I wonder at why there is so little Justice, so little mercy …

because I’d like to believe we can live higher up on the Kohlberg hierarchy, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In the words and song of Mary Chapin Carpenter, Why Shouldn’t We?

• 78 Degrees: Justice depends on seeing the truth about ourselves and about life … which can be changed by a lesson learned in the present situation
• Kitchen Table Tarot: Justice is about action … which is why social justice groups are always marching around and making things happen
• The Creative Tarot: Justice asks us to put aside our more base nature and see things on a larger scale … then figure out where to take a stand

As always, Covid looms large in my Texas Tarot ruminations … along with dismay at the Stage 2 fixation of an administration that is devastating Justice in these dis-United States.

I feel like a wren, chirping loudly, over and over, “Look out! Look out!” …

as turbulent waters rush by …

Who knew it was all so tenuous?

IX – The Hermit is my “soul/spiritual symbol” …

based on my birthdate (June 18, 1956) and some number-crunching in The Tarot Handbook. And while I don’t yet grasp the meanings hidden within my natal chart, still I sense the “right-ness” of this from Angeles Arrien …

• “for those people whose birthday adds up to the number 18, The Hermit is [their] life-time spiritual symbol … deep regard for order and harmony … deep love for quietude and time spent alone … abilities for creating beauty, organizing and systematizing … valuing the time to be alone in activities that give comfort and nourishment”

And that really says it all, even though my usual Tarot guides have varied ways of saying much the same thing.

So, I chose that most solitary creature, the Great Blue Heron, to be my Hermit, though I have only rarely seen herons in Texas. Standing in still water, upright and alone, or flying overhead, an unmistakable silhouette, herons hearken back to my Williamsburg spiritual life, as some readers here will understand.

I also can’t deny how much I love the influence of the Smith-Waite Hermit on the Barrington Coleby/Colby illustration inside the cover of Led Zeppelin’s fourth studio album …

That illustration is linked in my mind to  J.R.R. Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, which has been my “favorite” book ever since I first read it in sixth grade. However many times as I have re-read it since then, The Fellowship has never failed to feel true. And no matter what anyone else may think, I’ve always imagined the “lady” in The Stairway to Heaven to be Galadriel.

All that by way of saying I chose to use but one image for The Hermit, taken from this (overlong and somewhat convoluted) blog post. The cloth is a collage in and of itself, with spare lines and a trace of new moon, so it seemed unnecessary to add anything else …

It stands by itself.