Bee-ing in Italy

Bees and Being in Umbria

I've come to appreciate the natural and animal life in Italy, as you can see from my previous blog, Life with Animals in Rural Italy. But I admit that I've never been fond of insects, I admit. Many are curiously beautiful to look at, but I don't really want them living too close to me. They do, of course.  Bugs of all sorts inhabit rural houses, especially. Wasps, spiders, and all species of flying bugs get into ours as unwelcome guests. Or, perhaps they think it's theirs and we're the intruders. Anyway, I'm not a bug-fancier. 

Perhaps there is an exception. I've become interested in the incredible bees here. I've never seen bees like these, and wasn't even sure they were bees until I looked it up. I thought they might be beetles because they are so big (easily 1-2") and shiny black, like a tiny new black VW beetle car.  But they are identified as Carpenter Bees because they nest in burrows of dead wood. At the house  we're in, they congregate at the bushes near old wooden railings (perhaps nesting there). 

I've read they're good pollinators and also lay the largest eggs of any insect. Unusual for bees (usually living in large, crowded colonies), these are solitary bees. Female carpenter bees may live  alongside their sisters or daughters in small clusters.  I believe the bees living beside our house are of this coffee-klatch variety. Their buzz is evident as they swarm around flower bushes. They're big enough to watch as they extract nectar (photos from internet).

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery.                                                                                The revery alone will do, If bees are few.

--Emily Dickinson

Thinking About Bees

All this has led to thoughts about bees and about being. The physical and metaphorical aspects relating to bees. 

Bees buzz through many world mythologies, an archetype of inner circumambulation and internal order. Often they serve as symbolic creatures connecting the natural world to the under- or other-world, conveying themes of immortality and resurrection. Such ideas occur in the inscriptions and drawings of ancient near-east and ancient Aegean as well as Mayan cultures, among others. Bee-insignias have  served as symbols of kingship and dynasties, including Napolean's.

Learning more about bees and after reading about the central importance of bees to our planet in Margaret Atwood's After the Flood, I have a new attitude toward them. I walk along the path of a once active apiary (now unattended) near our rented home with respectful admiration. I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to call us friends, but I do my best not to bother them or make a fuss when they cross my path. It encourages me to hear them, knowing there will be more flowers because of them, and honey as well. 

Among our first house gifts, here in the Umbrian countryside, were a jar of honey made by bees on this land and a flask of olive oil from these trees. Talk about "eating Italy", indeed!

A Honeyed Recipe

Struffoli are Italian honey-ball fritters. They are golden balls of dough drizzed with honey and best served warm. Typically served at Christmas time in Italy, they're a treat whenever in need. Click here for recipe in English.

Tenement Bees

I created this digital painting (detail shown of work exhibited in Vancouver) called Tenement Bees as a tribute to bees from crowded urban areas, many of them  blighted with neglect and decay. 

As a long-time city dweller myself, I'm grateful for the opportunity to live in and enjoy the countryside and rural areas wherever I now live. I intended this painting as a tribute to bees who do their bee-ing in settings that offer little and who struggle against circumstances set against them.

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You can read and see more about Italy, plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News click  https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet 

The Pasquarella: A Hike with a Purpose

A Hike with Tradition 

Hiking the high hills of Umbria has been formalized into a religious tradition for certain times of the year. The Pascuarella is one such traditional pilgrimage occurring in springtime. It's a tradition that occurs in several parts of Italy, but it's in Umbria that I experienced it. The term "Pascuarella" derives from the Epiphany, considered the first feast celebrated in Catholicism after the new year.

The Pascuarella in Umbria

It's springtime in Umbria (the photos were taken a few years before Covid). The sun is shining and the green land glows with new vegetation. We've driven out from our little village of Morruzze to a major highway (the one going to Orvieto) in order to join a procession of people on the Pascuarella.

Our destination is the sanctuary called Madonna della Pascuarella, located in the Forello gorge in Baschi. It started for us by parking our car wherever we could find a spot among the many cars lining the highway. We then joined others walking down the steep path down from the highway's verge. We continued on the path that winds its way up again, across the gorge, and up to the church that sits among rocks and vegetation across the highway.

Sanctuary of the Madonna della Pascuarella

The small church, dating from the early Middle Ages, fell to ruins and became the residence of religious hermits, then was restored and re-instated as a parish church in the 19thC. It comes alive during this festival.

A Family Affair

It's a family affair (with baby strollers ),  the goal being to reach the shrine by walking a somewhat arduous path. But there's a celebratory aspect to it, as well. Traditional religious songs making the occasion are often sung along the path, and street musicians often perform at the given destination.  I've learned that the songs are generally simple, consisting of sacred praises along with inducements to charity. Often they are enriched with appendices of profane or bizarre images, and always conclude with the wish of happy holidays or with requests for gifts and food. Popular food carts (now trucks) serve the traditionally good porchetta (pork) sandwiches in this region Trinkets and memorabilia fill the sanctuary area as well.

The Destination

The church, itself, is a small one. It held fewer than 50 people inside when I took this photo. We all sat on wooden benches in this rather lovely little nave.

The tone of the whole event was pleasantly communal and memorable, even during the trek back across the gorge and to our cars, waiting on the highway. 

 More Creative Life News

You can read and see more recent posts about Italy, plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at my  Creative Life News site here.