Della Medicina The Tradition of Italian-American Folk Healing
by Lisa Fazio
Building upon the in-depth folk wisdom she learned from her immigrant grandparents as well as from local healers in Southern Italy, second-generation Italian-American and experienced herbalist Lisa Fazio shares herbal traditions and practices from the Italian diaspora and reveals how working with traditional plant medicines can help us connect to ancestral traditions for deep inner healing. She explains how the herbal healing practices of her Italian ancestors were simply a part of everyday life, what they called Benedicaria, which literally means “the Blessing Way” but is more often translated as “the things we do.”
Examining how plants are not only food and medicine but a vital yet invisible part of traditional communities, she describes how working with and communicating with plant allies awakened her epigenetic and ancestral links to them, which included experiencing memories of plants she had never worked with. Looking at the origins of Southern Italian folk healing practices, she details the techniques of Benedicaria, folk Catholicism, and the animistic traditions of her ancestors, including plant dialects, preparation methods, rituals, and recipes. The author provides a materia medica of plants important in the healing traditions of the Mediterranean, sharing each plant’s history, mythology, and practical and magical uses. Sharing valuable and nearly forgotten teachings from the Italian herbal tradition, the author also shows how her journey to reconnect with her family’s healing practices offers guidance for anyone seeking to reconnect with their ancestors.
