the year's midnight*

Today is the feast day of St. Lucy, whose name means light and who is the patron of blindness and vision. Like so many virgin-martyrs, Lucy was betrothed against her will, betrayed by her spurned suitor, miraculously survived numerous attempts to torture or execute her, and finally, died for her faith. Under the old Julian calendar, St. Lucy's Day was the shortest day of the year, celebrated in Scandinavia with saffron bread and girls wearing crowns of candles, a promise in the darkest part of winter that the light would return.

Every saint has an attribute, a symbol that commemorates an episode from his or her life or death: Catherine, the wheel on which she was broken, Barbara, the tower in which she was imprisoned, Roch, the dog who brought him bread. Lucy, as in the picture above, is often depicted as carrying a plate with her own eyes, put out either by the Romans or, in some versions of the story, by Lucy herself.

Which explains why someone (okay, it was me) was dancing around the kitchen last night singing "eyes on a plate, eyes on a plate, eyes on a plate, eyes on a plate" to the tune of Ring Christmas Bells. (Check out the cool techno-video below if you can't quite recall the melody). It's actally kind of catchy.





* This post’s title comes from the first line of a poem by John Donne, A Nocturnal on Saint Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day. Go read it. Then read it again.