Bella Figura, The Tradition of Living Beautifully
By Dolores Alfieri Taranto
Bella Figura, The Tradition of Living BeautifullyDec 27, 2020
When in Doubt Go Backwards: Annabell Alsup on Transforming Our Homes Into Ancestral Spaces
Annabell Alsup is owner and founder of House of Tocumen, a vintage rug company that sources authentic, weaved rugs from artisans around the world. Annabell is not only a vendor, but through her vibrant Instagram page, also educates people on how to find and buy authentic vintage rugs and home decor.
Part of an active duty military family, she lives with her husband and four sons, with a fifth on the way on a homestead in South Carolina, where they care for four goats, one baby doll sheep, 32 chickens and four mini donkeys.
Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!
Shop: Bella Figura Shoppe
Resources:
Dolores:
Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!
Shop: Bella Figura Shoppe
Bella Figura Shoppe on Etsy
Wendell Berry's "Family Work": Saving the Endangered Life of Home
In this third and final solo episode of Season 2, I am talking about the American writer Wendell Berry's essay, "Family Work."
Berry makes the connection between work around the home—gardening, cooking, reading, farm chores, etc.—and the solvency of family life.
Discussed in this episode:
Wendell Berry
The history of life at home
The forces that have eroded home life
Why disease is more lucrative to companies than health
How to combat the erosion of home life
Resources:
Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!
Shop: Bella Figura Shoppe
Bella Figura Shoppe on Etsy
Design Traditions: Ros Byam Shaw on Antiques and Old World Country Decor
Ros Byam Shaw is a freelance journalist and writes on design and interiors for "The World of Interiors," "House & Garden" and the "Saturday Telegraph," among others.
She is the author of Old House New Home, Perfect English, Perfect English Cottage, Perfect English Farmhouse, and English Eccentric, as well as Farrow & Ball Living with Color and Farrow & Ball Decorating with Color (all published by Ryland Peters & Small). Ros lives in Devon, England with her husband and dog.
Resources:
Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!
Shop: Bella Figura Shoppe
Guest:
Ros' writing in "House and Garden"
Dolores:
Bella Figura Shoppe on Etsy
Starting Over: Angela Ferraro-Fanning on Reinventing Work and Building a Homestead
Angela Ferraro-Fanning is an author and the founder of Axe & Root Homestead, a six-acre farm in central New Jersey. A self-described "plant-based permaculture homesteader" (she breaks that down in the episode!), she began homesteading in 2012 after suffering postpartum depression with her first child. Unhappy in the graphic design business she’d worked in for over a decade, she longed to be outdoors, aligning her lifestyle with the seasons and with nature.
She started growing and preserving as much of her own homegrown produce as possible, and the homestead quickly grew from a home garden to a farm bustling with Clydesdales, geese and ducks for eggs, an apiary with ten beehives, sheep and a small orchard. She taps her own trees for maple syrup, creates her own soap and has even recently added a hobby vineyard for homemade wine.
She is the co-author of “The Harvest Table: A Collection of Seasonal Plant-Based Recipes Inspired by the Home Garden,” as well as author of The Little Homesteader Series. She is co-host of “The Definitely Not Simple Life Podcast."
[Photo Courtesy of Angela Ferraro-Fanning]
Things discussed in this episode:
Following your dreams
Changing career paths
Raising ducks, horses
Preserving food
Homegrown food
Learning as you go
Home gardens
Being a mother
Resources:
Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!
Shop: Bella Figura Shoppe
Guest:
Dolores:
Bella Figura Shoppe on Etsy
A Handmade Christmas
Join me for a Christmas special where I talk about cultivating the Christmas spirit with nature, vintage finds, and your own two hands.
Merry Christmas to all!
With love,
Dolores
Resources:
Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!
Bella Figura Shoppe on Etsy
Cooking is the Answer: Shaye Elliott on Defying Convenience Culture and Living a Beautiful Life
Shaye Elliott is founder of the popular blog The Elliott Homestead. She is a cookbook author, farmer, artist, wife and mother of four. She lives with her family in rural Washington state where she records her well-known YouTube videos on inspiration and tips on homesteading, cooking, preserving, gardening, and all around cultivating a beautiful life.
She is the author of four books, including Welcome to the Farm: How-to Wisdom from The Elliott Homestead; Family Table: Farm Cooking from the Elliott Homestead; The Elliott Homestead: From Scratch: Traditional, whole-foods dishes for easy, everyday meals; and Seasons at the Farm: Year-Round Celebrations at the Elliott Homestead. She is co-host of the high-ranking home and garden podcast, “Homemaker Chic.”
Things discussed in this episode:
Growing your own food
The importance of cooking
Why cooking challenges convenience culture
Embracing being a homemaker
It's okay to want to be a wife and mother
Defying the push to climb the corporate ladder
Living a slower life
Food is love
Resources:
Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!
My Guest:
Dolores:
Old World Kitchen: Sara Dahmen on the Art of Forging Historical, Ancestral Cookware
Sara Dahmen is a coppersmith and the founder of House Copper cookware. When Sara was researching a historical fiction novel, she realized much of our kitchenware is no longer available as it once was and no one was making American copper designs. She created the House Copper American copper cookware line using historical references from original American coppersmiths.
Not only does Sara hand-drill, rivet, hand-tin and polish each of her wares, but she also spends time with a tinsmith, where she works weekly with tools from the 1700 and 1800’s to recreate vintage reproductions of tin and copper and build custom copperware designs from scratch. She is the only female coppersmith working in the United States. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and children on a micro farm.
Things discussed in this episode:
The benefits of cooking with copper, clay, and cast iron
What's in modern-day cookware
The origins of copper, clay, and cast iron as cookware
Being the only female coppersmith in America
Creating with your hands
Creating a life that resonates with your values
The importance of community
Embracing your ancestral culture
Resources:
Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!
Copper, Iron, and Clay: A Smith's Journey
Dolores on Instagram
The Forces that Drive Us: A deep dive into Alice Waters' "We Are What We Eat"
This is the first of several solo episodes, where I choose a topic and spend a bit of time breaking it down and exploring its many angles. I'm choosing topics, mostly books, that I believe will resonate with listeners. My first solo episode focuses on Alice Waters' "We Are What We Eat, A Slow Food Manifesto." Waters is an American chef, author, and restaurateur, well-known for her restaurant Chez Panisse, and its pioneering of the farm-to-table movement.
Things mentioned in this episode:
Recognizing the values of "fast food culture" in our own actions
Re-evaluating our relationship to convenience
Rethinking our approach to the availability of food
Learning to slow down
Learning to appreciate beauty over speed and convenience
Choosing what we value over what is easiest
The importance of hard work
The need for challenge in our lives
Resources:
Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!
Alice Waters' "We Are What We Eat"
"The Tyranny of Convenience" by Tim Wu, New York Times
Dolores on Instagram
Inspired and Free: Kay Foye & the Beauty of Hands-On Work in a Mind-Dominated Time
Kay Foye is a knife maker and artist who grew up in Princeton, NJ, where her love of horses began. After leaving the hustle and bustle of work in New York City, Kay became a rancher in Colorado, and in 2018 began to learn the art of knifemaking, and she then began forging legacy knives—handmade knives with the mementos of a client’s life forged within the handle. Kay combines an aesthetically appealing blend of ranch life, artist, and blacksmith into her creative expression.
Photo courtesy of Preston Hoffman
Discussed in this episode:
Finding your path the roundabout way.
The importance of storytelling in different forms.
Creating a legacy through tangible objects.
Collecting items for beauty and longevity.
Creating and purchasing heirlooms for your descendants.
The kitchen as the center of a home.
Upleveling your kitchen tools.
The wrangler life.
The artistic life.
Country life.
Doing things simply because they make you happy.
Resources:
Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!
Dolores on Instagram
Plan for Your Descendants: Angela Reed on Farming, Old World Decor, and Self Sufficiency
Angela Reed, also known as Parisienne Farmgirl via her online presence, is an author, farmer, wife, mother of six, and a successful entrepreneur. Angela lives on a 27-acre farm tucked deep in the woods of Door County, Wisconsin with her husband and six children. Moments from the sapphire waters of Lake Michigan, she spends her days tending to her potager and cottage gardens and caring for her family and farm animals.
In 2005, Angela created the website “Parisienne Farmgirl” and since then has been passionate about developing “joie de vivre”, a joy in life, and sharing that journey with other women as they cultivate memories of domesticity, motherhood and creativity. She is the co-host of the popular podcast, Homemaker Chic, and author of “From France to the Farm: Blending Generational Favorites with French Flair.” She is also the publisher and founder of Old World Design Society, a publication and private society for individuals who cherish the design and lifestyle elements of a bygone era and who believe in lived-in spaces, heirloom pieces, and that ‘new is not always better.’
Discussed in this episode:
Learning how to farm.
Being self reliant.
Adding beauty to your home and work.
Trusting your decor style.
Old World decor.
Antiques as decor.
Country life.
Homesteading.
Raising farm animals.
Preserving foods as our ancestors did.
Learning lost traditions that our ancestors knew.
Rethinking motherhood.
Homemaking and motherhood as artform.
Resources:
Dry Farm Wines: Use link dryfarmwines.com/bellafigura to receive a bottle for just a penny in your first order!
Dolores on Instagram
The Bold Heart: Lisa DiCicco Cahue on Motherhood, Fashion, and Beauty
She has since been signed with Wilhelmina, Ford, and is currently represented by Elite Model Management. She has worked for designers such as ATM, Cynthia Rowley, Thom Browne, Ramy Brook, Rebecca Minkoff and Protagonist.
Maintaining the perfect minimalist street style and “model off-duty” looks, Lisa hosts her own blog, and in 2018 she became pregnant and now dedicates herself to her own business and raising her son, Sebastian. She has collaborated with some of the best designers in fashion both as a model and an influencer. She had a successful capsule collection with Amazon, selling out many pieces in under 30 hours and hopes to one day have her own label.
Things discussed:
Pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones
Jealousy verse aspiration
Motherhood
The struggles of the postpartum experience
Learning to accept our postpartum bodies
Inspiring women to be bold
Fashion as bella figura
Raising children to have a sense of their roots
Embracing our cultural values and discarding those that limit us
Fashion tips to feel your most confident
How to look great in photos
Resources:
Lisa's website
Lisa on Instagram
Bella Figura website
Dolores on Instagram
The Italian American Podcast
Tell Your Story: Sandra Chuma on Storytelling, Leaving Home, and Following Your Purpose
Sandra Chuma, of Zimbabwean ancestry, is an entrepreneur, speaker, coach, podcast host, and award-winning documentary filmmaker. She believes that our greatest responsibility is to share our stories so we can inspire and create possibility for others.
Raised in a tiny mud hut in Zimbabwe with no running water or electricity, Sandra has never been one to let circumstances define her. Through hard work, and support from her “village,” she became a management consultant, advising major global companies. She then went on to build two successful companies.
But despite all her professional success, she knew she wasn’t walking in her purpose. Sandra made the decision to go back to school in 2015 to get a master’s degree in Journalism, Storytelling & Documentary Filmmaking from Columbia University.
Sandra has made it her mission to help others create the best version of themselves. She is building brands focused on providing inspiration, tools and community.
Discussed in this episode:
- The power of storytelling
- Assimilation and knowing your roots
- The complexity of leaving your country of origin
- Holding onto the values you were raised with
- Following your purpose, not just your passion
- Taking the first steps in a new endeavor and allowing the path to unfold
- Passing cultural awareness onto the next generation
Resources:
The World is Beautiful: Stephanie Flor on travel and the spiritual roots of beauty
Stephanie Flor, of South American ancestry, is a NYC based celebrity makeup artist who works regularly with industry leaders ranging from musicians to television personalities. Her clients include Mariah Carey, Eve, Sting, Kathy Griffin, and politicians Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and the Israel President Shimon Peres, among others. She is most currently the Global Colour Pro artist for Clinique U.S and Hispanic market.
Flor has been featured on Glam Belleza Magazine “Weekend Section,” Latina magazine's “Young & Inspiring: Ones to Watch” list, “ Beauty Vanguard in April 2015”and landed herself on the Cosmo for Latinas blog spotlight for Around the World Beauty.
She is a go-to beauty expert for her tips in both beauty and travel for Teen Vogue, Allure.com, Glamour, InStyle, Essence.com, and Vogue.com.
Editorially, Flor has worked on photo shoots and video productions for Cosmopolitan, Glamour, L’Oreal, People, Martha Stewart, The New Yorker, Time, OWN Oprah, Victoria’s Secret, and Women's Wear.
Flor expertise in multicultural beauty has made her a go-to ambassador for leading cosmetic and hair care brands, such as Head and Shoulders, Makeup Forever, L’Oreal Paris, La Bella, Thicker Fuller Hair, and Maybelline.
Discussed in this episode:
- Entrepreneurship
- Beauty as a spiritual practice
- Connecting to ancestors through beauty
- Traveling the world
- Connecting to ancestral culture through beauty practices
- Beauty approaches from around the globe
Resources:
Stephanie's Makeup Artist page
Dolores on Instagram
The Roots of Our Work: Shelly Marshall on Connecting What We Do to Where We Come From
Shelly Marshall, of Japanese and Irish descent, is the founder of Beauty Shamans, which unites the wisdom of the past and the science of today to create healthy skincare products from the ocean and Earth. As a nurse, esthetician, and aromatherapist, her approach to skincare is clinical, clean and holistic.
Things discussed:
- Connections between our work and our heritage
- Helping our parents and ourselves reconnect to our roots
- Taking care of our skin holistically
- Ways to wean off chemical skincare products
- Turning our nightmares into our greatest gifts
- Feeding our bodies for optimal health and skin
- Embracing our family stories
- Connecting to our ancestors through our work and by being the keeper of family history
Resources:
Shelly’s website, Beauty Shamans
Shelly on Instagram
Dolores on Instagram
The Extraordinary: Jaquira Diaz on Identity, Forgiveness & Mining Gold from Troubled Stories
Jaquira Díaz was born in Puerto Rico. Her work has been published in Rolling Stone, the Guardian, Longreads, The Fader, and T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and included in The Best American Essays 2016. She is the recipient of the 2019 Whiting Award in Nonfiction for “Ordinary Girls,” two Pushcart Prizes, an Elizabeth George Foundation grant, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Kenyon Review, and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. She lives in Miami Beach with her partner, the writer Lars Horn.
Things Discussed:
- Growing up in Puerto Rico
- Coming out to a Catholic family
- The tensions between the white and black sides of her family during childhood
- The silence around sexual violence
- Ethnic and racial identity - What am I?
- Practicing Catholicism and being gay
- Even the hardest family stories can give us strength
- The publishing industry
- Racism and learning to understand one another
Resources:
Jaquira’s new memoir, “Ordinary Girls”
Jaquira on Instagram
Dolores on Instagram
The Whole Woman: Aimee Raupp on holistic health, fertility myths, and healing traditions
Aimee Raupp, of Irish ancestry, is a renowned women’s health & wellness expert and the best- selling author of the books Chill Out & Get Healthy, Yes, You Can Get Pregnant, and Body Belief. A licensed acupuncturist and herbalist in private practice in New York, she is also the founder of the Aimee Raupp Beauty line of hand-crafted, organic skincare products.
She’s appeared on The View and has been featured in Glamour, Allure, Well + Good, GOOP, Shape, and Redbook and has received endorsements from Deepak Chopra, Dr. Christiane Northrup, Arianna Huffington, and Gabby Bernstein for her work in helping thousands of women to improve their vitality, celebrate their beauty, and reconnect to the presence of their optimal health. Aimee is also the Head of Chinese Medicine at The Well, an active columnist and is a frequent speaker at women’s health & wellness conferences across the nation.
Things discussed:
- Cooking and eating as our ancestors did
- Being drawn to practices from other cultures
- How to improve fertility through health and wellness
- Possible causes of the epidemic of infertility
- The impact of the IVF industry on women’s perceptions of their fertility
- Epigenetics as it pertains to fertility
- As long as you’re still menstruating, fertility can be improved
- The myth of fertility decline past 35 years old
Resources:
Channeling the Spirit: Chloe Garcia Ponce on Traditional Medicine and Healing
Chloe Garcia Ponce, of Mexican and Native American ancestry, is a Mexican Curandera healer, herbalist, and channel working through the power of prayer and candle work. Curanderismo is a holistic approach to wellness that has been used in the Americas, pre- and post-contact, for hundreds of years. In Mexico, it is also known as Mexican Traditional Medicine.
A Curandera may be referred to as a woman of knowledge, or, if trained in traditional Native ways and serving their native community, a medicine woman. Chloe’s multicultural upbringing shaped her life and Nomadic Songlines, her healing practice.
Things discussed:
Making the best out of times of fear and uncertainty
Returning to practices that connect us to our true selves
Youthful rebellion leading to a circling back and finding your roots
Supporting one another through hardship
Ways to release emotion
Death as a catalyst for growth
Accessing the voices of those who have passed
The importance of human touch
Women and christian sacred texts
Resources:
Structure and Spirit: Alicia Jo Rabins on Art, Heritage, and Ancestral Religion
My guest for Episode 6, Alicia Jo Rabins, of Jewish ancestry, is a writer, musician, performer, ritualist and Torah teacher. She is the author of poetry books Divinity School (winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize) and Fruit Geode (finalist for the Jewish Book Award) and has released three albums with Girls in Trouble, her songwriting project about Biblical women. She is currently at work on an independent film, "A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff." The recipient of a 2020 Oregon Literary Fellowship, Rabins lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children.
Things discussed:
Being drawn to ancestral religious practices.
Reconnecting to cultural traditions even after several generations of assimilation.
Re-examining the biases against organized religion.
How organized religion can root us.
Art as a means to explore religious experience.
Embracing the roots of our adopted country in addition to our ancestral one.
Emotional challenges of motherhood.
Struggles of the writing life.
Teaching children about their heritage.
Raising children with ancestral traditions.
Resources:
"Ancestral Language for Strength," Dolores' blog post
The Force is Within: Jill Willard on Intuition as a Tool of Strength and Protection
In Episode 5, I speak to Jill Willard, of Italian and Irish ancestry, author of “Intuitive Being" and celebrated intuitive and healer. Jill is trained in multiple healing, wellness and listening modalities. Her wisdom and expertise focuses mainly on the connection between the brain, our body and our choices.
Topics discussed
What intuition is.
What an intuitive is.
How her heritage connected her to her intuition and fifth-sense.
Her silent conversations with her grandparents.
How intuition and instinct are not new ideas, but ancient practices that were commonplace to our ancestors.
Catholic sacraments and their parallel to energy centers.
How her psychic abilities forced her to see the abuse priests perpetrated on children, and other troubling facts, before they were revealed.
Why intuition has faded in modern society.
What being out of touch with your intuition feels like.
Learning to rest and to get back into our bodies.
How motherhood opens up a new form of intuition.
The art of mediumship.
References
Connect with Spirit, Find Your Center, and Choose an Intentional Life
Guest
Jill's websites:
https://intuitivebeingexperience.podia.com/ibe
https://www.thepresentprogram.com
Bella Figura
Bella Figura website
Dolores on Instagram
The Gift They Gave You: Mallorie Vaudoise on Honoring Your Ancestors
Mallorie Vaudoise, of Southern Italian ancestry, is a NYC-based spiritualist of Italian descent. With Vanessa Irena, she hosts Good Bones, a podcast about living and dying well. She is the author of Honoring Your Ancestors: A Guide to Ancestral Veneration and Italian Folk Magic, a blog about devotional practices from Southern Italy and Sicily.
Drawn to witchcraft and folk magic from a young age, her path has required both careful study and wild abandon. Her writing is an act of devotion, an offering to the spiritual ecosystem in which she finds herself. She believes that music, food, wine, and kissing are vital tools of spiritual evolution.
Things discussed:
- What ancestor veneration is and what it isn’t.
- How different cultures venerate their ancestors.
- Mallorie’s book, “Honoring Your Ancestors: A Guide to Ancestral Veneration.”
- How we repeat patterns from not only our own past, but the pasts' of our ancestors.
- Ancestor veneration can shine a light on these patterns to help release them.
- How to discern if a pattern is ancestral trauma.
- The body and home are our spiritual foundations and need to be tended to first and foremost.
- How to feel messages from our dead.
Resources:
“Honoring Your Ancestors: A Guide to Ancestral Veneration”
Mallorie’s blog, Italian Folk Magic
Bella Figura website
The Double Edge: Christopher Castellani on the Dark and Light of Love and Family.
Christopher Castellani, of Southern Italian ancestry, recently published his fourth novel, Leading Men, for which he received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, was published by Viking in 2019. The novel explores the complex relationship between Frank Merlo, a Jersey-born Italian American, and Tennessee Williams. Castellani is also the author of the novels All This Talk of Love, The Saint of Lost Things, and A Kiss from Maddalena, a trilogy inspired by the lives of his Italian immigrant parents. His collection of essays on point of view in fiction, The Art of Perspective, was published by Graywolf Press in 2016. He is currently on the faculty of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. He lives in Boston, where he is artistic director of GrubStreet, the country's largest and leading independent writing center.
Things discussed:
The parts of our heritage we need to leave behind.
Internalizing our family stories.
Research shows that family stories give us strength and build the foundation of our lives.
Loosening the ties to our family stories in order to incorporate some of our own.
How our respective cultures can be comforting and also suffocating.
The beginning of our lives start with our ancestors’ stories.
Writing our family stories as a way to redeem the loss of assimilation.
Leaving behind the parts of our heritage that don't support us.
The same Elemental of our culture can heal as well as wound.
Tips on how to gather and write your family stories.
Resources:
Guest:
Mentions:
Italian American Podcast Gay Talese Episode 1
Italian American Podcast Gay Talese Episode 2
"Where are the Italian American novelists?" - Gay Talese essay
Bella Figura:
We Are Responsible: Marine Selenee on Being a Good Ancestor and Taking Charge of Your Life
This episode with therapist Marine Selenee, of French ancestry, who specializes in the practice of Family Constellations, dives deep into why we keep repeating destructive patterns, and how we can stop doing so by healing our family traumas—both our own and those of our ancestors.
Things discussed:
What is Family Constellations?
How is it used to break damaging patterns?
Your body remembers and guides you toward what needs healing.
Trauma is passed down genetically through generations, and it appears as fears and phobias in descendants.
The four principles to teach children in order for them to thrive.
We all want to belong, and we’ll even take on bad habits—alcoholism, gambling— in order to feel we belong to our families.
Our lives are entangled with our ancestors stories.
All family members have a place, including those lost through miscarriage, and someone will repeat the story if those members are not recognized.
Taking responsibility for our own lives, no matter how our parents may have failed us.
Resources
Guest:
Mentions:
Bella Figura Podcast:
Ancestor's Dream: MaryBeth Bonfiglio on reclaiming her culture, The Holy, and "really ancient sh*t"
In this first episode, I take the plunge with the incomparable MaryBeth Bonfiglio, of Sicilian ancestry, whose dynamic and varied work is not simple to summarize. She is a writer, writing instructor and guide, an intuitive, a midwife, and a folk/root worker dedicated to exploring the ancient wisdom of her Sicilian heritage. Her Radici Siciliane gatherings, which attendees have described as “not a vacation, [but] a pilgrimage and a rite of passage and a week-long ritual,” take people to remote and traditional areas of Sicily to explore ancient folkway practices—such as tarot cards, ancient recipes, traditional dance and storytelling, cheesemaking, basket-weaving as well as creating a space for attendees to explore their own ancestral healing.
She's originally from Upstate New York, but lives in Portland, Oregon with her three daughters and longtime husband.
Things discussed in this episode:
How assimilation changes traditions and family life.
Wanting to deny your heritage to fit in.
Reclaiming your heritage and its traditions.
Ancient customs can be reminders on how to live well and according to what matters most.
Our ancestors' poverty forced them to focus on living well, on living in community, and enjoying the good moments of life, which is something we should remember.
How having children brings out our need to return to our ancestral traditions.
Rewriting stereotypes heaped upon cultures.
Reading tarot cards as an ancestral connection.
Doing work in our ancestral lands.
Ancestral worship traditions as powerful tools.
In modern pop culture, Buddha is cool, Jesus is not cool.; Yoga is cool, rosary is not cool, and how this can drive us away from our own culture's spiritual practices.
The study of Epigenetics.
Ways to reconnect with your culture and its traditions, even if you're generations removed from the first immigrant's source.
Resources:
Guest:
Instagram: @marybethbonfiglio and @radicisiciliane
Bella Figura Podcast:
Email: Dolores@bellafigurapodcast.com
Instagram: dolores_alfieri_taranto
Welcome to "Bella Figura—The Tradition of Living Beautifully"
I'm your host, Dolores Alfieri Taranto, and in this brief Welcome Episode, I give listeners an overview of what to expect from this new podcast. I break down the major themes that will be covered through interviews with guests from various ethnic backgrounds, including healers, award-winning authors, artists, musicians, entrepreneurs and more, as well as through choice topics on solo episodes.
This show explores heritage as a source of power and inspiration. Discussions will focus on what I call The Holy, a culture's spiritual style; The Majesty, lineage and family stories; and The Elemental, a culture's principal values, all in a straight talk manner with minimal woo. Join me in spiritual conversations for the rest of us. Your heritage is your superpower. Learn how to wield it...