Reflecting on My Month in Sicily

On Women’s Communities, Transitions, Goddesses, Volcanoes, and Bread

Sicily has been a revelation to me. So many new veins of interest and energy have opened up for me here. I haven’t been able to work much. Instead, I have opened myself up to Sicily and let it do its work on me.

I think I needed to come here to blow out the cobwebs and start to consider what if on a grander scale. So far I’ve been visiting places already familiar to me, places I’ve loved in the past, to see if they still had a pull on me. In England, I fell in love with the culture again and began dreaming of a cottage an hour or two from London. I also fell again for Cassis, France, and promised myself I’d be back. I enjoyed my stays in Paris, Menerbes, Sailsbury, Stratford, and Canterbury as well, but felt no compulsion to return.

Then . . . Sicily broke me open.

The Powerful Women of Catania and Sicily

While in Catania, I have been particularly struck by the veneration of sacred women here. Behind the facades of the Baroque Catholic churches all over the city lies a deeper appreciation of the feminine than I have seen anywhere else. It has made me eager, in fact, to discover more such places.

It started on the plane, as I read Francine Prose’s Sicilian Odyssey and discovered that it was on the island of Sicily that Hades dragged Persephone away from her mother, Demeter, and into the Underworld. Then, when I got off the bus from the airport, the first thing I saw was a huge fountain depicting the powerful Hades’ capture of Persephone.

This is the introduction to Catania that visitors get when they exit the train station. It’s an arresting, chaotic image, one that I didn’t fully comprehend when I first saw it. It was only on repeated sightings that it became clear to me what I had mentally glossed over before, having even taken a picture of it—namely the prelude to Hades’ rape of Persephone.

Since first seeing this representation of a helpless Persephone ready to leap out of Hades’ arms and the brute force by which he has claimed her, I have learned that her mother, Demeter, goddess of agriculture and fertility, was devoutly worshipped on Sicily, including in Catania. Her cult was the largest and most influential on the island. As Cicero explained in his speeches published around 70 B.C., there was in Catania a sanctuary dedicated to the goddesses that no man could enter. Men had no idea what it looked like even. He the described a violation of this sanctuary by the Roman magistrate’s slaves, who presumably acted on his orders, stealing the statue of Demeter from the shrine. “To all the fact appeared painful, shameful, a real mourning for the city,” he wrote. (This was one of the many crimes of Verres, whom Cicero successfully prosecuted.)

The sanctuary devoted to Demeter and Persephone (Ceres and Kore to the Romans) was unearthed in 1959, along with a cache of devotional objects, dated to the 5th and 6th centuries B.C., many representing the goddesses. Unfortunately, the contractors eager to continue their project, paved over the site before it could be fully excavated. Yet, as this website explains, the cache “seems to outline a cult addressed to a female divinity with a wide sphere of action, responsible for the renewal of the social body through the growth and development of the new generations.” In other words, Demeter and Persephone represented the cycle of life itself. The were powerful indeed, and it was women’s responsibility to ensure their favor on the community.

The looting of the female-only sanctuary and the paving over of the archeological dig that discovered its remains are only two instances of the ways that female deities and the worship of the feminine has been suppressed. Yet, signs of it remain everywhere in Sicily. In Catania, it seems that it reemerged in another form with the advent of Christianity.

As Catanians ceased to pray to Demeter, they switched their devotion to Agatha. She was a third-century Christian martyr, the patron saint of Catania. Prayers to Agatha are said to have resulted in her repeatedly saving the city from the volcano Etna’s fury over the past 1800 years.

Agatha is venerated for suffering repeated sexual assault and torture from a judge who tried to make her submit to him and become his wife. As part of the unspeakable tortures he inflicted on her, he had her breasts cut off. She is often pictured holding them.

(In fact, they make a delicious cake in her honor here called casatelli that is shaped like a breast with a white dome and cherry on top. No joke! You can check it out my Instagram.) As a result of her torture, Agatha is the patron saint of sexual assault victims, breast cancer patients, wet nurses, and fire victims (as she was also severely burned).

Agatha died in Catania in 251 A. D. Her relics are kept in the cathedral and paraded through the city at the height of the St. Agatha festival, the second largest religious celebration in the world. As I write, the city is gearing up for the festival, which starts on Feb. 3 and ends on Feb. 5. For days now, at noon, canons have been firing in preparation.

Women’s travel communities

I came to Catania not so much in search of goddess and the divine feminine (at least not consciously), but to stay at Cummari. I was drawn to the idea of a coliving, coworking space just for women and wanted to know if this was something I might want to create in the future. There are lots of coliving houses cropping up around Europe and elsewhere for the growing number of digital nomads out there, most of whom are in their 20s and 30s. But none of these houses, except Cummari, are only for women and those who identify as women. I’ve heard horrible things about how some of the co-ed coliving houses are run (not much better than frat houses), and some even have age restrictions—as in no one over 40! I’ve also heard good stories, though, so I’m not writing them off completely.

Cummari strives to be something different. Here is how the owner, Michelle, describes it on her website: “Cummari is a home away from home, where explorers can find inspiration and thrive in community. It is a place for solo female travellers to feed their cultural passions, businesses, adventures, or simply to rest in good company.” What kind of up-in-the-air, semi-lost traveler like me wouldn’t be drawn to that?

Cummari has come to feel like a home of sorts for me. I’d love to stay here again at another time of year when there are more women staying. In January it’s been pretty quiet. But Cummari been a relaxing oasis for me, and Michelle has been like no other host I’ve met. We’ve had so many good talks about our lives and also about women’s need for community and grounding, even (and perhaps particularly) in the midst of travel. Many of the women who come through here are going through major life transitions, as I am. They are either more or less homeless, as I am, or searching for a new home. Some have decided to stay or are planning a move to Sicily.

It's easy to see why. The area in and around Catania is where earth, water, air, and fire converge, Cummari’s website says. It’s a place where many women expats have found themselves by reconnecting with the strong feminine energy here. One of the most potent examples of that energy is Mount Etna.

Climbing Mama Etna

A week ago last Saturday, as we drove up Mount Etna to the place where we would begin our hike, our guide, Saro, filled us full of interesting facts. Although it is considered the second most active volcano in the world, Etna is currently the most active because Kilauea in Hawaii has been relatively quiet of late. Also, Etna is not just one volcano, but a whole system of them. He pointed to the various hills and told us when they were formed.

As we were talking about how each day is different on Etna, Saro said, “Etna is unpredictable.” Then he paused and said, “You know, we think of Etna as a woman.”

“Ah, because she’s moody,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, somewhat sheepishly.

“But she’s also very powerful,” I added.

“Yes, and not just destructive,” he said. “She brings life to this whole area. All of what we grow is nourished by her. She has produced some very fertile soil here. She is Mama Etna to us. She is the mother of us all.”

I love this image of a volcano as a mother (and vice versa), because as Saro explained to us, volcanos don’t just erupt violently and cause destruction, although they are certainly capable of that. Etna is a “good” volcano, he said, in that the magma that comes up to the surface tends to leak out rather than erupt. In fact, I’ve seen pictures on Instagram since we went up that show new lava flows emerging far from the summit. New cracks are opening up, like veins oozing blood glowing with energy from the earth’s core.

We think of mountains as the most stable of earth forms. There is a mountain meditation I do sometimes to channel grounded stability. But a volcano is a living mountain. It’s constantly changing. Saro goes up regularly and never sees the same mountain twice, he said. New craters open up or close. Its shape can even morph as magma pushes its way up through old or new fissures.

It was quite an experience hiking up part of Etna. It was -3 degrees Celsius, I wasn’t entirely properly clothed, and there was a lot of snow, which was quite a shock after driving up from sunny, warm Catania. On the steep parts of the trail, it was difficult to catch my breath at that altitude. Once we climbed above the tree line, the wind was fierce. It was hard to hold my phone to take pictures. When I managed to, it was impossible to capture the vast view over the outcroppings of hills and craters to the Ionian Sea. Pictures didn’t do justice to the sheer beauty of the bright blue sky and the yellow grasses and black lava rock sprouting up from the dazzling white snow.

I wanted to stop often, not only to catch my breath but also to soak it all in, but Saro urged us on. He was worried about the clouds coming in. And sure enough, the wind picked up and pushed us along until we reached the trail’s summit, at one of Etna’s largest craters. There were two craters, in fact. And a monitoring station that collects data for the many scientists studying Etna. We stood at the crest of this part of the volcano and battled to stand upright. I couldn’t bear to take off the wool socks that were inadequately serving as mittens, my hands nearly frozen, to take a pictures. But I managed to take a couple, using my mouth to swipe open the camera app and push the button. I couldn’t resist showing off my new skill to my companions, who were duly impressed.

On the way down, we had the wind pointed directly at as, trying to push us back up the trail. I can still feel the force of the wind stinging my cheeks and willing my body to bend like the tree branches and needles that all pointed in the same direction. Saro tucked my scarf up around my face and somehow my feet found their way through the thick snow. Were it not for the hiking poles Saro gave us, I’m sure I would have landed on my butt more than once.

Underworlds and Rebirth

Since our hike a week and a half ago I’ve only seen Etna once. She is hard to see from the city, but she is occasionally visible on a clear day up the wide avenue of Via Etna. It’s hard to believe that the three-to-five story buildings that fill the city so completely block our view of her, considering how high she towers over us.

I saw her again on Monday as I was driving back from a road trip I took to visit some new friends in the south of Sicily. I was on the way to the airport to return my rental car, listening to a new book Michelle had recommended to me: Maiden to Mother: Unlocking Our Archetypal Journey to the Mature Feminine by Sarah Durham Wilson. I was listening to the part where she tells the story of the ancient Sumerian goddess Inanna. She descends into the Underworld to “reclaim the buried and severed parts of herself” and is reborn stronger and wiser. Wilson asks us to make our own descent into the underworld in order to shed what our patriarchal culture has inscribed on us as women. As she explains, it demands that we remain maidens, trying to stay forever young, waiting for the prince to come and wake us. She urges us instead to make our way through the dark Underworld of the soul to rediscover the eternal mother within.

At just this point in the book, I began to drive through a dark tunnel. And then another and another—a whole series of tunnels burrowing through the earth. As I emerged out the other end, there was Etna filling the view through my windshield, so wide and vast, the base of her spread across the horizon. Catania lay out below her and appeared small, insignificant, a mere crumb at her feet. while she rose undeniably through the clouds into the heavens. It felt like a synchronous moment, although I can’t say for sure what it was telling me.

BenAveling, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Interestingly, in Greek mythology, Etna was often viewed as a gateway to the Underworld. It was supposed to be the entrance that Hades used to bring Persephone down to his kingdom. Demeter is also said to have lit her torches there, which she used to search for Persephone after Hades kidnapped her.

The way Wilson describes the Underworld, I’m quite sure that I was there in 2020-2021. I suppose I’m still there in a way, waiting to be reborn, or finding my way toward the sunlight. I’m pretty sure, though, that this time in Sicily has helped me to glimpse it.

Bread Is in the Air

I first started to glimpse this light during my first week here when I was talking to a new friend about how I hadn’t been able to write since I arrived. I had been journaling but hadn’t even opened my novel and had zero inclination to do so. Sicily had flooded me with sensations and so many new thoughts. They pulled me out of my head, where my novel lives, and into an almost blinding light. (Even in January the sun is very bright here.)

Obviously my not writing was causing me some frustration and fear. “I feel like I need to make money from my writing,” I told her. “Maybe that is the problem.” And my friend said simply, “Well, what does it look like if you aren’t a writer?” The first image that came to my mind was my hands kneading bread. “I think I’d like to make bread,” I told her, wondering where on earth that came from.

A week later, after researching bread baking courses all over Europe, I discovered the work of life coach Jessie Harrold, who works with women in transition. I wish I had found her two years ago! I took her online quiz to see what stage of transition I am in. She describes them as earth, water, air, and fire. It’s no surprise to me that I got “Air.” I’m in the “liminal space,” she says. “The space between. The space of no-longer-this-anymore but not-this-yet.”

That is exactly what I’ve been writing about in these letters. And I feel like I’ve been here for a while. But her understanding of how women move through transition makes a lot of sense to me. I have already oriented myself to the fact that big changes are necessary (that is the Earth phase) and have shed a lot of what wasn’t working in my life (that is the water phase). So I suppose although I feel like I’ve been up in the air for a long time, I was really working on those earlier stages and anticipating the untethered state to come. Once you realize there is no going back to how life was, you don’t really know what it is to come, but you fight like hell to give yourself a new ground to land on. It’s been really hard at times not to jump into something new that seems like maybe a good idea—just to have something to cling to.

Harrold calls the whole process “radical transition,” which is fundamental change, not just a new job or a new skill or behavior, but reconnecting with your true values. You have to sit with uncertainty for as long as it takes to discover what you truly value and want from your life. This process is not linear or defined. You are changing so much, stripping away layer after layer, so it makes no sense to run off on any new paths or set new goals for yourself. Inevitably, they won’t feel right once you arrive at them. The new place you moved to, or the new job you got, won’t feel right because when you went after them, you weren’t sure who you were and what you really wanted.

Something in me knew this already, which is why I’ve been reluctant to jump in and buy a house in France, for instance, which was my first grand idea of how to find a new ground to land on. As I’ve written here before, I’m in the trying-stuff-out phase, which, as it turns out, is not what the air phase is about, according to Harrold. That is the next phase, fire. The point of “air,” she says, is to be not to do. There is nowhere to go yet, nothing to be. If you stick with it, it is a rich, very expansive time, when we have a sense of spaciousness. This is where creativity and intuition can really flourish. The work here is to sit with this expansiveness and reconnect with your intuition.

So how to find that part of my inner self stripped away of all of the should’s and ought-to’s? Travel was my answer. I thought there is no better way to float up and out of your particular circumstances and get a bird’s eye view than through travel. It can also disrupt your life and sense of self, and unsettle you, in good ways, so that you have to face the bigger questions of who you are and what you really want from life. Catania is certainly doing that to me.

The very same day that I took Jessie Harrold’s quiz and learned I’m in the “Air” phase of transition, I settled down and wanted to watch something on Netflix. I had bread on the brain, so I typed “bread” into the search bar. An episode from Michael Pollan’s series “Cooked” popped up, based on his book of the same name. There are four episodes, each one based on a food and its corresponding element—water, fire, air, and earth. It just so happened that the one about bread was called “Air”! Not a coincidence, I think.

It turns out that air is an essential part of bread, the most basic form of food, the staple for a majority of the world’s population. A food scientist told Pollan that if you give a person grain and water, they won’t survive on that alone. But if you give them bread—made from grains and water and bacteria that arrive through the air and cause fermentation—they can live off of that alone. Bread is a perfect food.

I’m not sure where to go with all of this, but I feel like the universe is telling me to finally learn how to bake bread. So I’ll be getting my hands dirty soon, and I may even try to make a sourdough starter. If you have any bread tips for me, let me know!

I haven’t even talked yet about the cooking classes I’ve taken here and how Sicilian cuisine has become a fascination for me. (You can see my pictures and learn more about that on my Instagram.)

There is no doubt that Sicily is a place I need to return to. I feel that it’s history, legends, women, and cuisine have so much to teach me. In the meantime, I will watch this new vein of energy and light that has opened up inside me and see what happens there. There were so many times in my old life when I felt like a volcano about to explode. Sicily and Etna have shown me a new way to think about the power inside of me.  

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Until next time, when I’ll be writing from Edinburgh,

Anne