Walking in a hollow place

I had saved this picture––the form of a hare who bounded from the tall grass as I crossed a meadow near the Reserve.

It seemed so connected to the idea of hollow places.

This is still in my thoughts, and when I visited Kairos, I wanted to think about that and about the huge oak I saw in Devon.

Here is the conversation, with the prompts from Kairos in italics.

Tell me about the tree?

Beautiful Burred Behemoth

I sensed hospitality and patience. I sensed acceptance and at the same time immense power––but like a power that was not as if it were used. Not like us humans, we have power and we use it to do or use it against. The tree just had it.

Like its very being was power and it was not distracted by the rot and the epiphytes and the woodpecker holes and the insects. The more it gave away the more it had. It was like the opposite of fire.

Its power wasn't even attracting others––it was simply in being and growing and in age and in size.

Why didn’t you take pictures?

I didn't take pictures because of the… because nothing could capture it, because its being was power and no photo could capture the entirety. It would degrade it somehow.

It was so much part of an ecosystem––the steep-banked stream, the regrowing woodland, the old hedgerow, the collapsing banks. The other trees. The ivy. The life there. It was so entangled that its power could not be separated from that place.

What did you learn?

The burrs––a deformity of strength... Genetic error that is shield.

That the most potent power is shared or given rather than used.

Hollowness makes a place of giving. It is the space for others to reside. It is the refusal of a claim that I am closed to all but me. It is the openness to otherness, it is the offer of acceptance-but it mustn't be like a vacuum, draw in- it must allow. Be created by otherness, even.

The crevice of myself is what allows otherness in––that I am not hermetically sealed.

A few things to say. As I finished writing this, I realised that a squirrel was looking at me from about ten feet away. It climbed on the dead branch and stared at me for about five minutes. In addition, a muntjac was walking along about fifteen feet away, to pass around the back of the tree.

It reminded me that I saw a roe buck after I had climbed the Burred Oak and that when I lay down under the tree, I watched two squirrels playing in the branches above me.

In addition, that final line in the conversation... it could reference intercourse as much as something more... psychological. I thought that at the time and as i was writing "hermetically" I was thinking of the hymen and also of Hermes––the messenger.

I asked ChatGPT about the etymology:

Hermetically comes from hermetic, which ultimately derives from Hermes Trismegistus ("Hermes the Thrice-Great"), a legendary figure who combined aspects of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth.

The story is quite interesting because the modern meaning is only indirectly related to the original one.

The historical path

• Hermes Trismegistus was regarded in late antiquity as the author of esoteric writings on alchemy, astrology, and hidden knowledge.

• Alchemists developed techniques for sealing vessels so that no vapours could escape during experiments.

• These perfectly sealed vessels became known as hermetic seals, because they were associated with the secret arts of the Hermetic tradition.

• From there, hermetically sealed came to mean airtight or completely closed off.

Modern meanings

1. Literally

   • The jar was hermetically sealed.

   • Completely airtight.

2. Figuratively

   • The monastery was hermetically isolated from the outside world.

   • Closed off from outside influences.

   • Self-contained.

   • Opaque to outsiders.

Why it might interest you

There is an intriguing tension in the word. Originally it referred to secret knowledge, hidden mysteries, and esoteric communication. Yet today we often use it to mean the opposite of communication: something sealed off, inaccessible, and insulated from relation.

In a philosophical or literary context, one might describe a worldview as hermetically closed if it admits no interruption, no outside voice, no challenge from alterity.

Given your interest in Glissant, opacity, withdrawal, and the right not to respond, hermetic can be a useful word—but with care. A hermetic system is not merely opaque; it is often sealed against exchange. Glissantian opacity, by contrast, usually preserves relation while resisting total transparency. Opacity says you may relate without fully knowing; hermetic closure says nothing passes through the boundary.

So etymologically, hermetically carries traces of:

• Hermes/Thoth,

• alchemical secrecy,

• sealed vessels,

• hidden knowledge,

• and finally complete closure or airtight isolation.

It's one of those words whose modern everyday meaning ("airtight") still contains a faint echo of ancient mysteries and secret transformations.