|
Natalis Solis Invicti
21st December: the sun is arrived at its crisis; till now we
have held breath, being afraid of the death of the day. If the sun
turns off, for the Earth is the death.
But
on 21st December the sun stops its course towards extinction:
the day, that slowly grows longer, comforts us that we will not
fall down in the dark and in the cold.
And on 17th January Sant'Antonio's fire shine everywhere, like a
sign of our joy and help in its growth towards the sun.
Many little lights on the earth in order to encourage the great
fire of the sky.
And on 17th January, for us, the Carnival starts, the
celebration of fertility and the purification for the earth that,
by the warm of the sun, begins to wake up.
The earth is good, it does not refuse us its fruit, but we must
help it: even if we have not read it in the books, we know that
the earth is a woman.
[…]
|
|
When
our women give birth to a child, we tell prayers and charms; so,
we must help also the earth that is about to have a new birth,
after the winter.
Dances and songs, sweets and confetti are spread with
the large movement that is used to sow the seeds; sign of the
new fecundity and good sign for everybody who takes part to
these rituals.
The union between the sky and the earth renews, while the
struggle between the forces of life and the ones that oppose to
it becomes harder.
Deads' souls, the good souls of people who, on the earth,
ate the bread with us and drank the wine, divided efforts
and pains with us, few joy and a lot of mortifications and, like us,
knew misery and oppression, are invited at the earth celebration.
We have consigned them to the earth, we have hidden them in its
womb, but we have not forgotten them; because we, who feel the
hidden mysteries under Maia's veil, do not believe that
everything is motionless and dead; for us everything is live and
we do not believe in the total desctruction; we have buried our
deads, as the seeds are sown in the furrows, so over there they
help the earth during its travail and they will revive in the
corn.
They belong to that dark world that shakes us even if we know
that without it the world of Light could not exist. For this
reason, we usually are afraid of them; but today, Carnival day is also their day; so let them mingle with us; we
recognize them by their white coats and by their black faces in
half, Pulcinella's white coat and black face in half.
The devils, the spirit of nature, who give plants life and
multiply the animals, go with them; also they are invited at the
celebration and take on the likeness of our children having their faces painted
with two
colours: red and black, white and black.
It is the right moment in order to restart the history, to
cancel the past life and to free us from the sins, obsessions
and errors.
Therefore, today, the world comes back to the origin: […]
Poor Carnival, we have already held your trial, even if you are
innocent; you were not to rob the poor, to torment the afflicted,
to commit the injustice against the weak and to justify the
power.
You were not to violate the defenceless girl; people's cold
and hunger have not given you golden indolence and expensive
vices.
But we have burnt you with fire of joy.
By the water and by the fire the past life cencels itself, with
its guilts, obsessions and errors.
Cheerful sparks shine in the wind, together the confetti and the
ashes, good signs to be able to restart because also the Phoenix
rises again more beautiful from its ash.
IGNE NATVRA RENOVATVR INTEGRA
(Da I. SARCONE, In Limine, Napoli 1987, pp. 39-42 |
