Hermits around the web – Hermitary
news, sites, and pages of interest about hermits and solitude
A forthcoming film titled Somewhere to Disappear is an hour-long documentary about contemporary American hermits in mountains, caves, and deserts. The film website includes a trailer, plus Facebook and Twitter links for keeping up-to-date on screenings. Brought to our attention by a friend of Hermitary.
URLs:
website – http://www.somewheretodisappearthefilm.com/
trailer also on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/23007373
An article titled “Let Private ‘Leather Man’ Rest in Peace, Teachers Says” in lohud.com, which provides local news for the lower Hudson Valley, New York and Connecticut, describes a controversy over the fate of the remains of the “Leather Man.”
As a team of scientists prepares to exhume the body of the famed “Leather Man,” a Connecticut resident is advocating to leave the mysterious 19th-century figure alone. In November, the Ossining Historical Society received approvals from the state Supreme Court to dig up the obscure leather-clad wanderer so forensic testing could be conducted on his remains. The society owns Sparta Cemetery, where the Leather Man was buried in 1889.
Donald Johnson, a Connecticut school teacher, opposes the exhumation. While the remains will be relocated to a safer site, the intent of the exhumation to extract DNA for research purposes, is wrong, argues Johnson, who launched a web site to express his opposition to the historical society’s plans.
This article is updated by a Huffington Post article.
URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margie-goldsmith/exhuming-the-leather-man-_b_862032.html
Brother Paul Quenon is interviewed for the PBS “Religion and Ethics” program. He was inspired by the example of Thomas Merton to become a monk, and has since published several books of poetry.
The lumber shed at the Abbey of Gethsemani in northern Kentucky. It’s late February. Each night at 8:00, Brother Paul Quenon walks to the shed, as he has every night for 20 years. He goes around back, where he finds his mattress. This is where he will sleep—outdoors, no matter the weather.
BROTHER PAUL QUENON (The Abbey of Gethsemani): I can’t be a full-time hermit, but I can be a night-time hermit, and there’s something about waking up in the middle of the night, and there’s nobody around. There’s a kind of an edge of solitude that you cannot experience in any other way.
Both a video and a transcript of the program are available on the website.
URL: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/may-6-2011/brother-paul/8764/
An article titled “A Modern-Day Hermit” profiles Mary Zimmerer, now Sister Maria Veronica, described as
a bubbly widow who discerned a call to the contemplative life after her husband passed away five years ago. Having made a public profession of vows last fall, she is now one of only two canonical (or diocesan) hermits in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
The interviewer touches directly on what it means to be a canonical Catholic hermit: how she discerned her calling, what her typical day consists of, how she deals with existing family, and what she thinks of the charge that hermits live only for themselves.
URL: http://www.insidecatholic.com/feature/a-modern-day-hermit.html
The Boise Weekly-funded project, “Searching for Quartzburg, which describes its purpose as “investigating the identities of dreamers, visionaries, eccentrics, hermits” of Idaho, offers a 6+ minute audio podcast titled “Hermit Nun.” The profile features Sister Rebecca and Sister Beverly, who live in the Mesa, Idaho Marymount Hermitage.
URLs:
“Hermit Nun” page of Searching for Quartzburg: http://searchingforquartzburg.com/2011/03/16/hermit-nun/
Marymount Hermitage website: http://www.marymount-hermitage.org