Monthly Archives: January 2025
holds the treasure you seek
I can’t remember how I found this grotto, but that doesn’t really matter too much: the point is that I did find it.
Ragusa Ibla, Sicily
photographed 9.7.2022
jesus and roses
The thing about traveling in a group of photographers is that sometimes they get clumped up because everyone needs (Needs, I say!) that shot from that angle in that light of that Duomo. Or whatever. It can (and did) get frustrating. But if I hadn’t been all pissy way back there at the back of the clump, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the shrine in the wall. And I still got the obligatory shot of the Duomo.
Ragusa Ibla, Sicily
photographed 9.7.2022
as the waves softened us
That night in the warm darkness, I could hear conversations in Italian on my right and, behind me, conversations in English. I sat alone with my thoughts, listening to the waves roll across the sun-heated sand and marveling at the way my life had turned out that I was there on the shores of the Mediterranean on a full-moon night with a camera in my hand.
Erelcea Minoa, Sicily
photographed 9.7.2022
color study (sicily)
The entire day was joyous in every way you can imagine, so it wasn’t necessarily a surprise to look up this narrow passageway and see so much color dabbed about.
Bivona, Sicily
photographed 9.4.2022
santa rosalia moves on
On my previous visit to Sicily, we were fortunate to be able to share in the procession of the town’s patron saint. It was an extremely moving experience…here’s what I wrote about it soon after it happened:
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“How weird that my eyes are so sweaty.” -actual thought I had, standing on that church balcony.
Our group was in Bivona, Sicily, on the feast day for the their patron saint, Santa Rosalia. Following Mass, the church members prepared to move the saint from her niche in the front of the church. Later that day, men of the town would carry her on their shoulders as they processed through the narrow streets. It was the first time they’d been able to hold the Mass and procession since 2019. It was clearly an emotional event.
Through our outstanding tour leader, Allison Scola, from Experience Sicily, we had remarkable access to the day’s events, including getting to watch the process of moving Santa Rosalia from a vantage point that gave us a unique view.
And this is the part I cannot explain – and I’ve been trying to understand it every day since it happened. The faith shown by the townspeople seemed so pure, so real, so honest, so truthful, so much a part of their lives. It was the most honest expression of faith (and maybe even of Faith, since that’s two different things, perhaps) that I have ever witnessed. I didn’t understand what anyone was saying. I don’t have any particular knowledge of Catholic traditions. I am generally a skeptical person. But this: it wasn’t so much that my eyes were sweating. It was in fact tears, tears I couldn’t stop, tears I was surprised to be shedding, tears at the beauty, the faith that I was witnessing.
I still don’t understand it in ways that I can write down. But, I know what I saw. I know how it impacted me. I know I will never be the same.
And that’s a lot.
***
And this was my last look at the saint as she moved slowly along the street and our group moved slowly in the other direction, our thoughts surely heavy with all we’d seen that day.
Bivona, Sicily
photographed 9.4.2022
One Day | One Image 