Walking with The Hermit: Deepening My Relationship with Reading, Creativity, Money & Service

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Hello, creative spirits.
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Welcome to another episode of Your Creative and Magical Life.
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I'm your host, Cecily Saylor, here to talk with you about tarot, creativity, magic, and living a life that is enriched with meaning and substance and mystery through the embrace of all these things.
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Thank you for being here.
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I'm glad to be with you.
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Glad to be back on the mic.
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This is a solo episode, and today I am sharing with you some of the ways I'm noticing that I lived into the spirit of the Hermit card, which is, was, has been our card for the year in 2025.
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There was an episode at the beginning of the year about getting into the Hermit year.
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If you didn't listen to that and you're interested, it could be interesting to hear as the year is drawing to a close, but that's available in the feed if you want to go back to it.
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Today I'm gonna think about how my own life has met up with the spirit of the hermit this year.
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Unfortunately, I did not leave behind my whole life and spend the year in a cottage in the mountains writing and studying.
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That would be really cool.
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Probably be kind of lonely.
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But in my modern life, living in a big city, having my own business and sharing a home with a couple people, and you know, caring for family members and things like that, I still managed to have some hermit-inspired experiences.
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Some of them intentionally, maybe, and some of them just felt like they happened.
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And in hindsight, reflecting, I get to notice how my life moved in that direction.
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This is one thing I love about tarot, is of course, it's very mysterious, it's filled with archetypes that have breadth and depth and can be very big.
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But I'm interested as someone with a lot of Capricorn, earth placements.
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I'm interested in what that means in our lives, in our lived experience.
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And so that's what I want to focus on.
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And I think comparing the cards, like looking at how our lives meet up with and match the cards, help us understand the cards better.
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We find more facets of the card that can apply in certain situations.
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We have a larger reservoir to draw from in terms of what a card might be saying, what it might mean.
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And I just find it so fascinating to see these different kinds of manifestations of certain cards, not only in my life, but in other people's lives as well.
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So I'm gonna share five different ways that I walked with the hermit this year.
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And I'm hosting towards the end of this month in December, a workshop to help all of us reflect on the hermit year that we've had.
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And in that workshop, I'll be guiding us through reflection prompts.
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We'll do a tarot spread centered around the hermit to get some like graduation messages from the hermit as we close out this year.
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And also to thank the hermit for being with us, for guiding us through this year before we enter a Wheel of Fortune and Magician year.
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I'll also be hosting a workshop in January to help us explore those two cards for 2026 and set some intentions around that.
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I'll come back to those workshops at the end of the episode and tell you how to sign up.
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But it's all on my site.
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It's under events.
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But let me talk a little bit first about the hermit.
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Let me just revisit who the hermit is, what this archetype puts forward for us.
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Of course, in this card, we have the elder gentleman wrapped in his hooded cloak, standing at the top of a craggy mountain.
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I'm referring to the Smithwaite tarot.
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It's a dark night, there's snow on the ground, it is cold, it is not the most warm and inviting environment.
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It's a bit austere, it's a bit harsh.
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But the hermit is out there with his lantern, and within his lantern is this radiant flame, this light, of course.
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And in this card, that flame is depicted as a six-pointed star.
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And when we see a six-pointed star, we want to notice how this is created by two overlapping triangles, one pointing up and one pointing down.
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And this arrangement, this shape, refers to this exchange between what happens on the earthly plane and what happens on the spiritual plane.
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So the base of the triangle pointing up would represent the earthly plane, the mundane, everyday things, aspects of just being embodied on earth.
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And then the point of that triangle reaches up into the ethereal, into the heavens, into the spiritual plane.
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So this is about how the material world rises up into the divine, and then that downward pointing triangle, which creates the other half of the star, is how the spiritual realm descends down here to Earth.
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So it's referring to this two-way street between what we experience here as embodied humans, living in what seems like a very sometimes unspiritual reality.
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You know, we have to like go to the grocery store and pay our bills and have jobs and get paid and deal with health insurance and all this kinds of stuff that does not feel that spiritual, does not feel very inspired.
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Um, just the kind of stuff we have to do to stay alive.
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So there's that, but there is a spiritual reality that we are part of.
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And I do buy into the assertion that we are spiritual beings living in human bodies.
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And the world we live in is designed to help us forget that, or to also make us think that in order to be spiritual, we have to go somewhere else and interact with some kind of authority who can bring us spirituality.
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But spirit is in us, we are part of it, we are an expression of it, living here on earth.
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So just in that hermit's lantern, we're having this exchange between the human realm and the divine, the earthly realm and the spiritual.
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So the hermit is drawing on his own embodied experience, his lived experience, what he's encountered through life and what he's made that mean, what he's learned from it.
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And also the lessons of communing with spirit, of deeply listening to the world around him.
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We can imagine the hermit moving through the woods on the mountainside quietly, step by step, no humans anywhere nearby, no human-made noises, just the rustling of the leaves and the trees.
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The hermit can do this kind of quantum listening, where their body, their ears, their eyes, their nose, all of these sensory faculties are attuned to the environment.
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You know, living in cities, living in modern life, we are inundated with noises, with advertisements, with emails, with content that we may want to consume or just might end up consuming by accident.
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There's so many external inputs coming at us constantly, and the hermit has stepped away from that.
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They don't hear that stuff, they don't see that stuff, and in the absence of all that stuff, these attentive faculties of the hermit really blossom and open.
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So the hermit knows that mountain really well, and the hermit knows themselves incredibly well because they have been wandering and developing themselves through their journey.
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The other thing about the hermit is this cultivation of wisdom through the internal gaze.
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And what I mean by that is in the absence of so many of these distractions, the hermit has the space to tune in to himself.
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So reflecting on those experiences, reflecting on the texts they may have read, reflecting on the philosophies they've been developing on their own.
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The hermit finds a kind of wisdom through really being, through listening, through receiving.
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Because in the absence of all of those distractions, it becomes easier to detect the presence of spirit in different places and to commune with spirit in different ways.
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I do imagine that the hermit has a shelter somewhere on the mountain in the woods.
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Maybe a little, a little shack, a little hut, maybe a cave in the side of the mountain where they have some candles.
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They have some books, they have a very modest bed to sleep on, they have things to write with.
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So this place where dialogue within the self and with spirit can happen by candlelight in the darkness.
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And the hermit is a Virgo card.
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The Hermit is the card associated with the sign of Virgo.
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Virgo is an earth sign.
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Virgos are known to live in the spirit of service.
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They are committed to developing a craft they're passionate about and sharing it with the world.
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I know Virgos that are riders, that are coaches, that teach others, pass on lessons, share wisdom to those who are interested in receiving it.
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And that's something we can see in the hermit as well.
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Even though the hermit is separated from the larger social order, the hermit is also a safety measure in the wilderness.
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So if someone is out wandering in the woods or on some kind of quest, but they get lost, they get turned around, they're famished, they're running out of food or water, they hopefully bump into the hermit somewhere at just the perfect time.
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And the hermit can offer them a little bit of respite to gather themselves.
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Maybe the hermit shares a little bit of warmth, a little bit of soup, a little bit of tea, and also a little bit of wisdom, not only about where this person might go next on their journey and how to get where they're going, because the hermit knows the woods, knows the mountains, but also give them some profound insight just by being this channel, being this reservoir of spiritual wisdom, and through being so attuned to themselves and the world that just encountering a stranger in the woods, they can probably get a read on that person really quickly and not only help them find their way, literally in the forest, but also help them find their way in terms of knowing themselves, developing themselves.
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I imagine the hermit shares a sentence or two that really opens and expands the mind of whatever stranger may cross their path.
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So, in that way, the hermit is this wayfinder for people, someone who can help those who are lost get back on the right path and pursue what it is they're looking for.
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So I think that's good context for the hermit.
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I'll just add really quickly that the three minor arcana cards associated with the hermit are the eight, nine, and ten of pentacles.
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And in the eight of pentacles, in particular, we see this person focused on the pentacles, working and making more pentacles, getting better at forging and producing pentacles.
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And that really also speaks to the hermit's commitment to that Virgo sense of service.
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Like I deepen my craft so that I can share and create something that is valuable and meaningful to others.
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And when we get to the Ten of Pentacles, we see that there's a legacy that's been created.
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And so that comes through the consistency, the devotion of the hermit, which is ruled by Mercury.
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All signs are ruled by a planet, and Virgo is ruled by Mercury, and Mercury is the planet of communication, messaging, transmission, technology.
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So we can also imagine how the hermit not only has a little library in their cave of texts that have been informative and definitive for them, but they're also probably developing their own texts.
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And so when the hermit returns to the soil, to the stardust, there is a legacy of wisdom and information that exists in writing, in my imagination.
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And also through the wisdom that the hermit has over many years dispensed to those travelers who've gotten lost.
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Each of those people is carrying kernel of the hermit's wisdom with them and taking that out into the world.
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So that is the hermit.
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That is one way of looking at the hermit.
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And let me get into some ways that I lived into the hermit this year.
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So the first one is that I started reading more books again.
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I got kind of stuck in watching some shows at the end of the night in bed as a way to wind down instead of reaching for a book.
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I have lots of amazing books on my shelf, many of which I have not read.
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I live in a city with an amazing library system and can get just about any book that I want.
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And instead, I'd gotten into this habit of just passively laying in bed and putting on a show and zoning out.
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And as the year got deeper, I just noticed this wasn't very satisfying to me anymore.
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It felt it felt kind of superficial.
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Yes, it was entertaining sometimes, and I do still turn the TV on, but I really dove back into reading books, and it took a minute to get back in the groove.
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Like I had been one of my favorite books this year was Love and Fury, a fictionalized version of Mary Wollstonecraft of her life.
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Mary Wollstonecraft was the mother of Mary Shelley, and one of the first feminists of record, she really lived in such a way to resist some of the social expectations of women at her time.
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She resisted getting married.
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She resisted having children.
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Obviously, she did have children eventually.
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She also started a school for girls.
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She was very attuned to nature and wanted girls to have experiences in nature, to run around barefoot, to get their dresses dirty, and to protect them from this cattle chute of becoming a product in the social order geared toward marriage.
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She wanted women to have free will to cultivate their lives and follow their own dreams at a time when everyone else thought that was a hilarious notion.
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So this book was just beautifully written by Samantha Silva.
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Highly recommend it.
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But I'm still thinking about this book, and I probably finished it two months ago.
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And all of this has really shown me and reminded me just how powerful books are.
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I hadn't forgotten that.
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I want to be more committed to reading and reading often and reading a lot.
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And if y'all out there read 30, 40, 50 books this year or more, congratulations.
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I look up to you.
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I am following in your footsteps.
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I'm getting back on the path.
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And it just really enriched my inner life in a way that watching a show didn't.
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The second way I was living in the Hermit this year is that I really found greater clarity and solidity around what I offer through my work and what I want to teach.
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I've found ways and offers that are starting to systematize some of the wisdom that I've been cultivating through my work.
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Like this podcast, my work spans tarot and creativity and magic.
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And sometimes we're mostly talking about the tarot, sometimes we're mostly talking about creativity, but there's always some of one in the other.
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And the two are not paired together in obvious ways in the world.
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So it's always been a struggle to situate myself on this spectrum from tarot to creativity with all the magic in between.
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And to know how to talk about that or to know exactly what I want to teach or what even people in my community are wanting and needing in terms of their own development creatively and magically.
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But this year I feel like I really landed on something.
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This year I Created Creative Channel, which is a six-step process to help you reframe your relationship with creativity.
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And I opened that for enrollment once and gave about 20 folks a really beautiful experience.
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This course was based on a lot of the things I've been doing with my clients and one-on-one work, helping them reclaim their creativity.
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And instead of just, you know, doing it for individuals over and over again, tailored to them, I was able to take all of that information and turn it into a process that could guide just about anyone who's looking for it from feeling creatively frustrated, creatively blocked, to seeing creativity and experiencing creativity as a spiritual energy.
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Therefore, develop a relationship with creativity that is more defined by the awesomeness of creativity.
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And I mean like the awe of creativity and all it has to offer us instead of working with creativity through a capitalist paradigm where it's like I have to produce, it has to be good, it has to be great, it has to be loved, it has to be popular, which just puts so much pressure on our creativity.
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So it was really exciting to develop that.
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And then that unlocked the idea for creative enterprise, which will be coming soon in 2026, which is meant to help people who want to take their creativity and their creations out into the world and share it with people, whether for money or not.
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Think of the Two of Pentacles, where the person has these two pentacles connected in an infinity loop and they're kind of juggling them.
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For me, the creative channel is one pentacle and creative enterprise is another, and they're gonna feed each other.
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I'm gonna have people go to creative channel first before they join creative enterprise, because that's really foundational work to setting your relationship with creativity on your own terms.
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And then from there, if you want to share your work, we'll go support you in doing that in creative enterprise.
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So I had been struggling and kind of frustrated just offering one-off workshops.
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I had my membership, but wasn't feeling like the traction wasn't getting the response that I was hoping for.
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And that started to shift with creative channel.
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So I've got those two things, and then in the Creative Magic collective, we're gonna do a deck and walk with the tarot and astrology this year.
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So the tarot piece, the magic piece is covered, creative channels got the creativity covered, and creative enterprise as well.
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So just receiving the ideas to build these out, to create these things was really exciting and reflect refreshing.
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It felt like something I had been waiting for, something that I wanted to unlock for a long time, but just hadn't for whatever reason.
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And so all of those things, as I've said, really felt like the result of doing this work for eight years and having enough experience and working with enough people to see the patterns and then create a process, a journey for people to take, kind of like a hermit, that would get them into a more spiritual and expansive relationship with creativity, tarot, or magic.
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So that's number two.
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Number three, I really did, I have been doing, I am still doing, a lot of deep inner work around my relationship with money and my psychology around money.
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Typewriter tarot followed a big life event where I quit drinking, I started healing, and then like a year later, tarot came into my life, and then I created typewriter tarot and started blending it with creativity and trying to find my way.
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And in that process, ever since I quit drinking, it's been a spiritual journey the whole time.
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And there's different phases of that, there's different focuses of that, there's different courses of study, different little branching pathways that I've gone down that both enhance the work I do and also help me develop into the person I want to be or the person I'm interested in trying to become in running the business.
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It has still been a struggle to make the money that I need.
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And I think for the past couple years, it's been me thinking that, oh, it's just a matter of strategy.
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I just need to get better at selling, even though selling feels weird.
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I just need to get better at marketing.
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I need to start writing my emails in a kind of different way.
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Those are some things I have been doing and they have been effective, but I keep hitting a wall and I've been in a bit of a funk, to be honest.
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Just wondering is this work sustainable for me?
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Am I able to continue doing it or do I need to go back into the nine-to-five world and get something that's more secure and stable?
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I don't really want to do that.
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I will do it.
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I have done it.
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I did it for a long time.
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I worked in nonprofits when I was younger in my 20s and 30s.
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So I've also been very accustomed to being underpaid.
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And that's part of a psychology that I've been carrying with me all this time.
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And so while I was trying to change strategy or try to learn this skill, I finally gave up the like resistance, the illusion, and realized I gotta go deeper.
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I gotta work on my relationship with money.
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And I think, like creativity, money is an energy of sorts.
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I don't think it's only that.
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I do think money, you know, money is a human creation, whereas creativity, I think, is just ancient and has been existing for millions of years.
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I don't know where it comes from.
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But it feels like a defining flow, a defining force in the way our world is made and shaped.
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Money is much newer, but still old and made from human thought and human belief and human agreement.
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That said, it's both a real thing.
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There's money that we can touch, but it's paper that represents something, just like the numbers in our bank accounts are representative of a currency that we don't actually touch.
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So money is just super weird.
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And then it comes with all of these cultural connotations and different associations for each of us.
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So we all carry these stories and beliefs about money that we've inherited from family, from our work experiences, from the people in our community and the way people in our community were talked about, from the way that we experience capitalism and the opportunities we feel like we've had access to or been cut off from.
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All of that influences our relationship with money.
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And I was trying, like I said, to work on the strategy and get these other skills, and finally said, there's something under here.
00:27:15.200 --> 00:27:17.279
I gotta look under the hood, I gotta look deeper.
00:27:17.359 --> 00:27:19.200
There's some other cleaning up to do.
00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:26.000
And so I worked one-on-one with a coach this year around my money psychology.
00:27:26.240 --> 00:27:43.440
And a lot of that is going inward and looking at my own biographical experience with money, looking at my beliefs, looking at my thoughts, looking at my judgments, looking at what I make money mean to me, what it means to me to have money or not have money.
00:27:43.599 --> 00:27:45.599
Money is so interesting and so weird.
00:27:45.680 --> 00:27:48.400
It's like it's a real thing, but it's also made up.
00:27:48.640 --> 00:27:51.839
And we have this relationship with it day in, day out.
00:27:51.920 --> 00:27:55.119
It is our currency for survival now.
00:27:55.359 --> 00:28:11.119
And we're also living at a time when wealth is funneling upward and upward to people who already have it, and it's becoming harder and harder for people with a modest amount of money to just meet their own needs.
00:28:11.359 --> 00:28:15.440
So we're watching that on a collective level too, and making meaning out of that.
00:28:15.680 --> 00:28:24.000
And I also had the experience once in my early 30s, where I worked for nonprofits for quite a while.
00:28:24.240 --> 00:28:28.000
So I was used to being underpaid and undervalued.
00:28:28.400 --> 00:28:57.759
I think I chose it in part because I saw that making lots of money, as people I went to school with, were going and having more successful, let's say, careers, more higher profile careers, more higher paying careers, that doing the work they were doing seemed either too stressful or too much a compromise of their values, that you really had to go do something against your inner integrity in order to make money.
00:28:57.920 --> 00:29:13.599
And so I just went into this area of the system where the mission is to do good, but we sacrifice our own resourcing in order to be of service to the collective.
00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:26.960
Um, there was a period working in nonprofits where I went unpaid for six weeks, and that certainly had an impression on my experience with money, even though it was more than a decade ago.
00:29:27.279 --> 00:29:30.160
Doing some of this inner work brought that back up.
00:29:30.319 --> 00:29:34.160
And I was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.
00:29:34.319 --> 00:29:38.960
That makes sense why it's really hard for me to stand in the value of my work.
00:29:39.200 --> 00:29:46.000
So doing this repair, this healing, requires that inner gaze that the hermit shows us.
00:29:46.559 --> 00:29:48.480
And it is challenging.
00:29:48.640 --> 00:29:51.839
It's a little dark night of the soul type of stuff.
00:29:52.000 --> 00:29:54.720
But I also feel this shift inside me.
00:29:54.799 --> 00:30:02.160
And it's so interesting when we're doing this kind of work to feel that shift come inside first.
00:30:02.400 --> 00:30:10.319
It's like, oh, I feel like like a room opened up inside me, like someone opened a door, and it's like, here's another space you can access.
00:30:10.559 --> 00:30:21.920
Or like this drawbridge that was stuck in the up position finally lowered itself and connected these two pieces so that something new can travel through.
00:30:22.079 --> 00:30:24.559
And it's just felt sense inside myself.
00:30:24.640 --> 00:30:36.799
It's something that, you know, I've developed the ability to attune to since I quit drinking, since I started healing, since I've focused in different ways on the subtle work of knowing yourself.
00:30:36.960 --> 00:30:38.960
So I can feel this shift inside.
00:30:39.119 --> 00:30:40.880
And it's like, is this working?
00:30:41.039 --> 00:30:42.079
Is that really a thing?
00:30:42.240 --> 00:30:44.720
Is that actually happening or is this just my imagination?
00:30:45.039 --> 00:30:53.759
And then kind of looking outside to see how things start to change there, how the shift materializes in the external reality.
00:30:53.920 --> 00:30:56.079
And I am feeling some of that too.
00:30:56.400 --> 00:31:00.559
So yeah, this was the year where I finally said, we gotta deal with this.
00:31:00.640 --> 00:31:03.599
We gotta, we gotta look at it, we gotta go deep with it.
00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:06.240
And I'm grateful for it.
00:31:06.480 --> 00:31:07.680
Thank you, Hermit.
00:31:09.039 --> 00:31:19.200
So, number four, these are these last two are ones that feel a little less obvious, maybe like a little more unexpected.
00:31:19.440 --> 00:31:27.599
So, number four is that this is the first full year that I have volunteered at my local wildlife rescue shelter.
00:31:27.680 --> 00:31:36.000
So twice a month I drive out, it's about an hour almost from my house, kind of out in the country, and spend three hours.
00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:45.440
They have a screened-in porch around the side of the building where they put the juvenile possums, and it's just cage after cage of possums.
00:31:45.519 --> 00:31:49.279
Sometimes there's one possum in his cage, sometimes there's like three or four.
00:31:49.440 --> 00:31:52.000
They all have little hammocks hanging from the ceiling.
00:31:52.079 --> 00:32:10.319
So sometimes there's like a wad of possum in the hammock, and I would spend usually early mornings going down the aisle and pulling out their dirty linens and wiping down the bottom of their cages and putting in fresh food and getting really close to possums.
00:32:10.640 --> 00:32:16.640
A lot of people have strong feelings about possums, they think they're really ugly and scary, including my boyfriend.
00:32:17.039 --> 00:32:26.319
And they're really amazing animals, they're a really big important part of the ecosystem, and they are actually kind of cute if you look up close.
00:32:26.480 --> 00:32:33.680
Some of them are quite friendly, some of them are pretty chill, and others are mad at you just because you're standing there.
00:32:33.920 --> 00:32:40.640
So I have had a couple little scrapes with some possum teeth this year, but all good, no harm done.
00:32:40.720 --> 00:32:45.279
They're they don't carry rabies, they're kind of safer animals to work with.
00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:49.519
Like I don't get to work with the raccoons because they are a vector species.
00:32:49.680 --> 00:32:58.000
But then some mornings I'm in the aviary where the birds are healing, usually songbirds and doves and pigeons.
00:32:58.240 --> 00:33:02.400
I've seen, you know, the finches in there, the cedar wax wings, grackles.
00:33:02.720 --> 00:33:08.400
Some of these poor babies have messed up feathers and they look kind of jacked up.
00:33:09.039 --> 00:33:18.160
And you know, I've seen some birds that didn't make it, some that were really disabled by whatever happened to them, which is very hard to see.
00:33:18.319 --> 00:33:20.240
Of course, I'm a huge bird lover.
00:33:20.559 --> 00:33:27.680
But this action, this volunteering work, means I take a little pilgrimage a couple times a month.
00:33:27.759 --> 00:33:29.359
I go spend a few hours there.
00:33:29.519 --> 00:33:32.480
You cannot listen to podcasts.
00:33:32.640 --> 00:33:36.319
You can't listen to your phone when you're working with the animals, they don't allow that.
00:33:36.480 --> 00:33:39.839
There is a tremendous amount of laundry that gets done at this place.
00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:42.240
They have like four washing machines, four dryers.
00:33:42.319 --> 00:33:43.200
They're always breaking.
00:33:43.279 --> 00:33:50.720
There's always a giant pile of clean laundry to be folded and a giant pile of garbage bags full of dirty laundry.
00:33:51.039 --> 00:33:56.079
And I actually enjoy folding the laundry for them and will listen to my podcasts when I'm doing that.
00:33:56.240 --> 00:33:57.680
But otherwise, you have to really be present.
00:33:57.759 --> 00:34:05.119
You have to be focused on the animals, you have to be paying attention, you have to make sure you lock the cage when you turn away to go get their food.
00:34:05.359 --> 00:34:12.320
I have had a few birds fly out on me, and I've been able to gather them again inside the aviary.
00:34:12.400 --> 00:34:14.400
Sometimes a staff member has to help me.
00:34:14.480 --> 00:34:17.760
And then, of course, the shelter has all kinds of animals.
00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:26.559
I don't always get to see them, but there's porcupines, there are foxes, turtles, snakes, squirrels, so many squirrels.
00:34:26.639 --> 00:34:29.440
I've been feeding little baby squirrels, little like four.
00:34:29.920 --> 00:34:37.840
And I'm an animal lover, but I haven't had this very close, proximate experience to this many animals until now.
00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:45.440
And it is an act of service because I mean, obviously it's volunteering, so I'm giving some time.
00:34:45.519 --> 00:34:50.480
I'm giving some some of my gas over to getting there and some of my energy.
00:34:50.639 --> 00:34:54.159
It's not the most like chill volunteer assignment.
00:34:54.239 --> 00:34:57.679
It's not like licking envelopes while you sit and chit-chat.
00:34:57.840 --> 00:35:04.159
It's like making sure a possum doesn't bite you and making sure a bird doesn't escape from its cage.
00:35:04.960 --> 00:35:15.440
And it's really, you know, I love animals, like I said, and it's been really powerful to be up close, to be in service to the animals in a way that I haven't before.
00:35:15.519 --> 00:35:19.360
If I care about them so much, I should be helping because I can.
00:35:19.760 --> 00:35:24.159
So that's been really powerful and really beautiful.
00:35:24.320 --> 00:35:27.840
It's definitely deepened my appreciation for the animals in my area.
00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:29.280
I've learned a lot.
00:35:29.599 --> 00:35:36.000
And one thing I want to tell y'all is that you should know your local wildlife shelter.
00:35:36.159 --> 00:35:38.400
You should know what organization that is.
00:35:38.480 --> 00:35:47.519
You should have their phone number on your fridge just in case you come across a hurt bird or a hurt animal that needs some care.
00:35:47.679 --> 00:35:51.440
And then, because they can also tell you what to do if you describe the situation.
00:35:51.599 --> 00:35:53.679
Sometimes we need to leave the animals where they are.
00:35:53.840 --> 00:36:00.800
But the other thing is that most of these shelters do not get any public funding from the government.
00:36:00.880 --> 00:36:04.000
Like the city I live in does not give the shelter any money.
00:36:04.159 --> 00:36:06.559
The county does not give the shelter any money.
00:36:06.800 --> 00:36:10.719
They do give money to corporations that come here.
00:36:10.800 --> 00:36:28.159
They give them tax breaks, and these corporations get to build out and clear out the land and a big building and parking lot on, you know, 10 acres and wipe out habitat for animals and bring in more roadways where animals get run over or injured.
00:36:28.400 --> 00:36:35.679
And so all of these shelters are really operating through the kindness of their community and they should be getting public money.
00:36:35.840 --> 00:36:49.280
Taxpayers should be funding this because the developments that allow us to live in convenience and efficiency and have access to water or electricity, all of that stuff is disruptive to animals.
00:36:49.679 --> 00:36:53.760
But the entities that receive our tax money are not doing anything about it.
00:36:54.079 --> 00:37:05.920
So check out your local shelter, support them if you love animals like I do, know where they are, get on their email list so you can learn about the animals in your area and see some of the success stories.
00:37:06.079 --> 00:37:12.480
I love my shelter when they they post on Instagram when they're letting out some raccoons or foxes or whatever the case.
00:37:12.719 --> 00:37:13.840
Really inspiring.
00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:15.119
So that's my number four.
00:37:15.199 --> 00:37:24.239
That was very hermit for me to be with the animals, to be of service, to learn about the wildlife in my area, to learn more about them.
00:37:25.039 --> 00:37:29.280
And then number five, this one's also a little weird, unexpected.
00:37:29.440 --> 00:37:36.960
But as you know, if you've been listening, this year I started Airbnb my home and opening up, opening it up to guests.
00:37:37.280 --> 00:37:57.280
I did a lot to make the home really inviting for people, to make it a place that feels peaceful and warm, but also gently stimulating through the artwork that's on the walls, through the colors that are here, through the little knickknacks I have around the house.
00:37:57.519 --> 00:38:00.719
And some of my family members were like, you should lock all this stuff up.
00:38:00.880 --> 00:38:02.000
People are gonna take it.
00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:04.559
And I was like, I don't know, I think it looks good.
00:38:04.719 --> 00:38:07.039
I think it makes the place feel better.
00:38:07.360 --> 00:38:11.119
And no one's stolen anything this year that I'm aware of.
00:38:11.199 --> 00:38:16.719
And it's been interesting just having this space where all these different travelers are coming.
00:38:17.039 --> 00:38:24.320
I've had a couple people stay here in the midst of breakups or stay here and then go through a breakup.
00:38:24.480 --> 00:38:33.920
I think because this space is empowering to people, I think it reminds people of what they want for themselves.
00:38:34.079 --> 00:38:43.760
It reminds people that they deserve beauty, they deserve peace in their lives, they deserve warmth and coziness.
00:38:43.920 --> 00:38:49.119
And so I'm not saying there's a direct correlation, but I find that coincidence interesting.
00:38:49.360 --> 00:39:09.440
And then there have been people who come through, you know, I live in Austin, so there's people who come from San Antonio or Corpus Christi, other towns in Texas, and then there's people who are traveling from like Kansas or California, and all kinds of different people from different places, and I don't fully know that much about them.
00:39:09.519 --> 00:39:19.599
You know, I see their little picture in Airbnb, and we exchange a few messages, and it's interesting to see different people's communication styles, what they want to tell you.
00:39:19.840 --> 00:39:29.119
Um, had a very interesting person stay in my Airbnb who I've had a couple people I think who like did some rituals in here.
00:39:29.920 --> 00:39:45.039
I think well-meaning kinds of rituals, not like opening portals to usher in demons or anything, but just interesting to see how other people interact with the space and receive the space, and also some of the strange proclivities people have.
00:39:45.199 --> 00:39:49.679
Like, I have some pretty nice towels that look really nice in the bathroom.
00:39:49.760 --> 00:39:55.440
And one lady seemed to have bought new towels that I think were not as nice as the ones I had.
00:39:55.599 --> 00:39:56.800
So I'm like, what happened here?
00:39:56.960 --> 00:40:08.880
Like, did she what was it about the towels that she Couldn't use them and she had to get more towels, or maybe it's her thing where, like, she only uses her own towels, she won't use a towel that someone else used and that got washed.
00:40:08.960 --> 00:40:16.000
It's just interesting to watch human nature from a different view and to provide a space.
00:40:16.159 --> 00:40:32.079
I think the hermit element here is to have this space of sanctuary and refuge for the traveler, a space where they can feel a little bit restored, where they can feel at peace, they can enjoy the birds that are moving through the yard.
00:40:32.239 --> 00:40:38.480
In the spring and summer months, I've got sunflowers and other kinds of flowers growing.
00:40:38.719 --> 00:40:51.519
So I feel like even though Airbnb feels like it has absolutely nothing to do with a hermit whatsoever, I do feel like this process or this endeavor has that kind of function now that I think about it.
00:40:51.760 --> 00:40:54.719
So those are my five hermit things.
00:40:55.039 --> 00:41:08.159
Coming back to reading, solidifying and clarifying how I want to present my work and how it can exist in a learning system that people can access and use for their own benefit.
00:41:08.480 --> 00:41:17.199
Doing the inner work of healing my relationship with money, volunteering at the wildlife shelter, and Airbnb my house.
00:41:17.360 --> 00:41:35.360
So kind of a strange list, not what I would have expected at the start of this year, but really interesting to notice and appreciate how the hermit has inspired and infiltrated my life without me even fully being aware of it until this time of reflection.
00:41:35.599 --> 00:41:44.320
So I'm wanting to offer that to you as well in our reflecting on the hermit year workshop, which is on December 29th.
00:41:44.559 --> 00:41:46.079
And I love this time of year.
00:41:46.159 --> 00:41:50.639
I tend to offer some workshops to help us transition from one year to the next.
00:41:50.880 --> 00:41:53.199
So I've got more winter workshops coming up.
00:41:53.360 --> 00:41:54.559
We're gonna do the Hermit.
00:41:54.719 --> 00:41:57.440
The next workshop is pulling cards for the year ahead.
00:41:57.519 --> 00:42:20.320
I'm gonna take us through a big spread to pull cards for the full year and talk about how we can use them, how we can read them, how we can't read them, and how we can get creative in working with those cards to create a little journey and conversation with ourselves at the beginning of the year and the self that is going to travel through the year.
00:42:20.559 --> 00:42:25.760
After that, we're going to focus on the wheel of fortune, which is the card for 2026.
00:42:26.320 --> 00:42:34.239
And that's because two plus zero plus two plus six equals 10, which is the number for the wheel of fortune.
00:42:34.400 --> 00:42:39.599
But when you reduce that further, you add the one and the zero, you get one, and that is the magician.
00:42:39.679 --> 00:42:54.719
So both the wheel of fortune and the magician are cards for next year, and there will be a workshop to explore those two archetypes and the different invitations and lessons they might present us with in the coming year.
00:42:54.880 --> 00:42:57.920
And we'll take some time to set some intentions.
00:42:58.320 --> 00:42:59.599
What do we want to change?
00:42:59.760 --> 00:43:00.960
What do we want to explore?
00:43:01.199 --> 00:43:07.119
What might we already be wanting to do that feels in the spirit of these two archetypes?
00:43:07.360 --> 00:43:09.039
And then there'll be a couple others.
00:43:09.119 --> 00:43:18.800
I'm doing a workshop on astrology fundamentals, I'm doing a workshop on reading your astrological chart with the entire tarot deck.
00:43:18.960 --> 00:43:40.320
A very interesting process, and yeah, gives you a lot to think about and very, very in keeping with a wheel of fortune year because our zodiac charts are circular, just like the wheel of fortune, and we get to see our own personal wheel of fortune laid out through the tarot in the framework of astrology.
00:43:40.639 --> 00:43:53.519
And then I'll finish the winter workshops in March with a workshop on the Aces and the Pages because they don't appear prominently in the astrological wheel when we connect it to tarot.
00:43:53.599 --> 00:43:57.039
So I'm gonna give them some attention of their own.
00:43:57.360 --> 00:44:08.719
And each of these workshops is$33 to sign up, or you can get a winter class pass for$99, and you can get access to all of them, including the recordings.
00:44:08.960 --> 00:44:13.199
So there's about two workshops a month now through March.
00:44:13.440 --> 00:44:26.000
And then in March, I'm beginning in the Creative Magic Collective this Deccan walk journey where we're going to move through the astrological wheel 10 degrees at a time.
00:44:26.239 --> 00:44:33.920
The decans are 10 degree portions of the wheel, so there's 36 decans to make a 360-degree circle.
00:44:34.159 --> 00:44:37.760
And each decan is assigned a minor arcana card.
00:44:37.840 --> 00:44:43.840
So we have cards that belong to the signs, and then we have cards that belong to each of the decans.
00:44:44.480 --> 00:44:54.079
And so, like I said, Virgo's card is the hermit, and then the Deccan cards for Virgo are the Eight, Nine, and Ten of Pentacles.
00:44:54.320 --> 00:45:02.000
So we're just gonna go through the year decan at a time and explore these cards and learn more about astrology along the way.
00:45:02.159 --> 00:45:07.519
I am not an advanced astrologer, so I cannot teach at an advanced level.
00:45:07.840 --> 00:45:24.159
But if you're wanting to get more comfortable with astrology, if you're wanting to know more about how to look at your own chart and understand it and explore it, this will be a really great experience, especially if you have some familiarity with the tarot.
00:45:24.320 --> 00:45:28.079
That's really how it worked for me because I had some understanding of tarot.
00:45:28.239 --> 00:45:37.360
Going on a deck and walk myself with my teacher, Christopher Marmalejo, who offers a similar experience that you should check out if you're interested.
00:45:37.679 --> 00:45:43.280
Going through it that way has really unlocked a lot of astrological understanding for me.
00:45:43.519 --> 00:45:48.079
So I'm gonna offer that experience to my community.
00:45:48.239 --> 00:45:52.239
And you can also move through the year doing like a focus or an emphasis.
00:45:52.320 --> 00:46:04.639
Like every 10 days, you might create a little poem or a little drawing inspired by the card of that time, so that by the end of the year you have 36 little creations of some kind or another.
00:46:04.800 --> 00:46:13.039
You can also go through it just observing your own life and experience and what's happening around you and how that lines up with a certain card.
00:46:13.440 --> 00:46:16.480
You could focus on what's happening in the natural world.
00:46:16.719 --> 00:46:28.639
So there's a lot of ways to take it, and it's meant to be accessible, kind of microdosed without having you needing to commit a lot of your time to it.
00:46:28.880 --> 00:46:40.079
So if you want to, if you get a class pass and you decide to join the collective in 2026, we're gonna apply what you pay for the class pass to the Creative Magic Collective membership.
00:46:40.239 --> 00:46:48.800
And if you come to any of these workshops, you'll get a sense of what we're building toward with the deck and walk and whether this community is a place where you want to do it.
00:46:49.119 --> 00:46:50.960
So that's what's up.
00:46:51.199 --> 00:47:00.800
I know this is a long conversation where I talked about myself, but in the spirit of giving you some tangible examples of what it can look like to be in hermit energy.
00:47:00.960 --> 00:47:09.599
I hope that by hearing some of my examples, you're noticing some or going to notice some ways that you are living in the spirit of the hermit.
00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:11.679
I'd love to hear from you about that.
00:47:11.840 --> 00:47:17.840
If you're noticing anything, you can DM me on Instagram at typewriter tarot.
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:26.960
And yeah, I'd love to see you in a workshop if you want to keep going with the exploration and have a more structured reflection on the hermit year.
00:47:28.159 --> 00:47:29.440
All right, my friends.
00:47:29.599 --> 00:47:32.880
Thank you so much for listening to this podcast.
00:47:33.039 --> 00:47:37.119
Thank you for investing in your own creativity and magic.
00:47:37.679 --> 00:48:00.960
Congratulations on getting through a really fucking crazy year that really tested our inner fortitude and really tested our ability to be in our own energy when we're constantly being bombarded by news, by change, shocked by what's happening, scared about what's happening.
00:48:01.280 --> 00:48:10.239
So my heart reaches out to yours, to your courage, your resilience, and your creativity.
00:48:11.119 --> 00:48:16.239
I will talk to you soon, and I hope to see you soon in one of the workshops.
00:48:16.800 --> 00:48:18.079
All right, y'all.
00:48:19.360 --> 00:48:22.239
Enjoy your creative and magical life.
00:48:22.880 --> 00:48:24.159
I'll talk to you next time.