Solstice and Equinox in Italian traditions
Spring Equinox
The coming of Easter in Sicily evokes ancient rites with which it was celebrated, in pagan events, the spring equinox, which suggests adequately among the most mysterious phenomena of nature, the idea of death and resurrection as the disappearance and rebirth of vegetation.
The Dance of the Devils is inspired to an ancient pagan tradition that has taken a Christian interpretation signifying the triumph of good over evil through the victory of the risen Christ on the Devils.
In the magical spectacle of the "Dance of the Devils", where faith and folklore are intimately fused, the dramatic elements arising from some representations mute that allow the human spirit to participate in the ideal clash between Christianity and paganism, between spring and winter, between light and darkness, between life and death.
Summer Solstice
The night of the solstice lives for thirteen years in the White City of Puglia. On this night, a long time ago, there was a magical moment because it falls in the solstice days when the sun, according to ancient belief, marries the moon and from this union are poured beneficial energies on earth and especially on the grass wet from the dew, that turns into a powerful medicine that cures all types of skin diseases.
The legend of St. John night tells that at this particular moment astral witches gather to perform their magic. The most cautious in order to protect themselves crawled under clothing some St. John's wort.
A magical night where popular traditions are combined with the magic and the art of road.
All the old town is full of various events: music, street theater, dance on stilts, etc.
Autumn Equinox
With this pagan ritual and the lighting of the sacred fire, the Gods are called to participate in all stages of human life and, with the Autumn Equinox ritual, evokes the forces of the silence of reason in man's transformation in infinite changes.
We fly with the emotions in the worlds in which reason, the verb, the words, the logos, do not have access because the world of the emotions is the world of life.
The Autumn Equinox ritual manifests the strength of pagan contemplation, the power with which the Pagans are open to the world around them and meet the gods.
Winter Solstice
The ritual of light - the winter solstice in Catania.
The sounds and movements inspired by the energy of light accompany the visitors made protagonists of the Rite, guiding the in a sound research and perception of beauty: a kind of spiritual path, with three miles of tulle and more than 20,000 candles.
During the four nights of the Rite, students read their most beautiful verses, those who themselves have composed in dialect, in Italian or foreign language, along with those of the great poets, local and national. Young people are involved in a process of growth and civil ethics through the language of poetry.