Category: around the web

This New York Times article titled “Embracing a Life of Solitude” is placed in the Home & Garden section because it sees solitude as escape, “downtime,” as one interviewee puts it, or plain “fantasy.” Usually this escape is to a more natural setting, as in the examples in the article, which emphasize discomfort and survivalism. The tone of the piece may be further gathered from the egregious notice of the French roast coffee drunk by one “escapee” and the sexual qualms of another who felt that solitude deprived him of meeting members of the opposite sex.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/garden/15alone.html?pagewanted=1&ref=garden

“Hermit” tortoises, in this case the red-footed tortoise, learn by imitating other tortoises. The experimenters conclude that social learning is based on cognitive ability, not an evolved specialized learning skill. The red-footed tortoise grows up without parents or siblings, and shuns others of its species. Cognitive learning, in the case of this experiment, consisted of a puzzle to solve for attaining a treat — which does not work with human hermits!

URL: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/03/31/even-antisocial-tortoise-hermits-learn-from-each-other/

Sister Laurel O’Neal, whose blog is Notes from Stillsong Hermitage, is a hermit of the Camaldolese Benedictine tradition. She was interviewed by Sister Julie Vieira, IHM, of A Nun’s Life. The two installments are: first and second.

Sister Laurel makes a realistic point appropriate to both religious and secular solitaries. When asked what she would recommend to someone interested in the eremitical life, she replies (among other things):

If you have substantial healing of your own to do, get to it before you make any commitments to eremitical life. The hermitage allows for such work to be done but actual commitments to the life need to have that out of the way as much as possible.

Of special interest to Catholics is this report by a Catholic bishop in Oregon which discusses the unique ordination of a canonically-recongnized hermit to the diaconate. URL: http://www.sentinel.org/articles/2006-9/14518.html.