Mid
summer's night has come and gone here in the Sibillini mountains, a
night when a strange and fascinating ancient ritual is repeated,
where young men climb up to the top of Mt. Sibilla for a rendezvous
with young maidens,whose beauty is a wonder to behold and whose
powers of enchantment and seduction are befitting of the fairies or
witches (which they secretly are).
And
thus follows a night of revelling and love which leave our young men
in a delirium of exhaustion, waking at sunrise to find that their
beauteous maidens have vanished from the mountain top.
Legend
has it that, unbeknown to the young men, the maidens were in fact
fairy creatures, half human and half goat, with goats legs, and that
this is why they disappear before the break of day, to avoid their
treachery being discovered.
And
that they, before the coming of the following summer, give birth to
girls with goats legs who almost immediately, magically, grow to
maturity and beauty to then practise their fairy like powers readying
for the next mid summers night revels.
The
old Nature religions still flourish in this part of Marche and I
could tell many a tale of healers who would be first call for folks
with wounds or sickness; amongst even doctors, judges, caribinieari,
builders, farmers, whoever, even those who had a curse put upon them
(myself included)
I
write this, not because I want to scare you, but because I want to
send a tingle of awe down your spine to prepare you for Cittadella
our creativity playground beneath the majestic mountain of Vettore;
to inspire those of you who are searching for that artist within
which has been yearning to be reawakened, or indeed, for practising
artists who might like the idea of working with others in this
extraordinary part of Italy: And maybe to look at their art and life
in a fresh context.
https://www.michaeleldridgestudio.com/workshops/
On
the site above you can also find pages about my work and dozens
of blogs I've written over the years of living here in Italy.
At
the top left of each page there is a translation button to switch to
Italian, should you wish
Sul
sito sopra potete trovare anche pagine sul mio lavoro e decine di
articoli che ho scritto durante gli anni trascorsi qui in Italia. In
cima a ogni pagina è presente un pulsante di traduzione che permette
di visualizzare il testo in italiano.
The
workshop seminars and instructions are in English with a translator
on board to translate simultaneously into Italian
I
seminari e le lezioni si tengono in inglese, con un traduttore a
bordo che traduce simultaneamente in italiano.
Be good to see you here in September,
Michael
