The Hermit Tattoo Meaning

Solitude, introspection, wisdom, and the inner light.

The Hermit is the tarot's card of solitude and inner wisdom — card IX, the old robed figure alone on a mountain peak, holding aloft a lantern that lights the way through the dark, having withdrawn from the world to seek the truth within. To carry the Hermit is to carry solitude, introspection, and the inner light — the wisdom found by withdrawing to go within, the lantern of hard-won understanding that lights one's own path and others', the truth that some knowing can only be reached alone, in stillness, in the dark.

The Hermit is card IX of the tarot's Major Arcana, and his image is one of solitary wisdom: an old, bearded man in a hooded grey robe stands alone at the top of a snowy mountain peak, having climbed far above the world below. In one hand he holds a staff for support on the steep path; in the other he raises a lantern, within which shines a six-pointed star (the Seal of Solomon), casting its light into the surrounding darkness. He has withdrawn from the world and ascended, alone, to the heights in search of wisdom and truth.

Every element speaks of the inward, solitary quest for understanding. The mountain peak is the height of spiritual attainment, reached through solitary effort; the lantern is the inner light of wisdom the Hermit has found, which he holds up both to light his own way and to guide others who climb behind him; the staff is the support of experience and discipline. The Hermit has turned away from the noise and distraction of the world to seek, in solitude and silence, the deeper truth that can only be found within. The tarot Hermit is the lantern on the mountain — card IX, the old robed figure alone on the peak holding up a star-lit lantern in the dark, the seeker who has withdrawn from the world and climbed to the heights in search of inner wisdom.

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