2044).
2 + 0 + 4 + 4 = 10
Number 10 in the Major Arcana is the Wheel of Fortune, my personal year card!
Since there are 22 cards in the Major Arcana, if you get a number greater than 22 you’ll need to reduce again by adding the digits once more. For example, if you got a sum of 25, add 2 + 5 = 7. Number 7 is the Chariot. If you get 22, your year card is The Fool, the 22nd Major Arcana card.
But that’s not all! Returning to the example of my year card, as a 2-digit number, 10 can be reduced further by adding the digits: 1+0=1. Major Arcana 1 is the Magician. There’s a third card in the Ones number group: number 19, the Sun, because 19 also reduces to 1. (1+9+10; 1+0=1). These cards will also have influence in my year.
Some tarot readers always reduce year cards to the single-digit number because 1 through 9 are the base numbers of numerology, in which case my personal year card would be the Magician. I do this a little differently. Since my birthday originally reduced to 10, I consider the Wheel of Fortune to be the primary force in my year, while the Magician and the Sun will have secondary influences. I can likewise look to the the 1’s (Aces) and 10’s in the Minor Arcana for themes.
Links to my stuff
Radical Tarot — buy from me, from Bookshop.org, or pretty much wherever books are sold
Fifth Spirit Tarot — buy from me, from Bookshop.org, or pretty much wherever books are sold
The Gay Marseille Tarot — buy from me, Little Red Tarot (UK), or Salon des Arcanes (France)
Pre-order Queer Devotion: Spirituality Beyond the Binary in Myth, Story, and Practice, coming May 20th from Hay House
Robert M. Place, Tarot, Magic, Alchemy, Hermeticism, and Neoplatonism (Saugerties, NY: Hermes Publications, 2017), 424.
Since my birthday, February 17, reduces to 1 (because 2 + 17 = 19 and 1 + 9 = 1), my personal year card is always 1 ahead of the collective year card! It’s an interesting experience because I get to live through the same card two years in a row and really get to tune in on how the collective and personal year card energies are experienced differently.
Rebecca Scolnick, “Welcome to 2025, a Nine Collective Year,” Swimming in the Soup, 1 January 2025.
Matt Lavietes, “Meta’s new hate speech guidelines permit users to say LGBTQ people are mentally ill,” NBC News, 7 January 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-new-hate-speech-rules-allow-users-call-lgbtq-people-mentally-ill-rcna186700.
An earlier version of this post said “misandry” here, but it was supposed to say “misogyny.” I got 3 hours of sleep the night before I posted this. 😅
Sherryl E. Smith, “Il Sole/Le Soleil/The Sun,” Tarot Heritage, https://tarot-heritage.com/from-trionfi-to-majorarcana/il-sole-le-soleil-the-sun/, accessed 17 January 2025.
Yay, my favourite Major Arcana!
this is so juicy & generous! thank you so much for writing/sharing & thank you SO MUCH for including my write-up & a link to my book. it's a pleasure to be in conversation with your beautiful brain! xx