Category: United Kingdom

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40-day museum hermit

Ansuman Biswas has been selected by the Manchester (UK) Museum as its “hermit” in residence for a 40-day period, June 27 to August 5. Buswas will be alone and in silence in the Museum’s tower, functioning as “living art” among the 4+ million pieces in the collection of the Museum.

A museum spokeswoman said: “By documenting his existence in isolation through blogging and webcam we hope that he will become the museum’s ultimate exhibit.”

URLs:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/8069915.stm
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=31096

URL of the Manchester Museum hermit’s blog: http://manchesterhermit.wordpress.com/

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Tenzin Palmo today

A Guardian interview of Tenzin Palmo, the English-born Buddhist nun in Tibetan tradition. The colorful title is “I Spent Twelve Years in a Cave.” Her story is an enduring (and endearing) one, made familiar in the biography Path in the Snow, by Vicki Mackenzie. Tenzin Palmo founded the Dongyo Datsal Ling Nunnery, which is the focus of her website.

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/15/buddhist-retreat-religion-first-person

Brought to our attention by a friend of Hermitary.

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Appeal of silence

An article in the Independent titled “Holidays: the Appeal of Silence” summarizes the growing interest in retreat settings:

Monasteries and convents are reporting a surge in enquiries for their “tester” long weekends, where spiritually-hungry visitors can sample a life of silence. Secular retreat centres are also booming. And on the internet, would-be hermits can now book solitude by the week.

Mentions Father Cyril, novice master of the Carthusian St. Hugh’s Charterhouse in England and Canadian Anglican priest Cynthia Bourgeault.

URL: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/uk/holidays-the-appeal-of-silence-1631232.html

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Sara Maitland, Scottish writer

Interview article in Scotland on Sunday about Scottish writer Sara Maitland’s semi-autobiographical book A Book of Silence. Maitland, an established novelist and convert to Catholicism, moved to a remote area of Scotland where silence permeates the isolation and her daily life. The interviewer David Ross pursues Maitland’s motives and influences at this stage of her life (she is 58); there are trenchant observations on solitude and death.

URL: http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/spectrum/All-quiet-on-the-western.4669789.jp