news, sites, and pages of interest about hermits and solitude
The famous Russian Old Believer hermit Agafya Lykova has a new and updated small wooden house replacing the previous house built by her father eighty years ago. The house was paid by a Russian millionaire and air-shipped in parts to the remote mountain site where Agafya live. She was visited by some of the sect’s clergy.
Daily Mail (UK) features an update on hermit Emma Orbach, who lives in rural Wales. “A woman who left her former life behind to live in the woodlands of Pembrokeshire 20 years ago tells presenter Ben Fogle she doesn’t care if other people call her ‘crazy.'” Includes short video clip. From UK TV series “New Lives in the Wild.”
Salon describes the experimental film Erēmīta, a collection of fragmented images representing the fragmented life of the pandemic. The film is a collection (here called “Anthologies”) of scenarios,reflecting the randomness, isolation, distancing, and chaotic solitude of a recent year,–all taken from cell-phones. Article includes the trailer.
URL: https://www.salon.com/2021/02/24/eremita-review-experimental-film-hermit-isolation/
Scottish hermit Jake Williams, now 70, is profiled by Daily Mail (UK). Once a science teacher, Williams moved to forested land in the 1980s, hoping to create a hippie commune, but found himself alone in a rundown cottage, since enhanced by solar panels, windmill, and other gadgets. Williams calls himself a “sociable” hermit who does not avoid people, even calling himself a “phony” and ” reluctant” hermit.
Includes a short video clip: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9189043/Reluctant-hermit-tells-Ben-Fogle-hopes-rent-caravans-propped-trees.html#v-1057422349824838438.
Part of the television series “New Lives for the Wild,” hosted by Ben Fogle.
Brief article in The Spectator titled “How to Be a Hermit,” is a summary of Lady Juliana of Norwich, famous medieval English anchorite and mystic, author of Revelations of Divine Love.