Lingua Madre
Embody Your Mother Tongue.
22-27 June 2026
San Piero Patti, Messina
Rooted in a small Nebrodi mountain village, Lingua Madre is an intimate immersion for descendants of Sicilians and Italian immigrants (and others who to want to learn the Italian and Sicilian language in a land-based way) who long to remember, reclaim, and reinhabit the language while practicing land-led lifeways that were left behind.
It is for those of us who long to weave the sounds of language intentionally back in our bodies. Slowly. With practice— while living and embodying the way of life in a small village.
Remembering language
Remembering the land
Language is not something that is “learned” here—it is remembered, spoken, sung, and lived.
It happens in community, conversation and hands on learning.
It is woven through the body in an organic and intentional way. We stay present to language, and our grief in losing it.
This is a language immersion, but it’s also an immersion in being present to language, relationship, and each other.
Alongside MaryBeth/ Radici Siciliane (ancestral healing, immersion design, circle facilitation) and Valeria Paollilo/ Vita Semplice in Italia (language workshop leader and cultural immersion facilitator), you will be invited to engage in:
Italian and Sicilian language practice through cooking, eating, making, storytelling, song— spending 5 days immersed in living in these mountains.
Sensing language through the spirit of place, the story of place, the story of the land, and your ancestors.
Ancestral lifeways; including bread and cheese making, foraging in nature, handcraft and weaving and amaro making.
Ritual and storytelling circles that honor immigration and loss (language and lifeways) and also ways to integrate that language back in our lives.
A sacred pilgrimage at dawn to La Madonna Nera di Tindari— like the locals do, before the sun rises, practicing being in the language of the mother.
Lingua Madre is a return to a language of belonging. We are creating an immersion that is a path to tending intergenerational wounds and rediscovering the threads of our own lineages— through reclaiming language that was forgotten, lost, put aside— but still vibrates within us. We can slowly immerse in language, which means we re-member and weave this connected belonging back into our fibers, slow, gently, without shame or judgement.
What You’ll Experience:
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Language in action
Speak, sing, cook, and walk with words. Your voice will reconnect with phrases, lullabies, and family stories carried across generations. Fun workshops and lived practice with no pressure, no judgement, only supportive ways of practicing the language.
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Embodied cultural practice
Hands-on work in kitchens, with community members, in the fields with farmers, at the crack of dawn milking goats with the Shepard, kneading dough, rolling pastas.
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Ritual and reflection
Ancestral story circles and altar making sessions to create space to honor ancestral grief, migration, and the silences that linger in families.
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Living connections
Daily interactions with locals root you in the community, forming bonds that extend beyond the immersion.
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A personal toolkit
Leave with a Lingua Madre Kit—a notebook of family phrases, an audio postcard of your voice, and a roots map connecting you to words, place, and memory.
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A community of practitioners
History isn’t in the past here; it informs the present and our ancestral coherence. Together, we remember and practice.
Vision
To reconnect descendants of immigrants with language, land, traditions, and self, weaving together care, memory, and community. Through the rhythm of daily life and the intimacy of local practice, we’ll play with what it looks like to restore what was lost and reclaim what was always ours: the right to speak, belong, and remember.
Invitation
Come home to the language of your ancestors. Let the land, kitchens, piazzas, songs and our Madonna Nera guide your voice back to belonging.
Lingua Madre is a slow, relational immersion that asks you to show up fully: to listen, to speak, to work, and to heal.
By the end of this journey, you will leave with reclaimed words, living rituals, and a deeper connection to both family and place—a thread that continues long after your footsteps leave the village.
What Is Included
Accommodation from June 22–27 at Le Rocche Agriturismo in the Nebrodi
Daily Sicilian breakfasts, lunch and dinners (including hands-on cooking experiences)
Language workshops and daily experiential immersion
All guided cultural experiences, farm visits, market excursions, and ritual circles
Materials for the Lingua Madre Kit (notebook, audio postcard, roots map)
What Is Not Included
Travel to and from Sicily
Personal expenses or souvenirs
Transport to our agriturismo from wherever you are (but we will provide you with support so you can choose a simple, fast and affordable train from Catania or Palermo, or help you hire a car).
SPACES LIMITED TO 6 GUESTS
all cultural lineages welcome
Questions?
Learn about our cultural agreements here.
Learn about redistributing money in Sicily here.
Want support traveling before or after Radici immersions? Send us an email.
Valeria Paolillo
your co-guide and container holder:
I’m Valeria – Italian teacher and founder of Vita Semplice in Italia. I was born in San Piero Patti, a small mountain village in Sicily, and for years I’ve been guiding people – often Sicilian descendants – back to their lingua madre through slow, intimate, deeply human experiences. As the granddaughter of a woman born into an Italian migrant family in New York who later returned “home” to Sicily, I know what it means to feel the pull of two worlds and not quite have the words for either — I didn’t start learning English until I was an adult. In Lingua Madre, I weave together my love for language and real life: family stories, dialects, noisy tables, walks in the countryside. I help you find the words for what you’ve always felt inside, but never quite had the courage (or the chance) to say in Italian.
Read my full bio here.
MaryBeth Bonfiglio
your co-guide and container holder:
I’m a second-generation Sicani and Lucani, from Sicily and southern Italy and also from the pastoralists of Northern Italy. My maternal grandmother gave me the gift of Położna (midwifery) from Poland. I was raised by the working class, culturally intact, slowly assimilated and vibrant immigrant communities in small towns in Upstate NY, the land of the Eries people. My mother worried. My father was a Sicilian American bookie. My mother was devoted to La Madonna. My father was a witch. I founded Radici Siciliane to both facilitate reconnection work for those with Italian roots, but also to share the gifts of this culture, the deep living wisdom, with anyone who has an open heart and mind.
Read my full bio here.
Testimonials
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MaryBeth did such a beautiful job of accompanying the group of us into an open journey full of rich experiences.It has become a significant value along the path of discovering who I am. I felt a deep level of connection immediately to the land, and to the people drawn together with me.
~N.G., 2024
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Just come on the trip. If you’ve been thinking about it but you’re not sure you’ll fit in for whatever reason, take a chance - come on the trip. This island has so much to teach you if you are willing to receive it, and it’s will be a beautiful experience.
~S.N., 2024
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The spirit of the Sicilian people- warm, generous, exuberant, and resilient. Every experience was deeply embodied - I felt so connected to my flesh and blood, the land, the ancestors.
~A.S., 2024