Hermits around the web – Hermitary
news, sites, and pages of interest about hermits and solitude
In this short video from Emerson College (Boston), writer and faculty-member Steve Himmer talks about his novel, The Bee-Loud Glade, which will be published in Spring 2011. The novel features an ornamental hermit: “The Bee-Loud Glade brings this odd pastime to the present day, where a billionaire named Mr. Crane hires Finch to be his decorative hermit.”
URL: http://www.emerson.edu/news-events/emerson-college-today/hermit-who-decorates
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/
Canadian poet/singer/songwriter Tanya Davis and filmmaker Andrea Dorfman created this reflective 4+ minute video titled “How To Be Alone.” At the YouTube site, click the caption to read the poem.
This Slate article by Monte Reel describes “The Most Isolated Man on the Planet,” the last member of a Brazilian Amazon tribe slowly brought to extinction by ranching and logging. As the article notes,
He’s an Indian, and Brazilian officials have concluded that he’s the last survivor of an uncontacted tribe. They first became aware of his existence nearly 15 years ago and for a decade launched numerous expeditions to track him, to ensure his safety, and to try to establish peaceful contact with him. In 2007, with ranching and logging closing in quickly on all sides, government officials declared a 31-square-mile area around him off-limits to trespassing and development. It’s meant to be a safe zone. He’s still in there. Alone.
URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2264478/
Related video describing author Monte Reel’s book on the subject, The Last of the Tribe.
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ILPfFImCog
An article titled “Local hermit’s diary re-emerges after 20 years in Marco garage”
in the Marco Island Sun Times describes Naranjan, a hermit living on Dismal Island, among the Ten Thousand Islands, off southwest Florida.
Naranjan kept a diary of life on the island, a diary recently brought to light by a local captain who knew the hermit. Naranjan lived in a 1930’s-built shack, and began the diary in the 1980’s, highlighted by his experience of Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The last entry before he apparently disappeared reads poignantly: “”Verdi’s Requiem w/Red Belly’s and Cardinals.”