news, sites, and pages of interest about hermits and solitude
The British Catholic publication The Tablet offers a consideration of modern Carmelites as “hermits in community,” the title of the blog entry. The focus is on the order of Carmelite nuns, founded by the Spanish mystic St.Teresa of Avila.
URL: https://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/1393/hermits-in-community
Laura Freeman writes musings on life in lockdown in TheSpectator under the title “The Art of the Hermit,” reflecting on famous hermits and their understanding of their own isolation.The byline:”Holed up in her sixth-floor London flat, Laura Freeman finds solace in these paintings of self-isolating holy men.”
URL: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-art-of-the-hermit
CNN Travel provides an update on Mauro Morandi, now 81 years of age, mentioned in this blog several times. The lengthy and useful article is titled: “Italian hermit living alone on an island says self-isolation is the ultimate journey.” Morandi lives on the island of Budelli, near Sardinia, and is the island’s only occupant. Not unexpectedly, his views on solitude in the era of corona virus are solicited. Includes many photos of the island and a 4-minute video featuring Morandi.
URL: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/italy-hermit-coronavirus/
From historian Fay Bound Alberti’s book A History of Loneliness is an excerpt in the BBC’s HistoryExtra as “The invention of loneliness: why being ‘unhappy alone’ is a surprisingly modern idea.” The author notes that the transition from “oneliness” to loneliness traverses three centuries, eighteenth to twentieth. Mentioned are Thomas Turner’s diaries, Queen Victoria, Carl Jung, Virginia Woolf, May Sarton, and Sylvia Plath.
GMA News Online (Philippines) offers an item titled “Why did this man choose to live inside a cave for 30 years?” Byline: “Seventy-three-year-old Mang Emigdio has lived inside a mountain cave in Bohol for 30 years.”
The hermit was provoked to solitude when a typhoon destroyed his home, and he left wife and children to live in a cave.He does not seem to lack for amenities. Many have tried to intervene and help Mang Emigdio because of his advanced age and remoteness, and one group has offered to build him a more accessible hut, which offer he has accepted.