|
| ||||||||||
|
Join us at Inkberry Books in Cottonwood Square on Friday, February 25th at 7:00 for a presentation by Francesca Howell, author of Food, Festival and Religion: Materiality and Place in Italy and Making Magic with Gaia: Practices to heal ourselves and our planet. Ever wonder about sense of place --how you feel more deeply connected to some geographic places, or certain locations hold your heart/mind? How have humans over time expressed these special bonds with place, such as in Europe where communities live in one town for centuries? Francesca Howell will talk about her years of research in Italy, about traditional festivals (like Carnevale--soon to come!), as well as exploring little-known festivals, ceremonies and feasts. Along with other communities, Francesca carried out ethnographic research amongst the Druids, Pagans and other festival creators in northern Italy. She'll offer ideas and examples of the intriguing concept of "materiality", and how it can connect with "place power". The talk will include enchanting photos and details for your own trip to some of Italy's hidden jewels, help you better understand love of certain lands, or where you sense deep bonds with place. If time allows, the evening may also offer a short "guided visualization", to take a mini inner vision journey to a beloved locale. Come join us on a dark winter's evening in magical Niwot, for a colorful discussion with mystical overtones! |
|||||
|
Food, Festival and Religion explores how communities in northern Italy find a restorative sense of place through foodways, costuming and other forms of materiality. Festivals examined by the author vary geographically from the northern rural corners of Italy to the fashionable heart of urban Milan. The origins of these lived religious events range from Christian to vernacular Italian witchcraft and contemporary Paganism, which is rapidly growing in Italy. |
|
||||
|
About the Author Francesca C. Howell, PhD is an independent scholar, educator, activist, writer and actor. She is also an interfaith chaplain. Francesca's research has specialized in New Religious Movements, materiality, animism and deep ecological themes of the relationships between humanity and Nature--sometimes described as the "other-than-human". Francesca is published in the academic as well as the popular press. Her most recent book is: Food, Festival and Religion: Materiality and Place in Italy (Bloomsbury Academic, Aug. 2018; softcover 2020). Her 2002 self-help, metaphysical book Making Magic with Gaia: Practices to heal ourselves and our planet, (Red Wheel/Weiser) was translated into Italian (Venexia, 2007) and became a best-seller on the Italian mind-body-spirit lists in 2008. She is currently finishing a novel. Among her diverse roles in an extremely varied international career, Francesca is adjunct faculty at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, as well as having taught and advised students at The University of Colorado Boulder. She has been an actor, workshop leader and creator of community rituals across the Americas, the UK and Europe. Francesca co-founded the organization "Boulder Rights of Nature" and its related film festival; she has created curriculum for the Religious Education Council of the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Boulder, has been on the UU Pastoral Care Committee, and was a spiritual support counselor at the Boulder County Safehouse. She has provided spiritual care or teaching in Spanish and Italian as well as English. As a chaplain Francesca completed her internship and residency in Pastoral Care, "CPE", at St. Anthony's North Health Campus, in Westminster CO, and has offered spiritual care in various US hospitals and hospices. A native of New York's Hudson Valley orginally, Francesca has been married to a Coloradan for almost 42 years; she and her husband have two children. Having lived in a number of countries, her home today is Colorado. A weird fun fact: Francesca performed as an acting student for Sir John Gielgud, and nerves made her “go up” on her lines, ie blank on them! (She still has nightmares about that…) |
|||