Experience Sicily

Category: divine feminine

  • 52 Reasons to Love Sicily | #24. The Mother Goddess’ Presence is Everywhere

    Demeter, the goddess of the grain, female fertilization, and the harvest, who is the mother of Persephone, represents the great matriarch in ancient Greek mythology. Her power to cultivate the bounties on the Earth’s surface for us are illustrated significantly during the myth of Demeter and Kore/Persephone. Before the Christian era, the Eleusinian Mysteries (as…

  • 52 Reasons to Love Sicily | #16. Fantastic Feasts and Festivals

    And then of course, there are annual and biannual commemorations for deities and patron saints throughout the region that include everything from making ritual breads for Saint Joseph and Saint Blaze and decorating the streets with linens and flowers for the Pentecost, for just two examples, to processions for feasts recognizing Easter, the Madonna, Christ,…

  • 52 Reasons to Love Sicily | #10. The Crowds Slip Away

    This is Sicily.  

  • Giving Thanks To The Father

    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,…

  • 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…