Tarot Card Meditations II - The Hermit

You are in a great round building, shaped like a planetarium. There is an unbroken dome of concrete overhead. There are no windows. The place is dark and cool, the air is fresh and scented with pine and musk. There is a great park inside the round building.

You wander among giant shadowy trees. The roots of the Trees are long and spidery. There is a sense of tension in the air like that just before a thunder storm. Other people in the park of the giant dark trees become afraid and leave. You are not afraid and remain. You wait to discover the meaning of the moment to come in the park of the Trees of the gods.

Open your eyes and look at the High Priestess Trump. Imagine yourself waiting for something in such a sacred place. Soon you must go into the outer dark to light a spark. Look now at the Trump of the Hermit. You have gone into the darkness of the night. Raise high the lamp of clay with the light of heaven, the Nar Ha- Aritz Ba-Ar Ha-Schmim. With your will, cause the golden radiance of the lamp to slowly force away the darkness.

This is the technique of the ever-moving spark. Take firm in hand your soul. Sit fixed, not rigid, not relaxed/ Send thoughts about the place. Let one thing be another. Dreams lie. Eyes see. What can you see? Find a fitting lightness -- let it fasten on nothing. Trace letters and swirls and spirals with the divine spark. Let it alight nowhere. Draw near. Rush around. Go past. Fly back. No calmness and no fear. Only swift dartings of the mind and eyes behind closed lids. Following the darting thought. Move quickly with it. Pay no heed to the fantasies that form where it has been. Let your awareness follow only the darting and dancing spark.