Welcome To
Della Medicina
Folkloric Medicine + Magic + Plants
Folk Medicine Training Based in Italian and Italian American healing traditions
Starts October 2024
“Della Medicina offers a singular, comprehensive exploration of Italian/American spirituality, encompassing all major elements: plant-by-plant, era-by-era, practice-by-practice, providing a complete, intact weave of cultural heritage that doesn't just offer fragments of tradition, but enables participants to reclaim their spiritual identity with authenticity and depth."
“The peasant medicine that… are the cures of a forgotten knowledge. The language of the healers.”
~Christian Bonomi, Io Prima Di Me
9 Months of In-Depth study and practice
Through plant learning and hands-on practice, participants weave together the threads of their heritage, gaining a profound sense of connection, ethical responsibility, and personal empowerment.
✔ 2x month: live/online 90-120 minute meetings
✔ 1x month: live practice circle
✔ 7 plant share circles spread throughout the 9 months
✔ 1 60 minute one-to-one session with Lisa
✔ 9 in-depth plant monograph pdfs
✔ Private community forum
✔ Pre-recorded video
✔ Lifetime access to all recordings and pdfs
✔ Guest Teachers
✔ A package of herbal remedies and material to work with
✔ Bonus Materials
Together we will discover the threads that take us to our traditional medicine memories and magic. The natural magic of the peasants and immigrants of Southern Italy that offer us the innovative, adaptive, and regenerative healing skills we need now.
This course is an evolution of our previous courses “Della Medicina I and II”. It is a slower paced and more in-depth course of both study and practice. More focus will be placed on the practice of Italian Folk Medicine and we will go deeper into some of the foundational subject. If you already took “Della Medicina I” or both I and II, this course is still for you. There may be some repeat info but there will be plenty of new info and any repeat info will be more extensive.
Info about the course:
Live Sessions: All sessions will be held online via zoom. They will be recorded but live attendance will be encourage.
Ex-Voto/ Offerings of Completion: There will be a custom certificate of completion designed by artist Victoria Haf given at the end of the course. In order to receive the certificate you must attended at least 50% of the sessions live. This is a tradition that was originally transmitted in-person and there was a rapport between the teacher and student. Your presence in the group is important to develop that rapport between all of us.
There two attendance tiers:Attendance tier 1:
Those who attend a minimum 1 live session per month, 4 of the practicums , and at least 3 plant share circles will receive a "certificate of completion".
Attendance tier 2:
Those who attend 15 of the live teaching sessions, 7 of the practicums, and at least 5 plant share circles will receive a “certificate of completion” and free access to our growing library of ebooks and pre-recorded courses for 3 months.
Foundations: This course is based in Italian and Italian American Folk Medicine but in an adapted and expanded format that makes it appropriate for our current times. Its foundations are “medicina popolare” or “the medicine of the people” that can be found in all cultures around the world.
Lineage: You do not have to be of Italian descent to take this course but, if you are not, we will ask you to share your interest or call to study these practices. We consider anyone who was adopted and/or enculturated by Italian diasporic culture as “of Italian descent”. If you’re not sure send us an email and we can discuss it!
Meeting Dates and Times : October 2024-June 2025
*these are approximate. Some months will be slightly different.
Live Class Calls:
The first Wednesday of every month - 6-8:30 pm Eastern time
The 2nd or 3rd Saturday of every month - 12-2:30 pm Eastern time
Practicum calls:
The 3rd or 4th Monday of every month - 1-2:30 pm Eastern time
Guest Teachers Calls:
TBA
Monthly Plant Share Circles with Tina:
See Below
Monthly Plant Share Circles
with Tina Parziale
Part of the learning process of folk medicine is relational and includes our relations with other humans. During these plant share circles everyone has an opportunity to share their direct experience with our monthly plant. These shares are not from things we’ve learned in books or any outside source, but what we learn from our own personal interactions.
Plant share circles :: 12 pm Eastern Time
November: Tuesday, 11/12, 12pm
December: Tuesday, 12/10, 12pm
January: Tuesday, 1/14, 12pm
February: Tuesday, 2/11, 12pm
March: Tuesday, 3/11, 12pm
April: Tuesday, 4/8, 12pm
May: Tuesday, 5/13, 12pm
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Tina is a 1st generation Italian American and has been a student of Lisa’s for several years. She participated in many rounds of plant share circles which deepened her personal connections to plants and ancestors. She now teaches Italian folk medicine at the cafe and community center she helped found, “Fable”, in Connecticut.
Tina Parziale (she/her - @trparz) is many things, one of which is "averse to labels". Throughout her life, she has been captivated by the power and magic of story--from folktale and myths to stories of her ancestors and the lands they hailed from. In her capacity as a facilitator, she draws connections between the past and present, and encourages participants to learn from the past to inform, inspire, and change their present. She is the owner of Fable—a tea house/artisan gift shop/learning space/cocktail lounge— located on lands of the Tunxis and Quinnipiac people (Southington, CT).
@ctfable
@fable_underworld
Curriculum
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Olive/Oliva
Bay/Alloro
Elder/Sambuco
Cannabis/Canapa
Parsley/Prezzomolo
Mugwort/Artemisia
Mallow/Malva
Garlic/Aglio
St. Johnswort/Imperico
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The Ancient Mediterranean
The civilization of Old Europe
Animism and Totemism
Tribes of Italy
Mythos
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Vitalità
The Vital Faculties
The Cosmos
Plato and the Pythagoreans
The Four Humors
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The cycles
Seeds and death practices
Social reciprocity and the concept of energetic “sharing”
Cures
Curses and conditions
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Herbal preparations
Making an unguento (herbal salve)
Making a decotto
Making flower essences
and More!
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Dream Incubation
Astrology
Tarot
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Sympthetic magic
Apotropaic magic
Protezione
Segnatura and Sciongiuri
Stregoneria
Folk Catholicism
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Keepers of the Hearth
Vesta
Sacred foods
Ritual tools
Digestivi/digestive herbs and preparations
Kitchen spells
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The pregnant vegetation goddess
La Madonna of the grain
Persephone
Hecate’s garden
Folkloric:
The the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth. This is the communal and multi-generational transference of skills and wisdom that has emerged and evolved over time in relationship with the social field and ecological conditions within in which the people exist.
Course modules
Subject to change
Month 1: Olive/Oliva
Working with plants energetically | Felt sense and organoleptic communication | Ethics and commitments | Animism and wolf myths
Month 2: Elder/Sambuco
Western Herbalism | The Four Elements, Humors, and the Vital Faculties |Magicians and Physicians of ancient Italy
Month 3: Bay Laurel/Alloro
Creation Patterns | Segnatura and Scongiuri | Petitioning the Divine | Italian folk medicine herbal preparations | The “cycles of life” | Death practices | Curses and conditions
Month 4: Cannabis/Canapa
Divination | Dream Temples | The Oracles | Asclepius | Snake cults | Psychoactive plants
Month 5: Parsley/Prezzemolo
Guardians of the Hearth | Kitchen Medicine + Magic | Digestivi | Amaro | Kitchen Spells | Sacred Foods | Ritual kitchen tools and ingredients
Month 6: Mugwort/Artemisia
Stregoneria |The Janare of Benevento | Benedicaria | Flying ointments | the Rosary and other sacramentals | Sympathetic Magic | The Witches’ Sabbath
Month 7: Mallow/Malva
Ritual farming | The Pregnant Vegetation Goddess | Our Lady of the Wheat |Persephone | Underworld | Astrology + Plants | Doctrine of Signatures | Hecate’s Garden
Month 8: Garlic/Aglio
Apotropaic Magic | The Cult of Saints | San Michele (Saint Michael) | Brevi Bags and other protective devices | Obtaining “Grazia”
Month 9: St. John’s Wort/Iperico
La festa di San Giovanni | Sacred Bathing | Flower Essences | Closing Circle
Who this is for:
Those who want to learn, grow, and further understand how folk medicine is relevant and applicable to life in diaspora as a living spiritual art form
Those who want to learn a collection of practical methods of healing that include the sacred, the mundane, and everything in between
Those who want to learn the roots of the traditions of Southern Italy
Those who are committed to keeping alive traditions that are localized, oral, and collectivist in as much alignment with our ancestral ways as possible while still meeting the needs and conditions of our time.
Those that want to practice in a way that connects others to their ancestors, their life place, their history, the divine, and their inner sense of belonging in a way that is in service to a more just, collaborative, and life-affirming generative future.
Those that want connection with plants
Those that want to practice “listening”
Those that want connection with place
Those that want to develop the capacity to be response-able to the practices and beings they encounter
Focus and Values:
Creativity: Participating in creation by learning these ways of interacting with it and each other.
Invoking the sacred: Making (healing) art with sacred intention
Wonder: sense of awe… AND sense of curiosity (that encourages thinking about other people’s and beings point of view)
Being open to sensory and somatic as well as cognitive information as a way of relating.
Adaptability: We need to be able to adapt to our times.
Maintaining and regenerating the “original instructions” in a way that taps into the tools and conditions we’re in now and that can be modified as needed.
Acting in right alignment spontaneously as a result of being integrated and fully embodied in the truth of who we are.
Collaboration: The call and response back and forth between places, beings and people. The places we can converge… as opposed to working hierarchy of dominance
Response-ability: This is in the context of “call and response” so being able to both listen and respond improvisationally to the experiences of tradition and folk practices.
special
early bird pricING
Pay in full:
$2900
~or~
3 payments of $967
9 payments of $325
Scholarships have all been filled at this time. We are doing our best to provide more scholarships and free/low-cost classes and info in the future.
Guest Teachers
We are excited and honored to present our guest teachers who will be teaching the following workshops:
Marybeth Bonfiglio: Tarot
Victoria Haf and Andrea Bressi: Making corajìsime; dolls of lent. A traditional Calabrian craft. Go HERE to read a little about them.
Dafni Mangalousi / Δάφνη Μαγγαλούση : Hellenic Dream Incubation
Summer Minerva: Traditional Dance
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MaryBeth Bonfiglio is second generation American with lineages from Piemonte (Venaus), Cilento (Vallo Di Diano), Sicilia (Nebrodi and Madonie Mountain regions) and the highlands of Poland. She’s a writer, mother, and lineage medicine seeker/keeper. She works with people of all lineages to help them reconnect and remember who they may have been before the plague of whiteness, colonization, and assimilation. She holds ancestral pilgrimages on the beloved island of Sicily for those longing to go deeper with land, culture and people through her organization, Radici Siciliane.To learn more about Marybeth:
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He/Him
Andrea Bressi, son of art, was born and raised among traditional musical instruments and books. He inherited his passion for ethno-musical research and Calabrian popular traditions from his father Silvestro.Andrea is involved in documenting and researching ancient Lenten rites. His photographic exhibition and collection of Lent dolls from Calabria and Southern Italy, entitled Paese che vai, corajisima che trovi” (town that you go, corajisima that you find) has been exhibited since 2016 on various occasions and cultural initiatives. He’s an active member of the National Lent Dolls Network (Rete Nazionale Bambole Quaresima), a partnership of enthusiasts and scholars that share their research and passion on the topic.
Andrea’s field research on Calabrian Lent dolls was included in the publication “La festa delle bambole volanti - un rito che rinasce” (The feast of flying dolls - a rite that is reborn) edited by Francesco Stoppa and Vilma Recchia for Edizioni Universitarie Romane.
During the Carnival period, he has taken on the role of "Captain Giangurgolo", bringing a traditional Calabrian mask to schools and piazze in Calabria. as well as offering the show “Il filo della Storia…da Carnevale a Pasqua” (“The Thread of History...from Carnival to Easter”), a journey through songs and stories of Carnival and Lent. As for Christmas he proposes the show “Allestitevi cari amici” with songs, stories and sounds of the Calabrian tradition.
He’s part of the cultural Association “Felici & Conflenti" that in 2017 published the ethnomusical research album “Traditional music in the Reventino area - Savuto" which Andrea co-authored. This is a collection of instrumental and vocal pieces from recordings by the last custodians, singers and players of the area.
Since 2014 they organise and curate traditional dance workshops aimed at the recovery and valorization of the musical heritage of the Reventino area.
As a musician he’s a connoisseur of the traditional repertoire for 4 and 8 bass accordion, plays guitar and chitarra battente, pipita (traditional oboe), whistles and traditional wind instruments of various types. Since 2006 he’s part of the the musical formation "I giamberiani" and since 2008 he’s also part of the ethno-popular group "Radici Calabre" that has brought Calabrian popular music beyond national borders.
Storyteller, teacher, traditional multi-instrumentalist musician and facilitator of workshops on dances, customs, traditions, songs and various aspects of folk Calabrian culture (in particular of the Catanzaro area); he’s an active member of different associations for cultural promotion, he wants to bring to the spotlight a Calabria that is unknown to many, but that holds a wisdom that deserves to be transmitted.
To find out more about Andrea and his work go to:
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(she/they)
Summer is an independent researcher, performer, author, filmmaker, activist, and educator. A lover of adventure, Summer tours internationally, sharing her performances, films, and ideas with the world. Her award-winning documentary, Summer Within (2024), is currently being screened around Europe in various festivals. She is a co-editor of Italian Trans Geographies (SUNY Press.)
To Learn more about Summer:
Go Fund Me: Sacred Gender Course and Pilgrimage
@iamsummerminerva
@summerwithinfilm
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She/HerBorn in 1988 in Mexico city “the Great Tenochtitlan” she grew surrounded by a visual language inherited from Aztec times. She grew with the inner conflict of a daughter of diaspora, a mestiza with both the colonized (Indigenous Purepecha and Mayan people, slaves from Northwest Africa) and colonizer (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Japanese migrants). Her parents are both teachers and architects so she grew surrounded by books and art. She studied and graduated from the School of Design of the Institute of Fine Arts of Mexico (EDINBA), and worked for several years in graphic and product design, with renowned brands and licenses until she took a trip to Barcelona from which she would never return the same, as this was the place where she would meet her future husband Raffaele, a Calabrian from the Piana di Goia Tauro.
After years of traveling, she and her husband decide to re-establish themselves in Calabria, one of the poorest regions of Europe, an almost hidden land that showed her through l’arte di arrangiarsi (the art of making due) how economy and abundance are not mutually exclusive.
As she explored literal motherhood, she understood that as mammals, the Mother is our primordial Archetype with deep cultural aspects that are not tied to gender or biology, this became a source of devotion and gratitude and inspired the ongoing series of “Nuestras señoras” (our Ladies), her icons of mixed female devotions (Medusa-coatlicue, la llorona-the sorrowful mother, la virgen de Guadalupe-la Santa Muerte, our Lady of Deep Soil…) which explore different facets of the Mother archetype.
Her work involves both meticulous research and artistic intuition, which has deepened the way she develops graphic work and identities for other people, channeling the symbols that resonate deeply and significantly.
Her artistic work is also communal, putting her gifts in service of community feasts and devotion: she restores statues, makes carnival floats and masks. she has also worked with several municipalities and local associations with street muralismo as a way to enrich the abandoned houses in depopulated towns and bring art to the public space.
“Mother of gigants” she is becoming well known as a creator and restorer of dancing processional puppets, a tradition with medieval origins that is still very popular in Calabria and other parts of Europe.
She is also a volunteer in several local cultural associations where she has facilitated art workshops for children and adults.
To find out more about Victoria’s work go to:
Magia Agreste
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Dafni was born and raised in Corinth, Greece - a physical and symbolic crossroad and passage of culture and civilisation within mainland Greece and the hellenic ancestry. Dafni's ancenstral roots are to be found in the Greek peninsula of the Eastern Peloponesse (Lakonia, Arkadia, Corinthia), but also the Hellenes of the East (modern Turkey). Having lived and travelled around a bit, Dafni believes that many wisdom seekers/keepers of Medditeranean heritages are skilled jugglers of the in-between (East - West, North - South) and have important messages to share with the world.
A dreamer, a philosopher, a wanderer, a student and a teacher: Dafni has been tracing hellenic tradition and wisdom in the texts, in dreamspace and in the land juxtaposing it with other lineages and traditions of the world to gain perspective. A student of the Hellenic Asklepian tradition, Dafni works with sound therapy, dream incubation 'enkoimisis' and nature reflections (eco-therapy) as means to self-gnosis and/for community healing.
To learn more about Dafni:
At completion of this course those that attend a minimum 1 live session per month, 4 of the practicums , and at least 3 plant share circles" will receive this custom art print/certificate with their name on it. The artwork is designed by one of our guest teachers from Calabria, Victoria Haf. To see all of Victoria’s art go Here
Refund Policy: Enrolling in this course is a commitment to attend this cohort, to Lisa, and the other participants. Because this is our livelihood and the decision to run this course is based on a minimum number of registrants, we do not offer refunds of any kind except for certain emergencies.
The decision to offer a refund is done on a case-by-case basis and will depend on whether or not we can fill your spot.
Thank you for understanding that this policy is based in our effort to run a sustainable business.
About Lisa
My work is multidisciplinary, multidimensional, and emergent from many systems including
Traditional Western Herbalism : Italian Folk Magic : Astrology : Plant Spirit Medicine : Benedicaria
I am the descendant of Irish and Italian immigrants and live and work where all of my people first settled Turtle Island among the foothills of the Adirondacks in what is now known as New York State.
I am a practitioner of Benedicaria (the blessing way) and Lineage witch as a granddaughter of the city of Benevento, Italy, La Citta Delle Streghe, the city of witches and of the ancient village of my Nonno, Feroleto Antico in Calabria. Benedicaria is the practice of Italian folk healing practiced by many of the indigenous peoples of Italy including my bisnonna (great-grandmother). My grandmother(Nonna) was born in Benevento where my great-grandmother was a known witch who could dispell the curse of the Malocchio (the evil eye) as well as other physical and spiritual ailments using traditional, indigenous Italian healing methods.
To learn more about my path and click the button below: