By the Light of the Moon — Part One
Journeying into the Unconscious
This month we’re learning about the Hermit’s teacher card. Our Heavenly Mother! The Original Illuminati! Our Lady Luna! The Moon 🌝
What is a Teacher Card?
Every major arcana card has a teacher (or two). A numerology-linked counterpoint, a devil’s advocate, a personal advice giver that says, “Hey little one, feeling stuck? Why not look at it from this perspective?”
Calculating Teacher Cards
Identify the number of the year and its tarot card. In 2025, 2+0+2+5 = 9 and The Hermit
Find the major arcana card whose digits add up to the number of the year
The Moon is number 18 → 1 + 8 = 9
The Moon is the Hermit’s teacher card
Who is The Moon?
The Moon represents:
The unconscious
The unseen
Emotions
Intuition
Spirits
Dreams
Illusions
Just like the Hermit’s lantern, the Moon’s light teaches us there is only so much we can learn in daylight, only so much we can ingest through conscious thought.
Its soft illumination invites us to dip into the unconscious and swim with fresh emotions, budding dreams, and spiritual questions, acclimating to the waters before we bring these ideas into awareness.
Thanks to its watery, Piscean ruler (shout out to the astro nerds—the Cancer/Moon connection is also true!) the Moon’s light ebbs and flows, sometimes plunging us into moments of complete darkness. And the darkness, my friends, is where the Hermit/Moon journey begins.
The Hermit’s Journey
The Hermit and the Moon are both journeyers across the landscape of the soul and the sky.
As with the main characters we know and love in folklore, literature, and film, long journeys are integral to these two tarot archetypes. But the main character we’re talking about today is you, cutie.
(Main Character Energy not to be confused with Main Character Syndrome)
When we study main characters and the stories they inhabit we start to see patterns. Author and mythologist Joseph Campbell pulled these patterns into a schema called The Hero’s Journey. While this narrative structure is useful in interpreting what events drive growth in a character as they face various challenges and tests (think Odysseus from Homer’s “Odyssey” or Luke Skywalker in Star Wars), it has also met criticism for centering the masculine, externally-focused development arc.
As a response to the Hero’s Journey, Maureen Murdock, a Jugian-oriented psychotherapist, created The Heroine’s Journey. Her goal was to address the “psycho-spiritual journey of contemporary women…that involves the healing of the wounding of the feminine that exists deep within her and the culture.” We can find examples of the Heroine in films like Barbie, Poor Things, Mulan, and the Hunger Games.
Well, in my response to these binary views of human adventure, I’ve created The Hermit’s Journey. Linked to the eight phases of the moon, The Hermit’s Journey integrates both external and internal worlds, the masculine and feminine, and the individual and the collective to help us navigate moments of darkness with curiosity, and if we’re lucky, a little humor and grace.
Why connect the Hermit’s Journey to the moon? Because as the Hermit voyages into the dark unknown, each night the moon casts the world in a different light, creating portals through which the Hermit can explore new aspects of the spiritual self.
The Hermit’s Journey
The Void | New Moon: Being outcast, othered, or separate from society
The Illumination | Crescent Moon: The call to walk a different path
The Precipice | Waxing Gibbous Moon: Feeling lost amid the doubt of others and the self
The Walking Stick | First Quarter Moon: Using external tools to navigate the new road
The Lantern | Full Moon: Learning to navigate by the inner light of intuition
The Rocky Path | Waning Gibbous Moon: Longing to turn back. A belief that the old path will be easier than continuing to traverse the unknown
The Incantation | Last Quarter Moon: Putting newfound intuitive knowledge to the test
The Return | Waning Crescent Moon: Sharing the wisdom gained in solitude with society
Leaving the Ordinary World
One aspect of The Hero’s Journey that I love is the crossing from the Ordinary World into the Special World. It’s a reminder that all life’s adventures do one of two things:
move us physically into unfamiliar places to experience and explore new things, or
move us emotionally, painting our current surroundings in new colors
Below is a spread to prepare us for our Hermit’s Journey and the crossing from the conscious to the unconscious and from the darkness into the light.
Leaving the Ordinary World Spread
What journey am I contemplating?
What is keeping me from beginning?
What tools do I need to guide me?
What might I discover about the world and myself?
How will I expand as a result of my journeying?
Another Step on the Journey
Many of you have asked that I break these newsletters into shorter, more frequent missives, so this is the end of Part One of The Hermit’s Journey. I’ll be sending out Part Two during the full moon in Aquarius (a perfect sign for visioning) on August 9th. In the meantime, more on the journeys of Heroes and Heroines.
A straightforward breakdown of the Heroine’s Journey by The Heroine Journeys Project
The Hero’s Journey from a writing perspective
XO
ALTARU TAROT
LOVED this post! (With great ideas + art selections as usual). I feel like I've been on a career Hermit's path since 2016 or so and it was interesting to relate it to these steps / milestones and see how far I've come. Looking forward to sitting with this spread and reading Part 2!