It happened on Sunday 13 December 1646, that in the Cathedral of a Syracuse plagued by famine, during mass, a quail or perhaps a dove rested on the altar and from the entrance of the church the voice of a man proclaimed the arrival at the port of a ship loaded with grain. The hunger was so great that there was no time to grind it but it was eaten boiled. And this is how the dish was born, famous on the island, cooked every year by the Sicilians since then, in honor of the Saint who broke the carastia in Syracuse, unexpectedly making a huge and saving load of wheat appear. La Cuccìa, in memory of the miracle of the patron saint of Syracuse.
Saint Lucia is also the protector of the blind, especially due to the etymology of her name from Lux, Light or bearer of light. But once again the most ancient tradition of our ancestors re-emerges, in a semantic continuum with our contemporaneity. In fact, December 13, the day of the Gregorian calendar assigned to the Saint, is the date on which, in the Julian calendar (prior to our Gregorian), the winter solstice fell, the shortest day of the year and the longest night. From 13 December onwards, for the peoples of northern Europe, we entered the month of Yule, which would lead to Christmas, and the fields and woods plunged into a silent and lethargic darkness, a time of rest for Nature. For these reasons, in the calendars of pagan celebrations, on this day the Light or Artemis, the Goddess of Light, was celebrated.
Lucia, Artemis, Lussi, Bertha, Pertcha, Diana ... all women associated with the liminal world, with uncertain boundaries between that of the living and that of the spirits, bearers of divine light, a beacon for the souls of the dead, for the magical world and for those who do not see because, despite having eyes, their minds are clouded by ideologies of power for which man is a wolf of himself, in the constant inability to change, to evolve to new life in the healthy and natural repetition of the seasons and in the 'evolution of time which is understanding and wisdom.
Lucia is therefore a holy martyr for the same men who did not see her faith, who trampled her will, who killed her in the name of an forgetful patriarchate that continues to claim victims.
Today, witches are women free in the soul who meet wrong men, blinded by unhealthy and deadly feelings. Today their fires are made of acid but the blades around their necks are the same. Witches are beaten, humiliated, deprived of self-esteem, reduced to larvae. For this reason, today as yesterday, it is still necessary to bring light into the lives of those who live in the darkness of ignorance and hypocrisy, in the shadow of a society of appearances in which truth finds it hard to shine.
May this be a time for meditation, a moment of self-analysis to understand how to evolve in the new spring that awaits us. But even before that, it will be Christmas and we will be given the opportunity to reconcile, to bury old grudges, for new purposes of kindness and sharing. May the light illuminate, today and always, our path of growth.
Lucia's story
This is the story of a woman who was persecuted, tortured and eventually killed because of her faith. She was accused of witchcraft when, before the judge of the Roman army, neither ten men nor five oxen were able to bend her, to make her kneel before the icon of pagan gods that she did not recognize as such.
Lucia was born in Syracuse to a noble family, but she lost her father at the age of five and her mother suffered from continuous bleeding, which is why she spent a lot of money on treatment. One day, mother and daughter, went to the sepulcher of Sant'Agata martyr in Catania to ask her for a cure, and there Lucia, dozing off, dreamed of the Saint who invited her to find the power of the miracle within herself and to become aware of the immense light that reigned in his spirit. When she woke up, her mother was healed and Lucia expressed her total desire to consecrate her virginity to Christ, a cult forbidden in pagan Sicily at that time, under the empire of Diocletian.
Lucia began her new life alongside the humblest, helping the poor even with large sums of money taken from her inheritance, and caring for the sick. For this reason, the man who had been betrothed to her from her birth decided to report her to the Roman court, accused of being a Christian.
Famous is the dialogue between the Saint and her judge, who was repeatedly put in difficulty by the oratory art of Lucia, then just twenty-one. Lucia never bent down, she was burned at the stake but the flames did not take root on her and, ultimately, she was killed by the hand of an executioner with a knife in her throat, as if to cut off her head, not before the Martyr prophesied her fall of Diocletian's empire and peace in the Christian Church. And for all this she was called Witch.
The cult of Saint Lucia took root immediately in Sicily, an emblem of courage, fearless in the face of carnal death and totally entrusted to her God. An example of strength for all those women who have been accused of witchcraft for having believed in their own ideals, women who often they frightened men and, alas, fratricidal women too, for their intelligence, for their beauty, because they never lowered their eyes, because they told the truth.
It is to these women that we are inspired, it is to them that we turn our thanks every day. To the miracle of truth, trust, strength.
Thanks to all the Witches who have never given up before us and who have bequeathed us the freedom to think, say and act.
Our homage to this very important day is our hand cream, the Cuccìa, which is not just a dessert, but the tangible symbol that the history of our past has never been lost, but thrives integrated in the everyday life of those who know how to remember. .
