Some say he was originally from Ethiopia, but he died in Sicily, on Mount Calogero (this Mt. Calogero is located south, in Sciacca, there are a few of them scattered around the island which points to the possibility that there may have been many Calogeros) in 486 CE of natural causes. This particular region is filled with healing thermal vents and caves— places inside mountains that have been used therapeutically since the 5th century.

The steaming vents were considered sacred territory and Calogero entered into them and used them as dwelling/healing spaces, using the steam as a vehicle for healing.

He is also called L'eremita (the hermit) which is a word that represents the inner cave, the hermit card in tarot, the healing that can be done when we go deep within, to the places within, and then to emerge, to shine light and heal others with what we discover. Calogero was a cave/threshold worker, like so many of the other saints we know (Lucia, Agata, Rosalia…). 

Maybe some of you follow me on social media (@radicisiciliane) and I quickly shared a little story about how when I was little I took some raw cookie balls while my mother and my zia were making them — and threw them at the ceiling. They stuck (that is how perfectly moist they are) and left a little brown spot (after it finally fell off) for a while until my mother, typical Italian style mother, figured out how to scrub a ceiling clean.

Well these are the cookies.

These cookies have gotten my family through 7 weddings (even when a sibling got married out of town, boxes of these cookies and others, made their way to wherever the wedding was being celebrated). Funeral — someone whole bring a tray of them, and of course Christmas. These were always a Christmas favorite.

Mass immigration deeply affected those who were left behind, or stayed home. 

Sicily, one of Italy’s poorest regions (alongside Calabria and Abruzzo) has more than one in five members of the working-age population unemployed, and almost half of all island residents are either living at poverty level or at risk of poverty. Sicily appears wealthy– because of what we see on social media — the constant images of places like Noto and Taormina, the inimitable beauty of the land, the glorious food, the stunningly gorgeous people, the joyful, “dolce vita” energy, the colorful festi and celebrations – and yet multi-generational Sicilian people still remain economically disadvantaged at poverty levels.