Australian hermit documentary

ABC TV of Australia first aired the documentary “Hermits: Freedom or Madness” in February of 1998 on its Compass series. (Mentioned in this blog back in 2003!) The documentary is now available on the web.

Description from the Compass site:

COMPASS follows six very different Australians who’ve all chosen to live lives of complete seclusion, free from obligations – withdrawn from society (yet in some cases still living in urban environs), exploring life in depth.
We meet people like Vyn Bailey, a hermit and yogin – Father Ronan, a Priest and anchorite – and Pravrajika Ajayaprana, a Hindu nun.

URLs:
Compass site: http://www.abc.net.au/compass/series/1998/hermits.htm
Video: http://www.catholictv.tv/new/index.php/programs/113-freedom

Sr. Carol, Australian hermit

From the Inner West Courier in Australia comes a brief article on Carol Prevedello, who recently became a canonical hermit (Catholic) in Australia.

She has made promises of poverty, chastity and obedience and pledged to live a life of prayer, penance, silence and solitude in a tradition that dates back to biblical times.

She doesn’t dwell in a cave in the wilderness, but lives with her parents in a two-storey house in the Inner West.

Quotes from the article: “I think it was always in me.” … “When I was a teenager, I used to say to my mum, ‘I could go up a mountain and never come back down again.'”

URL: http://inner-west-courier.whereilive.com.au/news/story/hermit/

Australian hermit’s two years

An autobiographical essay entitled “The Retired Hermit” in the Australian web site New Age. The byline is: “Peter Davis chose the life of a solitary in the high country for two years where he found the space to care for himself.” The first paragraph gives a sense of the quiet mission he set about pursuing for those two years. “I became a hermit gradually. It started in 1987 on a mountain near the small town of Harrietville in north-eastern Victoria. This was soon after my HIV diagnosis, when I was 19.”

Perhaps Peter Davis is better know in Australia; there is no further elaboration on this page, which is part of the book review section of New Age, for non-Australian readers.

URL:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/books/the-retired-hermit/
2006/08/10/1154803029570.html
.
Note: URL of complete version submitted by a friend of Hermitary:
http://www.thylazine.org/thyla11/thyla11i.html
.

Hermt house preservation

A brief newspaper item in Sydney, Australia, indicates that a grant from a national historical commission will be used to preserve and restore a famous hermit’s house. Part of the item says:

One of few known hermit dwellings in NSW, the historic cave, near Griffith, was home to Valerio Ricetti, who arrived in Australia from Italy in 1914, aged 16, and moved to Griffith in 1929.

The cave includes rock shelters, stone structures, gardens, a water well, stairs, kitchen, chapel, gardens, lookout and inscriptions.

URL: http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,19151934-5001028,00.html.

Australian radio program on hermits

From Radio Nederlands, an intriguing half-hour audio program by Australian producers and writers Stewart Nestel and Peter Davis, who “went in search of people who have chosen to become hermits, and of people who encountered them.” Essentially on wilderness hermits, but interesting reflections on the psychological and spiritual realizations discovered by those who live in the “bush.” Narrative inserts of hermit poems, too.

Here is the website’s description of the program:

The Australian bush can be brutally harsh and unforgiving as well as hauntingly beautiful. It is also an ideal place to seek a solitary life. Being so totally alone in nature can be a unique experience. It can unlock all sorts of secrets of one’s true self. It can teach a person to stop time. It can be a place of escape, and of discovery. “In Search of the Hermit Within” is a story about people in search of something that only solitude could provide.

URL: http://www2.rnw.nl/rnw/en/radioprogrammes/voxhumana/050715vh?view=Standard.
Or access the audio directly:
Windows Media Player (http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/rnw/smac/2004/in_search_of_the_hermit_within_050715vh.wma)
Real Player: http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/rnw/smac/2004/in_search_of_the_hermit_within_050715vh_
low.rm
.

Originally broadcast by Australian Broadcasting Corporation in February 2005 but audio not available on their web site: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/radioeye/stories/s1285016.htm.