December 16, 2025 • 48 mins
2025 was The Year of The Hermit (and still is for a couple more weeks).
While I didn't move to a mountaintop cave (and you probably didn't either), The Hermit still had lots to teach me this year (and probably you too!).
In this episode, I briefly review the imagery, meaning, and archetypal substance of The Hermit...
Then I share five ways I worked with The Hermit this year — often without even realizing it in the moment. Some of these involved internal shifts, big downloads, and changes in routine. Others came from external experiences and interactions with other beings — human and nonhuman.
My hope in sharing my examples is that you'll be begin to notice how The Hermit showed up for you this year!
But if you want more help with that, join my Reflecting on the Year of The Hermit workshop on December 29.
HEAD TO THE EVENTS PAGE for details on this workshop and others coming up this winter, including another on the Wheel of Fortune (and The Magician), our cards for 2026.
If you enjoy the show, please subscribe, leave a review, and pass along to your creative and magical friends! Then have a sweet little chat about it!
If you wanna share about your Hermit year or what landed for you in this episode, send me a DM on Instagram @typewritertarot.
* Grab a copy of the novel I mentioned in this episode: Love & Fury by Samantha Silva.
* To hear more about our decan walk in the Creative Magic Collective in 2026, join the waitlist!
This podcast is a production of Typewriter Tarot. Learn more & join us:
- Join the newsletter and receive the first 3 journaling prompts from Tarot for Creative Spirits (the workbook).
- Subscribe to Typewriter Tarot's Substack.
- Check out upcoming events & workshops.
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- Book a Tarot reading.
- Shop our bookshop.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:15):
Hello, creative spirits.
Welcome to another episode ofYour Creative and Magical Life.
I'm your host, Cecily Saylor,here to talk with you about
tarot, creativity, magic, andliving a life that is enriched
(00:35):
with meaning and substance andmystery through the embrace of
all these things.
Thank you for being here.
I'm glad to be with you.
Glad to be back on the mic.
This is a solo episode, andtoday I am sharing with you some
of the ways I'm noticing that Ilived into the spirit of the
(01:02):
Hermit card, which is, was, hasbeen our card for the year in
2025.
There was an episode at thebeginning of the year about
getting into the Hermit year.
If you didn't listen to that andyou're interested, it could be
interesting to hear as the yearis drawing to a close, but
(01:23):
that's available in the feed ifyou want to go back to it.
Today I'm gonna think about howmy own life has met up with the
spirit of the hermit this year.
Unfortunately, I did not leavebehind my whole life and spend
the year in a cottage in themountains writing and studying.
(01:46):
That would be really cool.
Probably be kind of lonely.
But in my modern life, living ina big city, having my own
business and sharing a home witha couple people, and you know,
caring for family members andthings like that, I still
managed to have somehermit-inspired experiences.
(02:12):
Some of them intentionally,maybe, and some of them just
felt like they happened.
And in hindsight, reflecting, Iget to notice how my life moved
in that direction.
This is one thing I love abouttarot, is of course, it's very
mysterious, it's filled witharchetypes that have breadth and
(02:35):
depth and can be very big.
But I'm interested as someonewith a lot of Capricorn, earth
placements.
I'm interested in what thatmeans in our lives, in our lived
experience.
And so that's what I want tofocus on.
And I think comparing the cards,like looking at how our lives
(02:58):
meet up with and match thecards, help us understand the
cards better.
We find more facets of the cardthat can apply in certain
situations.
We have a larger reservoir todraw from in terms of what a
card might be saying, what itmight mean.
And I just find it sofascinating to see these
(03:21):
different kinds ofmanifestations of certain cards,
not only in my life, but inother people's lives as well.
So I'm gonna share fivedifferent ways that I walked
with the hermit this year.
And I'm hosting towards the endof this month in December, a
(03:43):
workshop to help all of usreflect on the hermit year that
we've had.
And in that workshop, I'll beguiding us through reflection
prompts.
We'll do a tarot spread centeredaround the hermit to get some
like graduation messages fromthe hermit as we close out this
(04:03):
year.
And also to thank the hermit forbeing with us, for guiding us
through this year before weenter a Wheel of Fortune and
Magician year.
I'll also be hosting a workshopin January to help us explore
those two cards for 2026 and setsome intentions around that.
(04:24):
I'll come back to thoseworkshops at the end of the
episode and tell you how to signup.
But it's all on my site.
It's under events.
But let me talk a little bitfirst about the hermit.
Let me just revisit who thehermit is, what this archetype
puts forward for us.
(04:45):
Of course, in this card, we havethe elder gentleman wrapped in
his hooded cloak, standing atthe top of a craggy mountain.
I'm referring to the Smithwaitetarot.
It's a dark night, there's snowon the ground, it is cold, it is
(05:07):
not the most warm and invitingenvironment.
It's a bit austere, it's a bitharsh.
But the hermit is out there withhis lantern, and within his
lantern is this radiant flame,this light, of course.
And in this card, that flame isdepicted as a six-pointed star.
(05:32):
And when we see a six-pointedstar, we want to notice how this
is created by two overlappingtriangles, one pointing up and
one pointing down.
And this arrangement, thisshape, refers to this exchange
between what happens on theearthly plane and what happens
(05:54):
on the spiritual plane.
So the base of the trianglepointing up would represent the
earthly plane, the mundane,everyday things, aspects of just
being embodied on earth.
And then the point of thattriangle reaches up into the
ethereal, into the heavens, intothe spiritual plane.
(06:16):
So this is about how thematerial world rises up into the
divine, and then that downwardpointing triangle, which creates
the other half of the star, ishow the spiritual realm descends
down here to Earth.
So it's referring to thistwo-way street between what we
(06:37):
experience here as embodiedhumans, living in what seems
like a very sometimesunspiritual reality.
You know, we have to like go tothe grocery store and pay our
bills and have jobs and get paidand deal with health insurance
and all this kinds of stuff thatdoes not feel that spiritual,
(06:58):
does not feel very inspired.
Um, just the kind of stuff wehave to do to stay alive.
So there's that, but there is aspiritual reality that we are
part of.
And I do buy into the assertionthat we are spiritual beings
living in human bodies.
And the world we live in isdesigned to help us forget that,
(07:22):
or to also make us think that inorder to be spiritual, we have
to go somewhere else andinteract with some kind of
authority who can bring usspirituality.
But spirit is in us, we are partof it, we are an expression of
it, living here on earth.
(07:43):
So just in that hermit'slantern, we're having this
exchange between the human realmand the divine, the earthly
realm and the spiritual.
(08:18):
So the hermit is drawing on hisown embodied experience, his
lived experience, what he'sencountered through life and
what he's made that mean, whathe's learned from it.
And also the lessons ofcommuning with spirit, of deeply
listening to the world aroundhim.
(08:40):
We can imagine the hermit movingthrough the woods on the
mountainside quietly, step bystep, no humans anywhere nearby,
no human-made noises, just therustling of the leaves and the
trees.
The hermit can do this kind ofquantum listening, where their
(09:05):
body, their ears, their eyes,their nose, all of these sensory
faculties are attuned to theenvironment.
You know, living in cities,living in modern life, we are
inundated with noises, withadvertisements, with emails,
(09:25):
with content that we may want toconsume or just might end up
consuming by accident.
There's so many external inputscoming at us constantly, and the
hermit has stepped away fromthat.
They don't hear that stuff, theydon't see that stuff, and in the
absence of all that stuff, theseattentive faculties of the
(09:47):
hermit really blossom and open.
So the hermit knows thatmountain really well, and the
hermit knows themselvesincredibly well because they
have been wandering anddeveloping themselves through
their journey.
The other thing about the hermitis this cultivation of wisdom
(10:08):
through the internal gaze.
And what I mean by that is inthe absence of so many of these
distractions, the hermit has thespace to tune in to himself.
So reflecting on thoseexperiences, reflecting on the
texts they may have read,reflecting on the philosophies
(10:32):
they've been developing on theirown.
The hermit finds a kind ofwisdom through really being,
through listening, throughreceiving.
Because in the absence of all ofthose distractions, it becomes
easier to detect the presence ofspirit in different places and
to commune with spirit indifferent ways.
(10:53):
I do imagine that the hermit hasa shelter somewhere on the
mountain in the woods.
Maybe a little, a little shack,a little hut, maybe a cave in
the side of the mountain wherethey have some candles.
They have some books, they havea very modest bed to sleep on,
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they have things to write with.
So this place where dialoguewithin the self and with spirit
can happen by candlelight in thedarkness.
And the hermit is a Virgo card.
The Hermit is the cardassociated with the sign of
Virgo.
Virgo is an earth sign.
Virgos are known to live in thespirit of service.
(11:36):
They are committed to developinga craft they're passionate about
and sharing it with the world.
I know Virgos that are riders,that are coaches, that teach
others, pass on lessons, sharewisdom to those who are
interested in receiving it.
(11:57):
And that's something we can seein the hermit as well.
Even though the hermit isseparated from the larger social
order, the hermit is also asafety measure in the
wilderness.
So if someone is out wanderingin the woods or on some kind of
quest, but they get lost, theyget turned around, they're
famished, they're running out offood or water, they hopefully
(12:21):
bump into the hermit somewhereat just the perfect time.
And the hermit can offer them alittle bit of respite to gather
themselves.
Maybe the hermit shares a littlebit of warmth, a little bit of
soup, a little bit of tea, andalso a little bit of wisdom, not
only about where this personmight go next on their journey
(12:42):
and how to get where they'regoing, because the hermit knows
the woods, knows the mountains,but also give them some profound
insight just by being thischannel, being this reservoir of
spiritual wisdom, and throughbeing so attuned to themselves
(13:04):
and the world that justencountering a stranger in the
woods, they can probably get aread on that person really
quickly and not only help themfind their way, literally in the
forest, but also help them findtheir way in terms of knowing
themselves, developingthemselves.
I imagine the hermit shares asentence or two that really
(13:24):
opens and expands the mind ofwhatever stranger may cross
their path.
So, in that way, the hermit isthis wayfinder for people,
someone who can help those whoare lost get back on the right
path and pursue what it isthey're looking for.
So I think that's good contextfor the hermit.
(13:48):
I'll just add really quicklythat the three minor arcana
cards associated with the hermitare the eight, nine, and ten of
pentacles.
And in the eight of pentacles,in particular, we see this
person focused on the pentacles,working and making more
pentacles, getting better atforging and producing pentacles.
(14:11):
And that really also speaks tothe hermit's commitment to that
Virgo sense of service.
Like I deepen my craft so that Ican share and create something
that is valuable and meaningfulto others.
And when we get to the Ten ofPentacles, we see that there's a
legacy that's been created.
(14:31):
And so that comes through theconsistency, the devotion of the
hermit, which is ruled byMercury.
All signs are ruled by a planet,and Virgo is ruled by Mercury,
and Mercury is the planet ofcommunication, messaging,
transmission, technology.
So we can also imagine how thehermit not only has a little
(14:53):
library in their cave of textsthat have been informative and
definitive for them, but they'realso probably developing their
own texts.
And so when the hermit returnsto the soil, to the stardust,
there is a legacy of wisdom andinformation that exists in
writing, in my imagination.
(15:14):
And also through the wisdom thatthe hermit has over many years
dispensed to those travelerswho've gotten lost.
Each of those people is carryingkernel of the hermit's wisdom
with them and taking that outinto the world.
So that is the hermit.
That is one way of looking atthe hermit.
And let me get into some waysthat I lived into the hermit
(15:37):
this year.
So the first one is that Istarted reading more books
again.
I got kind of stuck in watchingsome shows at the end of the
night in bed as a way to winddown instead of reaching for a
book.
I have lots of amazing books onmy shelf, many of which I have
not read.
I live in a city with an amazinglibrary system and can get just
(15:58):
about any book that I want.
And instead, I'd gotten intothis habit of just passively
laying in bed and putting on ashow and zoning out.
And as the year got deeper, Ijust noticed this wasn't very
satisfying to me anymore.
It felt it felt kind ofsuperficial.
Yes, it was entertainingsometimes, and I do still turn
(16:20):
the TV on, but I really doveback into reading books, and it
took a minute to get back in thegroove.
Like I had been one of myfavorite books this year was
Love and Fury, a fictionalizedversion of Mary Wollstonecraft
of her life.
Mary Wollstonecraft was themother of Mary Shelley, and one
(16:40):
of the first feminists ofrecord, she really lived in such
a way to resist some of thesocial expectations of women at
her time.
She resisted getting married.
She resisted having children.
Obviously, she did have childreneventually.
She also started a school forgirls.
(17:01):
She was very attuned to natureand wanted girls to have
experiences in nature, to runaround barefoot, to get their
dresses dirty, and to protectthem from this cattle chute of
becoming a product in the socialorder geared toward marriage.
She wanted women to have freewill to cultivate their lives
(17:25):
and follow their own dreams at atime when everyone else thought
that was a hilarious notion.
So this book was justbeautifully written by Samantha
Silva.
Highly recommend it.
But I'm still thinking aboutthis book, and I probably
finished it two months ago.
And all of this has really shownme and reminded me just how
powerful books are.
I hadn't forgotten that.
(18:26):
I want to be more committed toreading and reading often and
reading a lot.
And if y'all out there read 30,40, 50 books this year or more,
congratulations.
I look up to you.
I am following in yourfootsteps.
I'm getting back on the path.
And it just really enriched myinner life in a way that
(18:46):
watching a show didn't.
The second way I was living inthe Hermit this year is that I
really found greater clarity andsolidity around what I offer
through my work and what I wantto teach.
I've found ways and offers thatare starting to systematize some
(19:10):
of the wisdom that I've beencultivating through my work.
Like this podcast, my work spanstarot and creativity and magic.
And sometimes we're mostlytalking about the tarot,
sometimes we're mostly talkingabout creativity, but there's
always some of one in the other.
And the two are not pairedtogether in obvious ways in the
(19:33):
world.
So it's always been a struggleto situate myself on this
spectrum from tarot tocreativity with all the magic in
between.
And to know how to talk aboutthat or to know exactly what I
want to teach or what evenpeople in my community are
wanting and needing in terms oftheir own development creatively
(19:54):
and magically.
But this year I feel like Ireally landed on something.
This year I Created CreativeChannel, which is a six-step
process to help you reframe yourrelationship with creativity.
And I opened that for enrollmentonce and gave about 20 folks a
really beautiful experience.
(20:15):
This course was based on a lotof the things I've been doing
with my clients and one-on-onework, helping them reclaim their
creativity.
And instead of just, you know,doing it for individuals over
and over again, tailored tothem, I was able to take all of
that information and turn itinto a process that could guide
just about anyone who's lookingfor it from feeling creatively
(20:38):
frustrated, creatively blocked,to seeing creativity and
experiencing creativity as aspiritual energy.
Therefore, develop arelationship with creativity
that is more defined by theawesomeness of creativity.
And I mean like the awe ofcreativity and all it has to
(20:59):
offer us instead of working withcreativity through a capitalist
paradigm where it's like I haveto produce, it has to be good,
it has to be great, it has to beloved, it has to be popular,
which just puts so much pressureon our creativity.
So it was really exciting todevelop that.
And then that unlocked the ideafor creative enterprise, which
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will be coming soon in 2026,which is meant to help people
who want to take theircreativity and their creations
out into the world and share itwith people, whether for money
or not.
Think of the Two of Pentacles,where the person has these two
pentacles connected in aninfinity loop and they're kind
(21:42):
of juggling them.
For me, the creative channel isone pentacle and creative
enterprise is another, andthey're gonna feed each other.
I'm gonna have people go tocreative channel first before
they join creative enterprise,because that's really
foundational work to settingyour relationship with
creativity on your own terms.
And then from there, if you wantto share your work, we'll go
(22:03):
support you in doing that increative enterprise.
So I had been struggling andkind of frustrated just offering
one-off workshops.
I had my membership, but wasn'tfeeling like the traction wasn't
getting the response that I washoping for.
And that started to shift withcreative channel.
So I've got those two things,and then in the Creative Magic
(22:24):
collective, we're gonna do adeck and walk with the tarot and
astrology this year.
So the tarot piece, the magicpiece is covered, creative
channels got the creativitycovered, and creative enterprise
as well.
So just receiving the ideas tobuild these out, to create these
things was really exciting andreflect refreshing.
(22:45):
It felt like something I hadbeen waiting for, something that
I wanted to unlock for a longtime, but just hadn't for
whatever reason.
And so all of those things, asI've said, really felt like the
result of doing this work foreight years and having enough
experience and working withenough people to see the
patterns and then create aprocess, a journey for people to
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take, kind of like a hermit,that would get them into a more
spiritual and expansiverelationship with creativity,
tarot, or magic.
So that's number two.
Number three, I really did, Ihave been doing, I am still
doing, a lot of deep inner workaround my relationship with
(23:32):
money and my psychology aroundmoney.
Typewriter tarot followed a biglife event where I quit
drinking, I started healing, andthen like a year later, tarot
came into my life, and then Icreated typewriter tarot and
started blending it withcreativity and trying to find my
way.
And in that process, ever sinceI quit drinking, it's been a
(23:53):
spiritual journey the wholetime.
And there's different phases ofthat, there's different focuses
of that, there's differentcourses of study, different
little branching pathways thatI've gone down that both enhance
the work I do and also help medevelop into the person I want
to be or the person I'minterested in trying to become
(24:16):
in running the business.
It has still been a struggle tomake the money that I need.
And I think for the past coupleyears, it's been me thinking
that, oh, it's just a matter ofstrategy.
I just need to get better atselling, even though selling
feels weird.
I just need to get better atmarketing.
(24:37):
I need to start writing myemails in a kind of different
way.
Those are some things I havebeen doing and they have been
effective, but I keep hitting awall and I've been in a bit of a
funk, to be honest.
Just wondering is this worksustainable for me?
Am I able to continue doing itor do I need to go back into the
(24:58):
nine-to-five world and getsomething that's more secure and
stable?
I don't really want to do that.
I will do it.
I have done it.
I did it for a long time.
I worked in nonprofits when Iwas younger in my 20s and 30s.
So I've also been veryaccustomed to being underpaid.
And that's part of a psychologythat I've been carrying with me
(25:20):
all this time.
And so while I was trying tochange strategy or try to learn
this skill, I finally gave upthe like resistance, the
illusion, and realized I gottago deeper.
I gotta work on my relationshipwith money.
And I think, like creativity,money is an energy of sorts.
(25:42):
I don't think it's only that.
I do think money, you know,money is a human creation,
whereas creativity, I think, isjust ancient and has been
existing for millions of years.
I don't know where it comesfrom.
But it feels like a definingflow, a defining force in the
way our world is made andshaped.
(26:03):
Money is much newer, but stillold and made from human thought
and human belief and humanagreement.
That said, it's both a realthing.
There's money that we can touch,but it's paper that represents
something, just like the numbersin our bank accounts are
(26:24):
representative of a currencythat we don't actually touch.
So money is just super weird.
And then it comes with all ofthese cultural connotations and
different associations for eachof us.
So we all carry these storiesand beliefs about money that
(26:44):
we've inherited from family,from our work experiences, from
the people in our community andthe way people in our community
were talked about, from the waythat we experience capitalism
and the opportunities we feellike we've had access to or been
cut off from.
All of that influences ourrelationship with money.
(27:05):
And I was trying, like I said,to work on the strategy and get
these other skills, and finallysaid, there's something under
here.
I gotta look under the hood, Igotta look deeper.
There's some other cleaning upto do.
And so I worked one-on-one witha coach this year around my
money psychology.
(27:26):
And a lot of that is goinginward and looking at my own
biographical experience withmoney, looking at my beliefs,
looking at my thoughts, lookingat my judgments, looking at what
I make money mean to me, what itmeans to me to have money or not
have money.
Money is so interesting and soweird.
It's like it's a real thing, butit's also made up.
(27:48):
And we have this relationshipwith it day in, day out.
It is our currency for survivalnow.
And we're also living at a timewhen wealth is funneling upward
and upward to people who alreadyhave it, and it's becoming
harder and harder for peoplewith a modest amount of money to
(28:09):
just meet their own needs.
So we're watching that on acollective level too, and making
meaning out of that.
And I also had the experienceonce in my early 30s, where I
worked for nonprofits for quitea while.
So I was used to being underpaidand undervalued.
I think I chose it in partbecause I saw that making lots
(28:33):
of money, as people I went toschool with, were going and
having more successful, let'ssay, careers, more higher
profile careers, more higherpaying careers, that doing the
work they were doing seemedeither too stressful or too much
a compromise of their values,that you really had to go do
something against your innerintegrity in order to make
(28:57):
money.
And so I just went into thisarea of the system where the
mission is to do good, but wesacrifice our own resourcing in
order to be of service to thecollective.
Um, there was a period workingin nonprofits where I went
(29:17):
unpaid for six weeks, and thatcertainly had an impression on
my experience with money, eventhough it was more than a decade
ago.
Doing some of this inner workbrought that back up.
And I was like, oh, yeah, thatmakes sense.
That makes sense why it's reallyhard for me to stand in the
(29:38):
value of my work.
So doing this repair, thishealing, requires that inner
gaze that the hermit shows us.
And it is challenging.
It's a little dark night of thesoul type of stuff.
But I also feel this shiftinside me.
And it's so interesting whenwe're doing this kind of work to
(29:59):
feel that shift come insidefirst.
It's like, oh, I feel like likea room opened up inside me, like
someone opened a door, and it'slike, here's another space you
can access.
Or like this drawbridge that wasstuck in the up position finally
lowered itself and connectedthese two pieces so that
(30:20):
something new can travelthrough.
And it's just felt sense insidemyself.
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 wayson the subtle work of knowing
yourself.
So I can feel this shift inside.
And it's like, is this working?
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Is that really a thing?
Is that actually happening or isthis just my imagination?
And then kind of looking outsideto see how things start to
change there, how the shiftmaterializes in the external
reality.
And I am feeling some of thattoo.
So yeah, this was the year whereI finally said, we gotta deal
with this.
We gotta, we gotta look at it,we gotta go deep with it.
(31:03):
And I'm grateful for it.
Thank you, Hermit.
So, number four, these are theselast two are ones that feel a
little less obvious, maybe likea little more unexpected.
So, number four is that this isthe first full year that I have
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volunteered at my local wildliferescue shelter.
So twice a month I drive out,it's about an hour almost from
my house, kind of out in thecountry, and spend three hours.
They have a screened-in porcharound the side of the building
where they put the juvenilepossums, and it's just cage
after cage of possums.
(31:45):
Sometimes there's one possum inhis cage, sometimes there's like
three or four.
They all have little hammockshanging from the ceiling.
So sometimes there's like a wadof possum in the hammock, and I
would spend usually earlymornings going down the aisle
and pulling out their dirtylinens and wiping down the
bottom of their cages andputting in fresh food and
(32:08):
getting really close to possums.
A lot of people have strongfeelings about possums, they
think they're really ugly andscary, including my boyfriend.
And they're really amazinganimals, they're a really big
important part of the ecosystem,and they are actually kind of
cute if you look up close.
Some of them are quite friendly,some of them are pretty chill,
(32:29):
and others are mad at you justbecause you're standing there.
So I have had a couple littlescrapes with some possum teeth
this year, but all good, no harmdone.
They're they don't carry rabies,they're kind of safer animals to
work with.
Like I don't get to work withthe raccoons because they are a
vector species.
But then some mornings I'm inthe aviary where the birds are
(32:54):
healing, usually songbirds anddoves and pigeons.
I've seen, you know, the finchesin there, the cedar wax wings,
grackles.
Some of these poor babies havemessed up feathers and they look
kind of jacked up.
And you know, I've seen somebirds that didn't make it, some
that were really disabled bywhatever happened to them, which
(33:17):
is very hard to see.
Of course, I'm a huge birdlover.
But this action, thisvolunteering work, means I take
a little pilgrimage a coupletimes a month.
I go spend a few hours there.
You cannot listen to podcasts.
You can't listen to your phonewhen you're working with the
animals, they don't allow that.
There is a tremendous amount oflaundry that gets done at this
(33:39):
place.
They have like four washingmachines, four dryers.
They're always breaking.
There's always a giant pile ofclean laundry to be folded and a
giant pile of garbage bags fullof dirty laundry.
And I actually enjoy folding thelaundry for them and will listen
to my podcasts when I'm doingthat.
But otherwise, you have toreally be present.
You have to be focused on theanimals, you have to be paying
(34:00):
attention, you have to make sureyou lock the cage when you turn
away to go get their food.
I have had a few birds fly outon me, and I've been able to
gather them again inside theaviary.
Sometimes a staff member has tohelp me.
And then, of course, the shelterhas all kinds of animals.
I don't always get to see them,but there's porcupines, there
(34:21):
are foxes, turtles, snakes,squirrels, so many squirrels.
I've been feeding little babysquirrels, little like four.
And I'm an animal lover, but Ihaven't had this very close,
proximate experience to thismany animals until now.
And it is an act of servicebecause I mean, obviously it's
(34:42):
volunteering, so I'm giving sometime.
I'm giving some some of my gasover to getting there and some
of my energy.
It's not the most like chillvolunteer assignment.
It's not like licking envelopeswhile you sit and chit-chat.
It's like making sure a possumdoesn't bite you and making sure
a bird doesn't escape from itscage.
(35:04):
And it's really, you know, Ilove animals, like I said, and
it's been really powerful to beup close, to be in service to
the animals in a way that Ihaven't before.
If I care about them so much, Ishould be helping because I can.
So that's been really powerfuland really beautiful.
It's definitely deepened myappreciation for the animals in
(35:27):
my area.
I've learned a lot.
And one thing I want to telly'all is that you should know
your local wildlife shelter.
You should know whatorganization that is.
You should have their phonenumber on your fridge just in
case you come across a hurt birdor a hurt animal that needs some
care.
(35:47):
And then, because they can alsotell you what to do if you
describe the situation.
Sometimes we need to leave theanimals where they are.
But the other thing is that mostof these shelters do not get any
public funding from thegovernment.
Like the city I live in does notgive the shelter any money.
The county does not give theshelter any money.
They do give money tocorporations that come here.
(36:10):
They give them tax breaks, andthese corporations get to build
out and clear out the land and abig building and parking lot on,
you know, 10 acres and wipe outhabitat for animals and bring in
more roadways where animals getrun over or injured.
And so all of these shelters arereally operating through the
(36:32):
kindness of their community andthey should be getting public
money.
Taxpayers should be funding thisbecause the developments that
allow us to live in convenienceand efficiency and have access
to water or electricity, all ofthat stuff is disruptive to
animals.
But the entities that receiveour tax money are not doing
(36:52):
anything about it.
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 inyour area and see some of the
success stories.
I love my shelter when they theypost on Instagram when they're
letting out some raccoons orfoxes or whatever the case.
Really inspiring.
(37:14):
So that's my number four.
That was very hermit for me tobe with the animals, to be of
service, to learn about thewildlife in my area, to learn
more about them.
And then number five, this one'salso a little weird, unexpected.
But as you know, if you've beenlistening, this year I started
Airbnb my home and opening up,opening it up to guests.
(37:37):
I did a lot to make the homereally inviting for people, to
make it a place that feelspeaceful and warm, but also
gently stimulating through theartwork that's on the walls,
through the colors that arehere, through the little
knickknacks I have around thehouse.
(37:57):
And some of my family memberswere like, you should lock all
this stuff up.
People are gonna take it.
And I was like, I don't know, Ithink it looks good.
I think it makes the place feelbetter.
And no one's stolen anythingthis year that I'm aware of.
And it's been interesting justhaving this space where all
these different travelers arecoming.
I've had a couple people stayhere in the midst of breakups or
(38:21):
stay here and then go through abreakup.
I think because this space isempowering to people, I think it
reminds people of what they wantfor themselves.
It reminds people that theydeserve beauty, they deserve
peace in their lives, theydeserve warmth and coziness.
(38:43):
And so I'm not saying there's adirect correlation, but I find
that coincidence interesting.
And then there have been peoplewho come through, you know, I
live in Austin, so there'speople who come from San Antonio
or Corpus Christi, other townsin Texas, and then there's
people who are traveling fromlike Kansas or California, and
all kinds of different peoplefrom different places, and I
(39:06):
don't fully know that much aboutthem.
You know, I see their littlepicture in Airbnb, and we
exchange a few messages, andit's interesting to see
different people's communicationstyles, what they want to tell
you.
Um, had a very interestingperson stay in my Airbnb who
I've had a couple people I thinkwho like did some rituals in
(39:28):
here.
I think well-meaning kinds ofrituals, not like opening
portals to usher in demons oranything, but just interesting
to see how other people interactwith the space and receive the
space, and also some of thestrange proclivities people
have.
Like, I have some pretty nicetowels that look really nice in
(39:49):
the bathroom.
And one lady seemed to havebought new towels that I think
were not as nice as the ones Ihad.
So I'm like, what happened here?
Like, did she what was it aboutthe towels that she Couldn't use
them and she had to get moretowels, or maybe it's her thing
where, like, she only uses herown towels, she won't use a
towel that someone else used andthat got washed.
It's just interesting to watchhuman nature from a different
(40:11):
view and to provide a space.
I think the hermit element hereis to have this space of
sanctuary and refuge for thetraveler, a space where they can
feel a little bit restored,where they can feel at peace,
they can enjoy the birds thatare moving through the yard.
(40:32):
In the spring and summer months,I've got sunflowers and other
kinds of flowers growing.
So I feel like even thoughAirbnb feels like it has
absolutely nothing to do with ahermit whatsoever, I do feel
like this process or thisendeavor has that kind of
function now that I think aboutit.
So those are my five hermitthings.
(40:55):
Coming back to reading,solidifying and clarifying how I
want to present my work and howit can exist in a learning
system that people can accessand use for their own benefit.
Doing the inner work of healingmy relationship with money,
volunteering at the wildlifeshelter, and Airbnb my house.
(41:17):
So kind of a strange list, notwhat I would have expected at
the start of this year, butreally interesting to notice and
appreciate how the hermit hasinspired and infiltrated my life
without me even fully beingaware of it until this time of
reflection.
So I'm wanting to offer that toyou as well in our reflecting on
(41:40):
the hermit year workshop, whichis on December 29th.
And I love this time of year.
I tend to offer some workshopsto help us transition from one
year to the next.
So I've got more winterworkshops coming up.
We're gonna do the Hermit.
The next workshop is pullingcards for the year ahead.
I'm gonna take us through a bigspread to pull cards for the
(42:01):
full year and talk about how wecan use them, how we can read
them, how we can't read them,and how we can get creative in
working with those cards tocreate a little journey and
conversation with ourselves atthe beginning of the year and
the self that is going to travelthrough the year.
After that, we're going to focuson the wheel of fortune, which
(42:23):
is the card for 2026.
And that's because two plus zeroplus two plus six equals 10,
which is the number for thewheel of fortune.
But when you reduce thatfurther, you add the one and the
zero, you get one, and that isthe magician.
So both the wheel of fortune andthe magician are cards for next
(42:43):
year, and there will be aworkshop to explore those two
archetypes and the differentinvitations and lessons they
might present us with in thecoming year.
And we'll take some time to setsome intentions.
What do we want to change?
What do we want to explore?
What might we already be wantingto do that feels in the spirit
(43:05):
of these two archetypes?
And then there'll be a coupleothers.
I'm doing a workshop onastrology fundamentals, I'm
doing a workshop on reading yourastrological chart with the
entire tarot deck.
A very interesting process, andyeah, gives you a lot to think
about and very, very in keepingwith a wheel of fortune year
(43:28):
because our zodiac charts arecircular, just like the wheel of
fortune, and we get to see ourown personal wheel of fortune
laid out through the tarot inthe framework of astrology.
And then I'll finish the winterworkshops in March with a
workshop on the Aces and thePages because they don't appear
prominently in the astrologicalwheel when we connect it to
(43:53):
tarot.
So I'm gonna give them someattention of their own.
And each of these workshops is$33 to sign up, or you can get a
winter class pass for$99, andyou can get access to all of
them, including the recordings.
So there's about two workshops amonth now through March.
(44:13):
And then in March, I'm beginningin the Creative Magic Collective
this Deccan walk journey wherewe're going to move through the
astrological wheel 10 degrees ata time.
The decans are 10 degreeportions of the wheel, so
there's 36 decans to make a360-degree circle.
(44:34):
And each decan is assigned aminor arcana card.
So we have cards that belong tothe signs, and then we have
cards that belong to each of thedecans.
And so, like I said, Virgo'scard is the hermit, and then the
Deccan cards for Virgo are theEight, Nine, and Ten of
Pentacles.
(44:54):
So we're just gonna go throughthe year decan at a time and
explore these cards and learnmore about astrology along the
way.
I am not an advanced astrologer,so I cannot teach at an advanced
level.
But if you're wanting to getmore comfortable with astrology,
if you're wanting to know moreabout how to look at your own
(45:16):
chart and understand it andexplore it, this will be a
really great experience,especially if you have some
familiarity with the tarot.
That's really how it worked forme because I had some
understanding of tarot.
Going on a deck and walk myselfwith my teacher, Christopher
Marmalejo, who offers a similarexperience that you should check
out if you're interested.
(45:37):
Going through it that way hasreally unlocked a lot of
astrological understanding forme.
So I'm gonna offer thatexperience to my community.
And you can also move throughthe year doing like a focus or
an emphasis.
Like every 10 days, you mightcreate a little poem or a little
drawing inspired by the card ofthat time, so that by the end of
(46:00):
the year you have 36 littlecreations of some kind or
another.
You can also go through it justobserving your own life and
experience and what's happeningaround you and how that lines up
with a certain card.
You could focus on what'shappening in the natural world.
So there's a lot of ways to takeit, and it's meant to be
(46:20):
accessible, kind of microdosedwithout having you needing to
commit a lot of your time to it.
So if you want to, if you get aclass pass and you decide to
join the collective in 2026,we're gonna apply what you pay
for the class pass to theCreative Magic Collective
membership.
And if you come to any of theseworkshops, you'll get a sense of
(46:42):
what we're building toward withthe deck and walk and whether
this community is a place whereyou want to do it.
So that's what's up.
I know this is a longconversation where I talked
about myself, but in the spiritof giving you some tangible
examples of what it can looklike to be in hermit energy.
I hope that by hearing some ofmy examples, you're noticing
(47:04):
some or going to notice someways that you are living in the
spirit of the hermit.
I'd love to hear from you aboutthat.
If you're noticing anything, youcan DM me on Instagram at
typewriter tarot.
And yeah, I'd love to see you ina workshop if you want to keep
going with the exploration andhave a more structured
reflection on the hermit year.
(47:28):
All right, my friends.
Thank you so much for listeningto this podcast.
Thank you for investing in yourown creativity and magic.
Congratulations on gettingthrough a really fucking crazy
year that really tested ourinner fortitude and really
tested our ability to be in ourown energy when we're constantly
(47:53):
being bombarded by news, bychange, shocked by what's
happening, scared about what'shappening.
So my heart reaches out toyours, to your courage, your
resilience, and your creativity.
I will talk to you soon, and Ihope to see you soon in one of
(48:15):
the workshops.
All right, y'all.
Enjoy your creative and magicallife.
I'll talk to you next time.
Hello, creative spirits.
Welcome to another episode ofYour Creative and Magical Life.
I'm your host, Cecily Saylor,here to talk with you about
tarot, creativity, magic, andliving a life that is enriched
(00:35):
with meaning and substance andmystery through the embrace of
all these things.
Thank you for being here.
I'm glad to be with you.
Glad to be back on the mic.
This is a solo episode, andtoday I am sharing with you some
of the ways I'm noticing that Ilived into the spirit of the
(01:02):
Hermit card, which is, was, hasbeen our card for the year in
2025.
There was an episode at thebeginning of the year about
getting into the Hermit year.
If you didn't listen to that andyou're interested, it could be
interesting to hear as the yearis drawing to a close, but
(01:23):
that's available in the feed ifyou want to go back to it.
Today I'm gonna think about howmy own life has met up with the
spirit of the hermit this year.
Unfortunately, I did not leavebehind my whole life and spend
the year in a cottage in themountains writing and studying.
(01:46):
That would be really cool.
Probably be kind of lonely.
But in my modern life, living ina big city, having my own
business and sharing a home witha couple people, and you know,
caring for family members andthings like that, I still
managed to have somehermit-inspired experiences.
(02:12):
Some of them intentionally,maybe, and some of them just
felt like they happened.
And in hindsight, reflecting, Iget to notice how my life moved
in that direction.
This is one thing I love abouttarot, is of course, it's very
mysterious, it's filled witharchetypes that have breadth and
(02:35):
depth and can be very big.
But I'm interested as someonewith a lot of Capricorn, earth
placements.
I'm interested in what thatmeans in our lives, in our lived
experience.
And so that's what I want tofocus on.
And I think comparing the cards,like looking at how our lives
(02:58):
meet up with and match thecards, help us understand the
cards better.
We find more facets of the cardthat can apply in certain
situations.
We have a larger reservoir todraw from in terms of what a
card might be saying, what itmight mean.
And I just find it sofascinating to see these
(03:21):
different kinds ofmanifestations of certain cards,
not only in my life, but inother people's lives as well.
So I'm gonna share fivedifferent ways that I walked
with the hermit this year.
And I'm hosting towards the endof this month in December, a
(03:43):
workshop to help all of usreflect on the hermit year that
we've had.
And in that workshop, I'll beguiding us through reflection
prompts.
We'll do a tarot spread centeredaround the hermit to get some
like graduation messages fromthe hermit as we close out this
(04:03):
year.
And also to thank the hermit forbeing with us, for guiding us
through this year before weenter a Wheel of Fortune and
Magician year.
I'll also be hosting a workshopin January to help us explore
those two cards for 2026 and setsome intentions around that.
(04:24):
I'll come back to thoseworkshops at the end of the
episode and tell you how to signup.
But it's all on my site.
It's under events.
But let me talk a little bitfirst about the hermit.
Let me just revisit who thehermit is, what this archetype
puts forward for us.
(04:45):
Of course, in this card, we havethe elder gentleman wrapped in
his hooded cloak, standing atthe top of a craggy mountain.
I'm referring to the Smithwaitetarot.
It's a dark night, there's snowon the ground, it is cold, it is
(05:07):
not the most warm and invitingenvironment.
It's a bit austere, it's a bitharsh.
But the hermit is out there withhis lantern, and within his
lantern is this radiant flame,this light, of course.
And in this card, that flame isdepicted as a six-pointed star.
(05:32):
And when we see a six-pointedstar, we want to notice how this
is created by two overlappingtriangles, one pointing up and
one pointing down.
And this arrangement, thisshape, refers to this exchange
between what happens on theearthly plane and what happens
(05:54):
on the spiritual plane.
So the base of the trianglepointing up would represent the
earthly plane, the mundane,everyday things, aspects of just
being embodied on earth.
And then the point of thattriangle reaches up into the
ethereal, into the heavens, intothe spiritual plane.
(06:16):
So this is about how thematerial world rises up into the
divine, and then that downwardpointing triangle, which creates
the other half of the star, ishow the spiritual realm descends
down here to Earth.
So it's referring to thistwo-way street between what we
(06:37):
experience here as embodiedhumans, living in what seems
like a very sometimesunspiritual reality.
You know, we have to like go tothe grocery store and pay our
bills and have jobs and get paidand deal with health insurance
and all this kinds of stuff thatdoes not feel that spiritual,
(06:58):
does not feel very inspired.
Um, just the kind of stuff wehave to do to stay alive.
So there's that, but there is aspiritual reality that we are
part of.
And I do buy into the assertionthat we are spiritual beings
living in human bodies.
And the world we live in isdesigned to help us forget that,
(07:22):
or to also make us think that inorder to be spiritual, we have
to go somewhere else andinteract with some kind of
authority who can bring usspirituality.
But spirit is in us, we are partof it, we are an expression of
it, living here on earth.
(07:43):
So just in that hermit'slantern, we're having this
exchange between the human realmand the divine, the earthly
realm and the spiritual.
(08:18):
So the hermit is drawing on hisown embodied experience, his
lived experience, what he'sencountered through life and
what he's made that mean, whathe's learned from it.
And also the lessons ofcommuning with spirit, of deeply
listening to the world aroundhim.
(08:40):
We can imagine the hermit movingthrough the woods on the
mountainside quietly, step bystep, no humans anywhere nearby,
no human-made noises, just therustling of the leaves and the
trees.
The hermit can do this kind ofquantum listening, where their
(09:05):
body, their ears, their eyes,their nose, all of these sensory
faculties are attuned to theenvironment.
You know, living in cities,living in modern life, we are
inundated with noises, withadvertisements, with emails,
(09:25):
with content that we may want toconsume or just might end up
consuming by accident.
There's so many external inputscoming at us constantly, and the
hermit has stepped away fromthat.
They don't hear that stuff, theydon't see that stuff, and in the
absence of all that stuff, theseattentive faculties of the
(09:47):
hermit really blossom and open.
So the hermit knows thatmountain really well, and the
hermit knows themselvesincredibly well because they
have been wandering anddeveloping themselves through
their journey.
The other thing about the hermitis this cultivation of wisdom
(10:08):
through the internal gaze.
And what I mean by that is inthe absence of so many of these
distractions, the hermit has thespace to tune in to himself.
So reflecting on thoseexperiences, reflecting on the
texts they may have read,reflecting on the philosophies
(10:32):
they've been developing on theirown.
The hermit finds a kind ofwisdom through really being,
through listening, throughreceiving.
Because in the absence of all ofthose distractions, it becomes
easier to detect the presence ofspirit in different places and
to commune with spirit indifferent ways.
(10:53):
I do imagine that the hermit hasa shelter somewhere on the
mountain in the woods.
Maybe a little, a little shack,a little hut, maybe a cave in
the side of the mountain wherethey have some candles.
They have some books, they havea very modest bed to sleep on,
(11:14):
they have things to write with.
So this place where dialoguewithin the self and with spirit
can happen by candlelight in thedarkness.
And the hermit is a Virgo card.
The Hermit is the cardassociated with the sign of
Virgo.
Virgo is an earth sign.
Virgos are known to live in thespirit of service.
(11:36):
They are committed to developinga craft they're passionate about
and sharing it with the world.
I know Virgos that are riders,that are coaches, that teach
others, pass on lessons, sharewisdom to those who are
interested in receiving it.
(11:57):
And that's something we can seein the hermit as well.
Even though the hermit isseparated from the larger social
order, the hermit is also asafety measure in the
wilderness.
So if someone is out wanderingin the woods or on some kind of
quest, but they get lost, theyget turned around, they're
famished, they're running out offood or water, they hopefully
(12:21):
bump into the hermit somewhereat just the perfect time.
And the hermit can offer them alittle bit of respite to gather
themselves.
Maybe the hermit shares a littlebit of warmth, a little bit of
soup, a little bit of tea, andalso a little bit of wisdom, not
only about where this personmight go next on their journey
(12:42):
and how to get where they'regoing, because the hermit knows
the woods, knows the mountains,but also give them some profound
insight just by being thischannel, being this reservoir of
spiritual wisdom, and throughbeing so attuned to themselves
(13:04):
and the world that justencountering a stranger in the
woods, they can probably get aread on that person really
quickly and not only help themfind their way, literally in the
forest, but also help them findtheir way in terms of knowing
themselves, developingthemselves.
I imagine the hermit shares asentence or two that really
(13:24):
opens and expands the mind ofwhatever stranger may cross
their path.
So, in that way, the hermit isthis wayfinder for people,
someone who can help those whoare lost get back on the right
path and pursue what it isthey're looking for.
So I think that's good contextfor the hermit.
(13:48):
I'll just add really quicklythat the three minor arcana
cards associated with the hermitare the eight, nine, and ten of
pentacles.
And in the eight of pentacles,in particular, we see this
person focused on the pentacles,working and making more
pentacles, getting better atforging and producing pentacles.
(14:11):
And that really also speaks tothe hermit's commitment to that
Virgo sense of service.
Like I deepen my craft so that Ican share and create something
that is valuable and meaningfulto others.
And when we get to the Ten ofPentacles, we see that there's a
legacy that's been created.
(14:31):
And so that comes through theconsistency, the devotion of the
hermit, which is ruled byMercury.
All signs are ruled by a planet,and Virgo is ruled by Mercury,
and Mercury is the planet ofcommunication, messaging,
transmission, technology.
So we can also imagine how thehermit not only has a little
(14:53):
library in their cave of textsthat have been informative and
definitive for them, but they'realso probably developing their
own texts.
And so when the hermit returnsto the soil, to the stardust,
there is a legacy of wisdom andinformation that exists in
writing, in my imagination.
(15:14):
And also through the wisdom thatthe hermit has over many years
dispensed to those travelerswho've gotten lost.
Each of those people is carryingkernel of the hermit's wisdom
with them and taking that outinto the world.
So that is the hermit.
That is one way of looking atthe hermit.
And let me get into some waysthat I lived into the hermit
(15:37):
this year.
So the first one is that Istarted reading more books
again.
I got kind of stuck in watchingsome shows at the end of the
night in bed as a way to winddown instead of reaching for a
book.
I have lots of amazing books onmy shelf, many of which I have
not read.
I live in a city with an amazinglibrary system and can get just
(15:58):
about any book that I want.
And instead, I'd gotten intothis habit of just passively
laying in bed and putting on ashow and zoning out.
And as the year got deeper, Ijust noticed this wasn't very
satisfying to me anymore.
It felt it felt kind ofsuperficial.
Yes, it was entertainingsometimes, and I do still turn
(16:20):
the TV on, but I really doveback into reading books, and it
took a minute to get back in thegroove.
Like I had been one of myfavorite books this year was
Love and Fury, a fictionalizedversion of Mary Wollstonecraft
of her life.
Mary Wollstonecraft was themother of Mary Shelley, and one
(16:40):
of the first feminists ofrecord, she really lived in such
a way to resist some of thesocial expectations of women at
her time.
She resisted getting married.
She resisted having children.
Obviously, she did have childreneventually.
She also started a school forgirls.
(17:01):
She was very attuned to natureand wanted girls to have
experiences in nature, to runaround barefoot, to get their
dresses dirty, and to protectthem from this cattle chute of
becoming a product in the socialorder geared toward marriage.
She wanted women to have freewill to cultivate their lives
(17:25):
and follow their own dreams at atime when everyone else thought
that was a hilarious notion.
So this book was justbeautifully written by Samantha
Silva.
Highly recommend it.
But I'm still thinking aboutthis book, and I probably
finished it two months ago.
And all of this has really shownme and reminded me just how
powerful books are.
I hadn't forgotten that.
(18:26):
I want to be more committed toreading and reading often and
reading a lot.
And if y'all out there read 30,40, 50 books this year or more,
congratulations.
I look up to you.
I am following in yourfootsteps.
I'm getting back on the path.
And it just really enriched myinner life in a way that
(18:46):
watching a show didn't.
The second way I was living inthe Hermit this year is that I
really found greater clarity andsolidity around what I offer
through my work and what I wantto teach.
I've found ways and offers thatare starting to systematize some
(19:10):
of the wisdom that I've beencultivating through my work.
Like this podcast, my work spanstarot and creativity and magic.
And sometimes we're mostlytalking about the tarot,
sometimes we're mostly talkingabout creativity, but there's
always some of one in the other.
And the two are not pairedtogether in obvious ways in the
(19:33):
world.
So it's always been a struggleto situate myself on this
spectrum from tarot tocreativity with all the magic in
between.
And to know how to talk aboutthat or to know exactly what I
want to teach or what evenpeople in my community are
wanting and needing in terms oftheir own development creatively
(19:54):
and magically.
But this year I feel like Ireally landed on something.
This year I Created CreativeChannel, which is a six-step
process to help you reframe yourrelationship with creativity.
And I opened that for enrollmentonce and gave about 20 folks a
really beautiful experience.
(20:15):
This course was based on a lotof the things I've been doing
with my clients and one-on-onework, helping them reclaim their
creativity.
And instead of just, you know,doing it for individuals over
and over again, tailored tothem, I was able to take all of
that information and turn itinto a process that could guide
just about anyone who's lookingfor it from feeling creatively
(20:38):
frustrated, creatively blocked,to seeing creativity and
experiencing creativity as aspiritual energy.
Therefore, develop arelationship with creativity
that is more defined by theawesomeness of creativity.
And I mean like the awe ofcreativity and all it has to
(20:59):
offer us instead of working withcreativity through a capitalist
paradigm where it's like I haveto produce, it has to be good,
it has to be great, it has to beloved, it has to be popular,
which just puts so much pressureon our creativity.
So it was really exciting todevelop that.
And then that unlocked the ideafor creative enterprise, which
(21:21):
will be coming soon in 2026,which is meant to help people
who want to take theircreativity and their creations
out into the world and share itwith people, whether for money
or not.
Think of the Two of Pentacles,where the person has these two
pentacles connected in aninfinity loop and they're kind
(21:42):
of juggling them.
For me, the creative channel isone pentacle and creative
enterprise is another, andthey're gonna feed each other.
I'm gonna have people go tocreative channel first before
they join creative enterprise,because that's really
foundational work to settingyour relationship with
creativity on your own terms.
And then from there, if you wantto share your work, we'll go
(22:03):
support you in doing that increative enterprise.
So I had been struggling andkind of frustrated just offering
one-off workshops.
I had my membership, but wasn'tfeeling like the traction wasn't
getting the response that I washoping for.
And that started to shift withcreative channel.
So I've got those two things,and then in the Creative Magic
(22:24):
collective, we're gonna do adeck and walk with the tarot and
astrology this year.
So the tarot piece, the magicpiece is covered, creative
channels got the creativitycovered, and creative enterprise
as well.
So just receiving the ideas tobuild these out, to create these
things was really exciting andreflect refreshing.
(22:45):
It felt like something I hadbeen waiting for, something that
I wanted to unlock for a longtime, but just hadn't for
whatever reason.
And so all of those things, asI've said, really felt like the
result of doing this work foreight years and having enough
experience and working withenough people to see the
patterns and then create aprocess, a journey for people to
(23:10):
take, kind of like a hermit,that would get them into a more
spiritual and expansiverelationship with creativity,
tarot, or magic.
So that's number two.
Number three, I really did, Ihave been doing, I am still
doing, a lot of deep inner workaround my relationship with
(23:32):
money and my psychology aroundmoney.
Typewriter tarot followed a biglife event where I quit
drinking, I started healing, andthen like a year later, tarot
came into my life, and then Icreated typewriter tarot and
started blending it withcreativity and trying to find my
way.
And in that process, ever sinceI quit drinking, it's been a
(23:53):
spiritual journey the wholetime.
And there's different phases ofthat, there's different focuses
of that, there's differentcourses of study, different
little branching pathways thatI've gone down that both enhance
the work I do and also help medevelop into the person I want
to be or the person I'minterested in trying to become
(24:16):
in running the business.
It has still been a struggle tomake the money that I need.
And I think for the past coupleyears, it's been me thinking
that, oh, it's just a matter ofstrategy.
I just need to get better atselling, even though selling
feels weird.
I just need to get better atmarketing.
(24:37):
I need to start writing myemails in a kind of different
way.
Those are some things I havebeen doing and they have been
effective, but I keep hitting awall and I've been in a bit of a
funk, to be honest.
Just wondering is this worksustainable for me?
Am I able to continue doing itor do I need to go back into the
(24:58):
nine-to-five world and getsomething that's more secure and
stable?
I don't really want to do that.
I will do it.
I have done it.
I did it for a long time.
I worked in nonprofits when Iwas younger in my 20s and 30s.
So I've also been veryaccustomed to being underpaid.
And that's part of a psychologythat I've been carrying with me
(25:20):
all this time.
And so while I was trying tochange strategy or try to learn
this skill, I finally gave upthe like resistance, the
illusion, and realized I gottago deeper.
I gotta work on my relationshipwith money.
And I think, like creativity,money is an energy of sorts.
(25:42):
I don't think it's only that.
I do think money, you know,money is a human creation,
whereas creativity, I think, isjust ancient and has been
existing for millions of years.
I don't know where it comesfrom.
But it feels like a definingflow, a defining force in the
way our world is made andshaped.
(26:03):
Money is much newer, but stillold and made from human thought
and human belief and humanagreement.
That said, it's both a realthing.
There's money that we can touch,but it's paper that represents
something, just like the numbersin our bank accounts are
(26:24):
representative of a currencythat we don't actually touch.
So money is just super weird.
And then it comes with all ofthese cultural connotations and
different associations for eachof us.
So we all carry these storiesand beliefs about money that
(26:44):
we've inherited from family,from our work experiences, from
the people in our community andthe way people in our community
were talked about, from the waythat we experience capitalism
and the opportunities we feellike we've had access to or been
cut off from.
All of that influences ourrelationship with money.
(27:05):
And I was trying, like I said,to work on the strategy and get
these other skills, and finallysaid, there's something under
here.
I gotta look under the hood, Igotta look deeper.
There's some other cleaning upto do.
And so I worked one-on-one witha coach this year around my
money psychology.
(27:26):
And a lot of that is goinginward and looking at my own
biographical experience withmoney, looking at my beliefs,
looking at my thoughts, lookingat my judgments, looking at what
I make money mean to me, what itmeans to me to have money or not
have money.
Money is so interesting and soweird.
It's like it's a real thing, butit's also made up.
(27:48):
And we have this relationshipwith it day in, day out.
It is our currency for survivalnow.
And we're also living at a timewhen wealth is funneling upward
and upward to people who alreadyhave it, and it's becoming
harder and harder for peoplewith a modest amount of money to
(28:09):
just meet their own needs.
So we're watching that on acollective level too, and making
meaning out of that.
And I also had the experienceonce in my early 30s, where I
worked for nonprofits for quitea while.
So I was used to being underpaidand undervalued.
I think I chose it in partbecause I saw that making lots
(28:33):
of money, as people I went toschool with, were going and
having more successful, let'ssay, careers, more higher
profile careers, more higherpaying careers, that doing the
work they were doing seemedeither too stressful or too much
a compromise of their values,that you really had to go do
something against your innerintegrity in order to make
(28:57):
money.
And so I just went into thisarea of the system where the
mission is to do good, but wesacrifice our own resourcing in
order to be of service to thecollective.
Um, there was a period workingin nonprofits where I went
(29:17):
unpaid for six weeks, and thatcertainly had an impression on
my experience with money, eventhough it was more than a decade
ago.
Doing some of this inner workbrought that back up.
And I was like, oh, yeah, thatmakes sense.
That makes sense why it's reallyhard for me to stand in the
(29:38):
value of my work.
So doing this repair, thishealing, requires that inner
gaze that the hermit shows us.
And it is challenging.
It's a little dark night of thesoul type of stuff.
But I also feel this shiftinside me.
And it's so interesting whenwe're doing this kind of work to
(29:59):
feel that shift come insidefirst.
It's like, oh, I feel like likea room opened up inside me, like
someone opened a door, and it'slike, here's another space you
can access.
Or like this drawbridge that wasstuck in the up position finally
lowered itself and connectedthese two pieces so that
(30:20):
something new can travelthrough.
And it's just felt sense insidemyself.
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 wayson the subtle work of knowing
yourself.
So I can feel this shift inside.
And it's like, is this working?
(30:41):
Is that really a thing?
Is that actually happening or isthis just my imagination?
And then kind of looking outsideto see how things start to
change there, how the shiftmaterializes in the external
reality.
And I am feeling some of thattoo.
So yeah, this was the year whereI finally said, we gotta deal
with this.
We gotta, we gotta look at it,we gotta go deep with it.
(31:03):
And I'm grateful for it.
Thank you, Hermit.
So, number four, these are theselast two are ones that feel a
little less obvious, maybe likea little more unexpected.
So, number four is that this isthe first full year that I have
(31:24):
volunteered at my local wildliferescue shelter.
So twice a month I drive out,it's about an hour almost from
my house, kind of out in thecountry, and spend three hours.
They have a screened-in porcharound the side of the building
where they put the juvenilepossums, and it's just cage
after cage of possums.
(31:45):
Sometimes there's one possum inhis cage, sometimes there's like
three or four.
They all have little hammockshanging from the ceiling.
So sometimes there's like a wadof possum in the hammock, and I
would spend usually earlymornings going down the aisle
and pulling out their dirtylinens and wiping down the
bottom of their cages andputting in fresh food and
(32:08):
getting really close to possums.
A lot of people have strongfeelings about possums, they
think they're really ugly andscary, including my boyfriend.
And they're really amazinganimals, they're a really big
important part of the ecosystem,and they are actually kind of
cute if you look up close.
Some of them are quite friendly,some of them are pretty chill,
(32:29):
and others are mad at you justbecause you're standing there.
So I have had a couple littlescrapes with some possum teeth
this year, but all good, no harmdone.
They're they don't carry rabies,they're kind of safer animals to
work with.
Like I don't get to work withthe raccoons because they are a
vector species.
But then some mornings I'm inthe aviary where the birds are
(32:54):
healing, usually songbirds anddoves and pigeons.
I've seen, you know, the finchesin there, the cedar wax wings,
grackles.
Some of these poor babies havemessed up feathers and they look
kind of jacked up.
And you know, I've seen somebirds that didn't make it, some
that were really disabled bywhatever happened to them, which
(33:17):
is very hard to see.
Of course, I'm a huge birdlover.
But this action, thisvolunteering work, means I take
a little pilgrimage a coupletimes a month.
I go spend a few hours there.
You cannot listen to podcasts.
You can't listen to your phonewhen you're working with the
animals, they don't allow that.
There is a tremendous amount oflaundry that gets done at this
(33:39):
place.
They have like four washingmachines, four dryers.
They're always breaking.
There's always a giant pile ofclean laundry to be folded and a
giant pile of garbage bags fullof dirty laundry.
And I actually enjoy folding thelaundry for them and will listen
to my podcasts when I'm doingthat.
But otherwise, you have toreally be present.
You have to be focused on theanimals, you have to be paying
(34:00):
attention, you have to make sureyou lock the cage when you turn
away to go get their food.
I have had a few birds fly outon me, and I've been able to
gather them again inside theaviary.
Sometimes a staff member has tohelp me.
And then, of course, the shelterhas all kinds of animals.
I don't always get to see them,but there's porcupines, there
(34:21):
are foxes, turtles, snakes,squirrels, so many squirrels.
I've been feeding little babysquirrels, little like four.
And I'm an animal lover, but Ihaven't had this very close,
proximate experience to thismany animals until now.
And it is an act of servicebecause I mean, obviously it's
(34:42):
volunteering, so I'm giving sometime.
I'm giving some some of my gasover to getting there and some
of my energy.
It's not the most like chillvolunteer assignment.
It's not like licking envelopeswhile you sit and chit-chat.
It's like making sure a possumdoesn't bite you and making sure
a bird doesn't escape from itscage.
(35:04):
And it's really, you know, Ilove animals, like I said, and
it's been really powerful to beup close, to be in service to
the animals in a way that Ihaven't before.
If I care about them so much, Ishould be helping because I can.
So that's been really powerfuland really beautiful.
It's definitely deepened myappreciation for the animals in
(35:27):
my area.
I've learned a lot.
And one thing I want to telly'all is that you should know
your local wildlife shelter.
You should know whatorganization that is.
You should have their phonenumber on your fridge just in
case you come across a hurt birdor a hurt animal that needs some
care.
(35:47):
And then, because they can alsotell you what to do if you
describe the situation.
Sometimes we need to leave theanimals where they are.
But the other thing is that mostof these shelters do not get any
public funding from thegovernment.
Like the city I live in does notgive the shelter any money.
The county does not give theshelter any money.
They do give money tocorporations that come here.
(36:10):
They give them tax breaks, andthese corporations get to build
out and clear out the land and abig building and parking lot on,
you know, 10 acres and wipe outhabitat for animals and bring in
more roadways where animals getrun over or injured.
And so all of these shelters arereally operating through the
(36:32):
kindness of their community andthey should be getting public
money.
Taxpayers should be funding thisbecause the developments that
allow us to live in convenienceand efficiency and have access
to water or electricity, all ofthat stuff is disruptive to
animals.
But the entities that receiveour tax money are not doing
(36:52):
anything about it.
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 inyour area and see some of the
success stories.
I love my shelter when they theypost on Instagram when they're
letting out some raccoons orfoxes or whatever the case.
Really inspiring.
(37:14):
So that's my number four.
That was very hermit for me tobe with the animals, to be of
service, to learn about thewildlife in my area, to learn
more about them.
And then number five, this one'salso a little weird, unexpected.
But as you know, if you've beenlistening, this year I started
Airbnb my home and opening up,opening it up to guests.
(37:37):
I did a lot to make the homereally inviting for people, to
make it a place that feelspeaceful and warm, but also
gently stimulating through theartwork that's on the walls,
through the colors that arehere, through the little
knickknacks I have around thehouse.
(37:57):
And some of my family memberswere like, you should lock all
this stuff up.
People are gonna take it.
And I was like, I don't know, Ithink it looks good.
I think it makes the place feelbetter.
And no one's stolen anythingthis year that I'm aware of.
And it's been interesting justhaving this space where all
these different travelers arecoming.
I've had a couple people stayhere in the midst of breakups or
(38:21):
stay here and then go through abreakup.
I think because this space isempowering to people, I think it
reminds people of what they wantfor themselves.
It reminds people that theydeserve beauty, they deserve
peace in their lives, theydeserve warmth and coziness.
(38:43):
And so I'm not saying there's adirect correlation, but I find
that coincidence interesting.
And then there have been peoplewho come through, you know, I
live in Austin, so there'speople who come from San Antonio
or Corpus Christi, other townsin Texas, and then there's
people who are traveling fromlike Kansas or California, and
all kinds of different peoplefrom different places, and I
(39:06):
don't fully know that much aboutthem.
You know, I see their littlepicture in Airbnb, and we
exchange a few messages, andit's interesting to see
different people's communicationstyles, what they want to tell
you.
Um, had a very interestingperson stay in my Airbnb who
I've had a couple people I thinkwho like did some rituals in
(39:28):
here.
I think well-meaning kinds ofrituals, not like opening
portals to usher in demons oranything, but just interesting
to see how other people interactwith the space and receive the
space, and also some of thestrange proclivities people
have.
Like, I have some pretty nicetowels that look really nice in
(39:49):
the bathroom.
And one lady seemed to havebought new towels that I think
were not as nice as the ones Ihad.
So I'm like, what happened here?
Like, did she what was it aboutthe towels that she Couldn't use
them and she had to get moretowels, or maybe it's her thing
where, like, she only uses herown towels, she won't use a
towel that someone else used andthat got washed.
It's just interesting to watchhuman nature from a different
(40:11):
view and to provide a space.
I think the hermit element hereis to have this space of
sanctuary and refuge for thetraveler, a space where they can
feel a little bit restored,where they can feel at peace,
they can enjoy the birds thatare moving through the yard.
(40:32):
In the spring and summer months,I've got sunflowers and other
kinds of flowers growing.
So I feel like even thoughAirbnb feels like it has
absolutely nothing to do with ahermit whatsoever, I do feel
like this process or thisendeavor has that kind of
function now that I think aboutit.
So those are my five hermitthings.
(40:55):
Coming back to reading,solidifying and clarifying how I
want to present my work and howit can exist in a learning
system that people can accessand use for their own benefit.
Doing the inner work of healingmy relationship with money,
volunteering at the wildlifeshelter, and Airbnb my house.
(41:17):
So kind of a strange list, notwhat I would have expected at
the start of this year, butreally interesting to notice and
appreciate how the hermit hasinspired and infiltrated my life
without me even fully beingaware of it until this time of
reflection.
So I'm wanting to offer that toyou as well in our reflecting on
(41:40):
the hermit year workshop, whichis on December 29th.
And I love this time of year.
I tend to offer some workshopsto help us transition from one
year to the next.
So I've got more winterworkshops coming up.
We're gonna do the Hermit.
The next workshop is pullingcards for the year ahead.
I'm gonna take us through a bigspread to pull cards for the
(42:01):
full year and talk about how wecan use them, how we can read
them, how we can't read them,and how we can get creative in
working with those cards tocreate a little journey and
conversation with ourselves atthe beginning of the year and
the self that is going to travelthrough the year.
After that, we're going to focuson the wheel of fortune, which
(42:23):
is the card for 2026.
And that's because two plus zeroplus two plus six equals 10,
which is the number for thewheel of fortune.
But when you reduce thatfurther, you add the one and the
zero, you get one, and that isthe magician.
So both the wheel of fortune andthe magician are cards for next
(42:43):
year, and there will be aworkshop to explore those two
archetypes and the differentinvitations and lessons they
might present us with in thecoming year.
And we'll take some time to setsome intentions.
What do we want to change?
What do we want to explore?
What might we already be wantingto do that feels in the spirit
(43:05):
of these two archetypes?
And then there'll be a coupleothers.
I'm doing a workshop onastrology fundamentals, I'm
doing a workshop on reading yourastrological chart with the
entire tarot deck.
A very interesting process, andyeah, gives you a lot to think
about and very, very in keepingwith a wheel of fortune year
(43:28):
because our zodiac charts arecircular, just like the wheel of
fortune, and we get to see ourown personal wheel of fortune
laid out through the tarot inthe framework of astrology.
And then I'll finish the winterworkshops in March with a
workshop on the Aces and thePages because they don't appear
prominently in the astrologicalwheel when we connect it to
(43:53):
tarot.
So I'm gonna give them someattention of their own.
And each of these workshops is$33 to sign up, or you can get a
winter class pass for$99, andyou can get access to all of
them, including the recordings.
So there's about two workshops amonth now through March.
(44:13):
And then in March, I'm beginningin the Creative Magic Collective
this Deccan walk journey wherewe're going to move through the
astrological wheel 10 degrees ata time.
The decans are 10 degreeportions of the wheel, so
there's 36 decans to make a360-degree circle.
(44:34):
And each decan is assigned aminor arcana card.
So we have cards that belong tothe signs, and then we have
cards that belong to each of thedecans.
And so, like I said, Virgo'scard is the hermit, and then the
Deccan cards for Virgo are theEight, Nine, and Ten of
Pentacles.
(44:54):
So we're just gonna go throughthe year decan at a time and
explore these cards and learnmore about astrology along the
way.
I am not an advanced astrologer,so I cannot teach at an advanced
level.
But if you're wanting to getmore comfortable with astrology,
if you're wanting to know moreabout how to look at your own
(45:16):
chart and understand it andexplore it, this will be a
really great experience,especially if you have some
familiarity with the tarot.
That's really how it worked forme because I had some
understanding of tarot.
Going on a deck and walk myselfwith my teacher, Christopher
Marmalejo, who offers a similarexperience that you should check
out if you're interested.
(45:37):
Going through it that way hasreally unlocked a lot of
astrological understanding forme.
So I'm gonna offer thatexperience to my community.
And you can also move throughthe year doing like a focus or
an emphasis.
Like every 10 days, you mightcreate a little poem or a little
drawing inspired by the card ofthat time, so that by the end of
(46:00):
the year you have 36 littlecreations of some kind or
another.
You can also go through it justobserving your own life and
experience and what's happeningaround you and how that lines up
with a certain card.
You could focus on what'shappening in the natural world.
So there's a lot of ways to takeit, and it's meant to be
(46:20):
accessible, kind of microdosedwithout having you needing to
commit a lot of your time to it.
So if you want to, if you get aclass pass and you decide to
join the collective in 2026,we're gonna apply what you pay
for the class pass to theCreative Magic Collective
membership.
And if you come to any of theseworkshops, you'll get a sense of
(46:42):
what we're building toward withthe deck and walk and whether
this community is a place whereyou want to do it.
So that's what's up.
I know this is a longconversation where I talked
about myself, but in the spiritof giving you some tangible
examples of what it can looklike to be in hermit energy.
I hope that by hearing some ofmy examples, you're noticing
(47:04):
some or going to notice someways that you are living in the
spirit of the hermit.
I'd love to hear from you aboutthat.
If you're noticing anything, youcan DM me on Instagram at
typewriter tarot.
And yeah, I'd love to see you ina workshop if you want to keep
going with the exploration andhave a more structured
reflection on the hermit year.
(47:28):
All right, my friends.
Thank you so much for listeningto this podcast.
Thank you for investing in yourown creativity and magic.
Congratulations on gettingthrough a really fucking crazy
year that really tested ourinner fortitude and really
tested our ability to be in ourown energy when we're constantly
(47:53):
being bombarded by news, bychange, shocked by what's
happening, scared about what'shappening.
So my heart reaches out toyours, to your courage, your
resilience, and your creativity.
I will talk to you soon, and Ihope to see you soon in one of
(48:15):
the workshops.
All right, y'all.
Enjoy your creative and magicallife.
I'll talk to you next time.
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The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.