news, sites, and pages of interest about hermits and solitude
The Tablet, a Catholic UK publication, recently offered a useful article on women hermits, authoritatively written by author and commentator Sara Maitland, author of A Book of Silence and How to be Alone. The title is “Palladius mentions 2,975 women living as hermits in the Egyptian desert.” (Full article available to registered users).
URL: https://www.thetablet.co.uk/columnists/3/21026/palladius-mentions-2-975-women-living-as-hermits-in-the-egyptian-desert
A recent film titled Wandering … But Not Lost features Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Master Mingyur Rinpoche. In 2011 he left the security of his monastery to live the life of a wandering yogi. His wandering lasted four and a half years (through 2015) incognito on the streets of India, Nepal and in Himalayan caves. In this film, Mingyur Rinpoche returns to share the insights he gained.
URL (trailer, another source): https://tricycle.org/magazine/mingyur-rinpoche-wandering/
A BBC News item about 74-year old Ken Smith, who is — as the article headline puts it — “The man who has lived as a hermit for 40 years” in the Scottish highlands. Ken visited the Canadian Yukon when young and was at once attracted to wilderness. Returning to his native UK he considered what region was the most isolated, and settled there, eventually building a cabin and settling into routines of foraging and fishing. Smith is the subject of a BBC Scotland documentary titled “The Hermit of Treig.”
URLs: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-59174870 (article); https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011hp3 (film).
Rediff News (India) article titled “Hermit Living In The Forest For 17 Years” consists of two sentences, with two photographs. The article text: “A man named Chandrashekhar was found living in the forest for over 17 years. He was living in his Ambassador car parked deep inside a dense forest area between the villages of Adtale and Nekkareforest in Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district.”
From CNN, an update (if not the last word) about Mauro Morandi, long-standing Italian hermit, mentioned several times in this blog:
“For nearly 33 years he lived a hermit life on a beautiful island in the Mediterranean, where he was the sole inhabitant. Mauro Morandi, known as Italy’s Robinson Crusoe after developing a loyal online following, was caretaker of the Sardinian island of Budelli, embracing silence, solitude, and the peacefulness of nature while living in an old beach stone hut.There was no social buzz, no fancy food, no friends — his only companions were birds and cats. He slept on a cot and had few clothes. Forsaking all comforts, he preached a monastic existence of self-reflection and meditation on Budelli’s pink beach dotted with coral dust. Then his blissful world came to an end. After years of struggling with marine park authorities that wanted to evict him to turn the isle into an environmental observatory, in May Morandi accepted his fate. After posting a pithy message of resignation — “My balls are broken” (slang for “I’m fed up”) — he left. Moving home and starting a new life can be tough for anyone. Even more so for an 82-year-old who has spent three decades living a solitary existence on a paradise island. Is it possible to move on and readjust? Says Morandi, the answer is an emphatic ‘yes!'”
URL: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/mauro-morandi-italy-hermit-did-next/