Tall tales and other thoughts from storyteller, sailor and nomad Dennison Berwick. "Kuan Yin" is his 32-foot go-anywhere home.
Posted in Solitude on Mar 3rd, 2010
I’ve written before about the “Hermit Writings of S” and posted his script in its entirety on this site. See here.
In order to bring his writings to a wider audience, I’m going to post extracts from the Hermit Writings according to various themes which he himself used as sub-titles. They’re intended as bite-sized chunks that [...]
Posted in Solitude on Feb 25th, 2010
I’ve written before about the “Hermit Writings of S” and posted his script in its entirety on this site. See here.
In order to bring his writings to a wider audience, I’m going to post extracts from the Hermit Writings according to various themes which he himself used as sub-titles. They’re intended as bite-sized chunks that [...]
Posted in Life skills, Solitude on Feb 8th, 2010
What is it that attracts people to a hermit? Though the image of a man or a woman who lives alone, disconnected from the attachments of the world, is often of an angry or deranged misantrope, the reality is more usually very different. One clear example is Robert E. Harrill who, at the age of [...]
Posted in Solitude on Jan 23rd, 2010
There’s a new video in homage to Willard Kitchener Macdonald, the hermit of Gully Lake in Nova Scotia, Canada. The four minute video features photos of Willard in his cabin, some stock photos of nature, and a few tantalizing news clippings and photos about his cabin being destroyed in a blaze. However, the main feature [...]
Posted in Books/Language, Solitude on Jan 6th, 2010
The Hermit Fathers; The Spirit Born by Fr. Samaan El Souriany
With all the strife in the Middle East today, it’s hard to remember that this was once the land of hermits and the founding centre of monasticism in the West.
Upper Egypt (ie. southern) had cenobitic or communal monastics; lower Egypt had hermits such as [...]
Posted in Books/Language, Solitude on Jan 2nd, 2010
A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland
In the course of researching and writing the book Maitland spent silent time in silent places – on Skye in the Hebrides; in the Sinai Desert; in forests and mountains; in a flotation tank; in monasteries and libraries. She was trying to match her personal experiences to those of [...]
Posted in Solitude on Jan 2nd, 2010
The Hermit Writings of S.
These are a remarkable collection of short essays on many aspects of being a hermit – self-sufficiency, hermit and the world, love, time, urban eremitism, and virtue, for example. They are straight-forward, down to earth and direct. The writings are posted on the Hermitary website by Meng-hu. They are [...]
Posted in Solitude on Jan 2nd, 2010
Hermits, The Insights of Solitude by Peter France
France’s book is a survey of the wide variety of people who have lived as hermits, mostly in the Christian tradition, but including such modern hermits as the late Robert Lax who lived on Patmos. The rich tapestry of lives is a good introduction to how other people [...]
Posted in Books/Language, Solitude on Jan 2nd, 2010
A Hermit in the Himalayas by Paul Brunton
Paul Brunton was born in London in 1898 and died in Switzerland as recently as 1981. This book is part travelogue through what is still a fairly remore region of the world and part spiritual experience. The book was originally published in 1938, at a time [...]
Posted in Books/Language, Solitude on Jan 2nd, 2010
Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits by Bill Porter
I remember my elation the first time I read this book and my amazement that there could still be hermits living in mountainous areas of China even after the Cultural Revolution when so much of the country’s spiritual heritage was destroyed. Bill Porter’s book is all [...]
"Serendipity" is the art of finding something valuable or delightful when you're not looking for it. It's how you might also define living life as an adventure - which is something I seek to do everyday - and accepting whatever happens.
