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Welcome back to Coast to Coast AM. My guest is Lisa Fazzio, and she has a book out called Della Medachina and we're talking about the book is talking about Italian folk medicine. And I'd love to find out from you, Lisa, how what types of herbs that you can recommend for just first of all, for healing if someone has, for example, upper respiratory illnesses are going around a lot at this time of year, can you recommend anything for breathing and lungs. And I know that you have a history in herbal
first aid, and I think that's so fascinating. Can you tell us a little bit about that. We can go through a couple of different herbal remedies.
Sure.
So for respiratory conditions, my favorite and like the most the one, the one plant that addresses almost every respiratory issue is mullen.
Oh yeah, And what do you do with the mullein.
Well, usually we use the leaf mullen leaf and just a simple tea is often one way to use it. Now this time of year, for instance, as we're going in the fall I live in the northeast New York State and at around X so it's starting to get cold and flu and all the things are starting to will start to increase. So I start preparing this time of year with different herbs, and mullen is one of them, which I put in my tea almost every single day.
So a simple tea can be made with the leaf and I have it growing here.
What about I mean our the drops good or with the.
Yeah, so that so that tincture or the alcohol extract or usually it's going to be an alcohol extract.
Uh, is great?
You know you just take a dropper.
So could that be used like cough medicine where it would stop the spasms of coughing.
It's not particularly anti spasmodic, like we have others that might do that. But yes, so mullin. So every plant has a certain has a certain set of things that.
They're really good at.
So mullin is really good at like if you've you've got like a lot of dryness, so like more for dry cough like smoker's cough. But also it'll help pull mucus, help a little bit with expectoration, and then it also helps to tone the tissue so that the tissue can your lung tissue.
Can function better and rebuild.
So it's kind of like an overall so you know, there might be depending on the condition, there might be other IRBs, like it's in an acute illness that I would use with it. You could use it alone too, like if that's all you had.
Well, it's always great.
So the other one that I really like is marshmallow melova and the root. You can use the root, leaf or flour, but the root in particular for dry hacking, coughs, sore throat where there's just like a lot of heat inflammation. I like to make a cold infusion. So cold infusion it is really simple. You just have some marshmallow root, which you can buy at any herb store. Usually you can order online, and then you put you know, I don't know, a table spoon in like like a little
jam canning jar. I don't know what size those are, pint or half pint. Put like a tablespoon, pour cold water over it, drill it on it. You can shake it every now and then you can leave it in. Just leave it like that. It really quickly develops into like this really kind of slimy, mucillogenous drink okay, and then you strain it and you drink it and it's great for restaurants, sactions, digestion. An Italian folk medicine, malva or marshmallow is kind of one of those elixir kind
of plants. It's like a panacea. It's like anytime you need anything, you.
Can take marshmallow roots.
Partly because it'll leads very arid, you know, in a dry place, a hot and dry place. So a plant like marshmallow that's cooling, and it is very appropriate for anything where there's hot, dryness.
Ah.
And yes, especially now where it's going to be getting into the colder months and the the rise of these upper respiratory flus definitely is on the rise as more people are going inside. And good to know those are really really good things to know.
Yep.
So the irvlism can be used for not only for health reasons, but also for clearing reasons. What types of herbs do you recommend for Like, you know how sage is known as clearing the energy in a room. Is there a particular urge the herb that you feel that is good for energy clearing in a space?
Sure?
So We have different names for this in Italian folk medicine. Fumagaccione or a humigation is one of the work, one of the herbs, one of the words, and yes there's several, and one of my favorites is mugwar Artemusia, So several different Artemisia species that are native to southern Italy and the Mediterranean, and any of those can be used for those purposes.
For clearing energies. Right, yep.
What do you think about sage? Does it do the same thing or is that a different culture?
Well, there's different kinds of stages, right, so any stage, any stage will work.
Yeah, Now what does that do? I mean, what tell me how that works?
The properties in a plant that could actually clear energy?
Okay, well that depends on your Yeah, so there's there's many right, So if we look at it from like the scientific view, we know that a lot of these clearing energetic clearing plants are have chemical actual chemical constituent that will actually like their anti infect their anti microbial that they will clear actually clear the air in a space.
So that's one.
Yeah, So that's one. That's one thing. And then energetically, the idea is that the spirits the other animate forces in a space will be repelled by.
Yeah, okay, so that's two different ways of making of clearing something.
Well the other so there's one other. So the other one is it will repel or it will attract certain protective energies. So h in like, for instance, different types of trance work, which is a big part of Mediterranean history and spirituality, in sense, different types of plants burning would be used in temples and other sacred spaces during, before, during, and after certain ceremonies and rituals to invoke particular deities.
Yes, I mean historically you have the frank concense right right, and those are biblical herbs.
What were the are those?
Do those also have the same meaning in Italian folk medicine.
Well, those aren't native to southern Italy. They're more like going towards like North Africa. I'm not actually so sure, but in the levant area.
So here's the thing.
Every plant is going to have a different You sort of can think of it as a code, so it's like a code or an energetic imprint, or you could also think of it as a pattern of consciousness that it will match with and each of the gods and goddesses or the deities and folk Catholicism, you could say also the saints will have a matching pattern, so you would you would choose different formulas, mixtures of herbs, sometimes with other substances, like for instance, with kiffy, which is
a Greek type of temple incense, and sometimes there'd be like honey in it, in wine seeds, berries, and it was made in a specific way and that would match with it's coated for whatever energy you want to bring into the space.
Oh, very interesting, and.
This would match with this also matches with rhythms, musical rhythms, sounds, vibrations, as well as chance and prayers.
That would be something great I would love to have in here. But we would set off the smoke alarms. So is there a few other way to do that that doesn't involve the smoke.
Yes, so it's not gonna be insane because smoke is clearing, right. But you know, you know, one of the things now people do I s people do is use like sprays, you know, like you could use an essential oil in a spray bot in a spray bottle or like uh, some type of other display in a spray bottle. Sometimes people use flower assences. So you could use a which is a whole different thing, but you could put flower accents. It's actually the most ecologically sustainable would be to use a flower assence.
Okay and spray your space so that yes, that would make a little bit more sense. So what flower essences would work for clearing a space?
Yes?
And and the body?
Oh okay, ye yep, please the body important? Yes, yeah, so rose or is there any te.
So there's there's flower assences that are just like smoke. There's flower acids and incense. There's flower assences that are more have more of an affinity, have more potency in terms of like protact and clearing. So you know, garlic, okay, garlic, garlic in any form uh is used that way. So garlics, you can use the garlic flower essence.
Yarrow, yarrow, yarrow. Yeah, I've heard of yarrow rue. Oh yeah, mm hmm. Rosemary mm hmmm.
I like to burn rosemary, but you can also do the flower essence.
So rosemary is wonderful. Even to cook with rosemary is wonderful.
Yes, rosemary is wonderful.
Yeah, it's a it's across the board. And so also so we've talked a lot about protection. What about blessing? What about blessings? Ways, Yeah, in terms of either rich or plant dialects or anything between herbal healing and the traditions quick blessings.
Right, So yeah, So blessings again is the invocation of a pattern of consciousness, right, such as in a Talian folk medicine, a saint or some type of other type.
Of deity where a lot of.
Times in Italian folks, and we're going to be using a prayer, so for instance, the Hail Mary, okay in that will invoke the Virgin Mary and other other ways that we would do. That would be like petitioning a particular saint. And there's different ways you petition saints. So Sandiseppi or Saint Joseph is well, we petitioned Saint Joseph. This is kind of funny, and probably many of your
listeners have heard of this. I don't know. Is that say you want to you have a house that you want to sell, yes, because he rules real estate and and it's not selling. So one of the praes is have you heard of this?
To bury the statue upside down or something?
Yes?
Yes?
And then the thing is you have to go back, and you're you're supposed to go back and get him once you sold the house. So that's that's the tricky part of somebody's already living in.
So why does that work? Why the upside down? Where does that stem from?
I'm not sure, honestly, I don't know why he has to be upside.
Down and buried and buried.
That. I'm not sure where that comes. Where that comes from? You know, I think probably if I had a guess, I'd say, you know, we're putting him into the other world. We're connecting. We're taking this solid material object imbibing it. You know, there's a certain prayer that you say, So you're going to say the prayer and then you're going to put him underground because that's like our access to the underworld. But I don't know, I'm making this up,
like I'm just one. I'm guessing just knowing what I know that that's probably that could be one of the ideas is like, so the thing is that the saints and the deities plants is there are threads that connect.
Us to.
The social field beyond what we can see. Right, So it's like the field of not just the human relationships that we're in, or the material or physical relationships that we're in, but also the spiritual relationships that we're in that are actually part of social life in this tradition,
and so these things. But because we're in this, we're in this three dimensional form, we have to there's things that we humans have designed and developed to help us to connect or link or build bridges to the spiritual or the divine.
Yes, that's what the entire concept around full medicine is is that it's possible, and it's been done throughout history, and I love that you're bringing it to modern times through the book and teaching us different ways to connect with the ancestral traditions and they have worked in the passage. Have you ever seen an apparition or some type of thing that has actually manifested itself?
Yes, I mean I don't know. I'm not sure what do you mean by manifested itself? Like, I've never tried to make anything man like. I've never tried to do.
That, Okay, Yeah, I mean in terms of making it seeing an actual spirit or anything that could help elaborate something like that.
I mean I've seen things that I might you might say were like a ghost.
Yeah, something like that, right, Yeah, but not.
I've never intentionally tried to see They've never done anything to try to do that.
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