Widow

Italian Folk Herbalism & Grief-Informed Care in Philly

Widow is a Philadelphia-based clinical herbal practice rooted in Italian folk medicine and shaped by grief as a lived, initiatory experience.

This work grew from personal loss and ancestral remembrance, guided by the understanding that grief is not something to be fixed, but something to be held with skill, care, and respect for the body’s rhythms. Drawing from traditional Italian folk practices alongside contemporary clinical herbalism, Widow offers grounded, relationship-centered herbal care that honors both lineage and lived experience. This is medicine for those moving through thresholds, tending the nervous system, the heart, and the long arc of healing with steadiness, integrity, and reverence.

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Ashley Nicole

"Jenna’s products and workshops have meant so much to my practice and helped me so much. She inspires my own work with plant allies and is a trusted source for knowledge about Italian folk magick practices. Some of my favorite products of hers are the hekate tea tokes and the saint Michael archangel anointing oil. Everything she creates is crafted with deep wisdom and intention and I always look forward to a new product of hers or an upcoming workshop."

Ashley Nicole

Anima Readings

hello, i'm jenna

I came to herbalism through heartbreak.

After losing someone very close to me to suicide, and emerging from an abusive relationship before that, I found myself searching for something — anything — that could hold the weight of my grief. I didn’t linearly arrive at plant medicine. I arrived at it the way many of us do: instinctively, with shaking hands, guided only by the quiet pull of wanting to feel whole again.

Herbs became a way back to myself. I started tending to my nervous system, learning what supported me emotionally and spiritually, and found that plants offered the kind of care I didn’t know I was allowed to receive. As I followed the thread, it led me deeper, not just into the plant allies, but into the lives of my ancestors.

I started Widow as a place to process, create, connect and try and make sense of everything I was experiencing. 5 years later, it has become so much more and I am so grateful to be able to share it with you all.

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from the ashes

What we inherit isn’t just blood, it’s stories, silence, and the ways we tend to loss.

Through herbs, through ritual, through the small acts that root us back into the world.

In From the Ashes, I write about Italian folk traditions, plant lore, and the many shapes of grief, personal and ancestral. The work of mending what’s been forgotten. The slow return to the body, the land, the old ways of knowing. If you move through the world with an ache for what’s been lost, and a desire to remember, you’ll find something familiar here.

Subscribe to From the Ashes, and walk with me through the wilds of memory and medicine.

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Excerpts From an Italian American Witch
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Spring Equinox, San Giuseppe, & The Fire of the Home
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A Conversation Alone With My Grief
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Summer Solstice, San Giovanni, and Herbs of Summer
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my ancestors

My teachings come from the women before me. This practice wasn't a clear path for me. I stumbled into it almost forceful, getting redirected every time I thought I knew I what I was doing. Herbalism taught me to look to those who have came before me. I am 4th descendant to ancestors from Southern Italy and Sicily. Campania, Sciacca, and Abruzzo to be exact. I come from a long line of women who walked through a fire until it was a part of their soul. I work very closely with my maternal line, who has a long history in Sciacca. Women of the sea. Their teachings inform a lot of my practice. In a way it is a seeking of belonging, and in another I feel most connected when I continue their work.

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upcoming workshops

September 29, 2026

Community & Protection: Italian Folk Magic Class

Join us on Michaelmas Sept 29th at 630pm to gather with the intention of deepening our relationship and the protection of Arch Angel Michael through a folk magic lens. In this online Michaelmas workshop, we’ll explore the symbols, charms, and practices of Southern Italian and Sicilian folk protection, with a focus on their meaning and how they can inspire our own practices of care and protection.
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October 3, 2026

Warding Veils: An Italian Protection Magick Workshop

In Southern Italy and Sicily, protection has never been an individual practice; it has always been relational, communal, and embedded in everyday life. From the malocchio (evil eye) to red thread, horns, saints, herbs, and whispered prayers. This workshop is an exploration of the visual and symbolic language of apotropaic protection in Southern Italian and Sicilian folk culture with a collective brevi bag making at the end.
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March 2027

Seasonal Sovereignty

“Seasonal Sovereignty” is an herbalism program rooted in the cycles of the Earth located in the heart of Philadelphia, designed to reconnect you with the land beneath your feet and the medicine that grows all around you. Whether you’re new to herbalism or returning to ancestral ways, it is a space to reclaim your connection to the Earth, your body, and the wisdom of collective care.
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