Once there was a man who was busy all the time. Because he was so busy, he did everything in a hurry. He shaved in a hurry. He ate in a hurry. He worked in a hurry. And he hurried home at the end of the day to be able to hurry some more, along with his wife, who hurried as much as he did because she felt she had hold up her end of things.

Years and years went by. He got so good at hurrying that he was able to accomplish a great deal. The more he did, the faster he went so that he could do even more, until at last, there was no more time at all, and he hurried through every second of the entire day. At that point, he began to dream of hurrying, too. His nights filled with dreams of hurrying.

In many of these dreams, though, he found himself interrupted in his hurrying by the sudden appearance of a great bear. The bear was as black as shadows, and it always pursued him slowly but purposefully. He ran from the bear, fleeing in and out of dream doors and dream windows and climbing dream stairs and running down dream hallways. At the end of the dream, the bear would chase him up to the dream roof of a dream building where he would be safe. Each dream would end in a different building upon a different roof, but always, the view from the roof would be beautiful. He could see lovely rolling hills and blue skies that felt like a song.

Once he woke, he would always hurry to the bookshelf to see if he could find out what the bear signified, but he never found an explanation. So the hurrying dreams went on, and each night another giant black bear would come and chase him to the rooftop again.

And then he would wake and begin hurrying again. And this went on for years and years until one day, he realized that he was getting old, and he was getting tired, and he just didn't feel like hurrying any more. And he decided to stop.

The next morning, he didn't hurry to shave. In fact, he stopped shaving. "I'll grow a beard," he thought. He didn't hurry to eat. "I'll even chew slowly," he decided. He didn't hurry to work. "I'll retire," he determined. He didn't have to hurry home because he hadn't hurried to work. His wife stopped hurrying because she no longer felt that she had to try to keep up to her husband--why should she? He wasn't hurrying.

His dreams began to be different, too. He found himself walking slowly amidst all the places of all the dreams of his life. He took leisurely strolls, up and down the streets of a huge city of buildings. They were the buildings of his lifetime of dreams, and they stretched out as far as his eyes could see.

And he walked slowly in his days and he walked slowly in his dreams, until finally one night he went to bed and entered the city of buildings again, but this time he strolled among them until his eyes happened to turn upward toward the rooftops.

And there, he beheld the bears, huge black bears, hundreds of them, one upon each dream building, one upon each dream rooftop, sitting and resting and looking off at the lovely rolling hills and blue skies that felt like a song.

Look within for the answer you seek, says The Hermit.
Card illustration: 9 - The Hermit from Joanna Powell Colman's The Gaian Tarot