An article in the Westmeath Examiner (Ireland) announces that Sister Veronica Moore of the Sisters of Mercy, until recently a nurse in Zambia, received canonical status as a hermit. She is the fourth canonical hermit in the diocese in the recent year.
Karen Markham, UK hermit
A Mail (UK) article on Karen Markham, a Shropshire hermit. She holds a doctoral degree in music composition and has taught music at the university level. Before her decision to live as a hermit, Karen learned tai chi from a Buddhist teacher, spent time in the U.S. with communities of Native Americans in New Mexico and Muslim Sufis in Philadelphia, returning to England under the sponsorship of a Christian Orthodox monastery. Karen resides in a cottage on now highly-valued property, and was the recent subject of media articles on her possibly losing her present home. Includes several photos.
URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1290619/Karen-Markham-Meet-modern-day-hermit.htm
Fukase’s “Ravens”
The Japanese photographer Masehisa Fukase’s book of haunting photographs published as Karasu [Ravens] and published in English in the 1980’s as The Solitude of Ravens is getting renewed attention due to a British Journal of Photography award as the best photography book in the last 25 years. See Guardian announcement and photo gallery.
The book is long out of print and copies are very expensive. Guardian summary:
Brooding and shatteringly lonely, the Japanese photographer’s series on ravens has been hailed as a masterpiece of mourning
Fukase’s photographs of ravens in various grains of black and white evoke at once a sense of unease, repulsion, pity, and despair — as intended. The English translation adding the word and connotation of “solitude” attempts to capture the sense of alienation, strangeness, the status of pariah, outcast, of deformity and repulsion. It is almost unnecessary.
Elements of Japanese aesthetics, of wabi-sabi, can be identified, but the naturalism of the photographs becomes “unnatural” to most people’s sensibilities as otherwise comfortable onlookers. Both the art and psychology of the photographs are compelling in a new and different way than anything modernist.
Ravens are what they are but Fukase’s relentless lens inevitably provokes an analogy to human beings, to human society, to the ambivalence of real or contrived feelings of ugliness we all harbor. Solitude here is both the condition of ravens but also the result of our uneasiness.
Forthcoming film: “Jesus Prayer”
Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer is a documentary film by Morris Chumley and John McGuckin scheduled for release in early 2011. A companion book published by HarperOne will be available. A trailer is available at the film website and clips are available on YouTube by searching under the user/contributor (see links below).
The authors’ summary of the film content:
Christian hermits, monks and nuns share their ancient prayers and inner wisdom for the first time on film. Never before has there been this kind of access to monasteries, caves and spiritual communities: from the Holy Lands of Egypt, to Mt. Sinai, Mt. Athos in Greece, Romania, Ukraine and Russia. Join Dr. Norris and Father John on an unforgettable journey of a lifetime.
URL of website: http://www.mysteriesofthejesusprayer.com/
URL of YouTube clips: http://www.youtube.com/user/thejesusmystery
UK hermit may lose home
UK hermit Katen Markham is distracted from her eremitic life by the possibility of losing her dwelling-place, notes the article “Modern hermit Karen Markham fights for solitude” in the Telegraph. She has been a hermit at her cottage, her Hermitage of Divine Wisdom in Shropshire, for six years but the owner now wants to sell the property. From the article:
Miss Markham, who used to teach at Radley College, has converted a piggery into a chapel and keeps chickens in the garden, where she grows her food.
Her daily regime follows the rules of solitary living laid down by St Benedict, the founder of western monasticism, and involves rising at 4am to spend three hours praying and chanting divine names, as well as spending time in contemplative silence. She is committed to a life of chastity.
She has no television, takes no holidays and has very few personal possessions. She weaves rugs on a hand loom using wool from local sheep. Her interest in the solitary life began after she spent three years as part of a Muslim Sufi community in America; that led her to study the Christian saints. “Very few people want to live on their own, but it works for me and allows me the space to try to live a holy life,” she said.
Other reports: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7782251/Bishops-attempt-to-save-one-of-Britains-only-hermits-from-eviction.html; http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=95023
Hermitage appeal fund information: http://www.hermitageofdivinewisdom.org.uk/appeal.html