Thank you to those who joined me last evening for our online Experience Sicily Saint Joseph’s Day celebration! Viva San Giuseppe! Happy Saint Joseph’s Day! Buona festa del papà! Pictured is my altar for this powerful patron of fathers, carpenters, the home, and those who toil for their work. The three tiers represent Jesus, Mary,…
Category: divine feminine
The Staff, Wreath, And Palm: Ritual Bread For Saint Joseph’s Day
Join me to recognize St. Joseph’s Day on Thursday, March 18 at 8PM Eastern. Register at https://experiencesicily.com/st-josephs-day-online/ You’ll learn more about the feast. Such as, on traditional St. Joseph’s Day altars or le tavolate di San Giuseppe, you will see these three types of loaves pictured. On the left is the staff (vastuni), which represents…
Votive Offerings Through The Millennia
Archaeologists are very careful to identify to whom an ancient temple is dedicated until they have concrete evidence (and I don’t just mean concrete in the sense of stone!). In Siracusa, for example, we know that the temple to Apollo on Ortigia is for Apollo because there is an inscription on the east-facing stairs stating…
Piazza Della Vittoria Is A Victory For The Goddess
It’s not lost on me (or my friend, tour guide Rosa Rizza) that when they broke ground in 1973 at Piazza della Vittoria in Siracusa to build the Sanctuary for the Madonna of the Tears, that where they intended to place the church, they discovered the foundation of the late 5th/early 4th century BCE Sanctuary…
They Looked To Venus For Love
In ancient times, if you were looking for love and passion, western Sicily was the place to go. I’ve written about Erice in the past, where for centuries there was a temple to Venus, the Roman goddess of love, and before that, it was a temple to the Carthaginians’ and Phoenicians’ goddess of love. Well,…
Devoted Cittadini! Cittadini!
Even though this year’s feast for Sant’Agata will not be on the streets because of the Coronavirus pandemic, it is in the hearts of devotees in Catania. If you close your eyes, in your mind’s eye you can hear the thousands in their call and response: “Semu tutti devoti tutti? Cittadini, Cittadini!” “Certo! Certo!” (“Are we…
W Sant’Agata!
Viva Sant’Agata! Word spread throughout Sicily about the brutality that Agatha endured and how she stood strong in her Christian faith through it all (as recounted in yesterdays’ post). Over time, her cult grew. That brings us to contemporary Catanian’s devotion to the virgin martyr that reaches a fever pitch during the annual feast from…
The Sanctuary Of Malophoros, Part 2
Unlike many of the other temple ruins that one can visit throughout Sicily at Agrigento, Segesta, and on the acropolis of Selinunte, the sacred area of the Santuario della Malophoros (at Selinunte) was not a single rectangular building with Doric-style columns. It was an enclosed, walled, complex (a temenos) with a regal entranceway (called a…
Tonight: Wintertime, Sicily-Inspired Yoga
Could it be Warrior II?! Join us Friday at 5:30PM (Eastern) for Sicily-Inspired Yoga: Embrace Winter’s Inner Wisdom. Clio Mallin, host of Experience Sicily’s future Yoga in Sicily tour, will led us in a wintertime practice aimed to create balance in your body, mind, and heart. You’ll feel grounded as you nurture your seeds of…
The Sanctuary of Demeter Malophoros, Selinunte (Part I)
The ancient Greek community of Selinunte was founded as a sub-colony of Megara Iblea in 651-650 BCE. One of the first sacred sites in the western Sicilian city, which is considered one of the world’s largest archaeological zones, is the Santuario della Malophoros or the Sanctuary of the Fruit Bearer. “Malophoros” implies pomegranates or apples,…