An Alchemical Purgatoria: A Telling of Dante's Divine Comedy
Schedule
Fri Feb 06 2026 at 06:30 pm to 09:30 pm
UTC-05:00Location
ritual botanica, 10 Old Leicester Hwy, Woodfin, NC | Asheville, NC
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Medicine of the Starry Heavens's Stories from Stardust presents...An Alchemical Purgatoria:
A Telling of Dante’s Divine Comedy
The nature of our pilgrim souls is to awake one day, finding ourselves in a dark wood, the straightforward path lost, the tree roots entangled with our fears and remorse, the moss and leaf litter beckoning a new sort of dreaming.
This is to be human…off the path and listening to the invisible things…
And from the dark forest a guide appears, an old poetic shepherd, a wayfinder for truth and beauty. So begins Dante’s Divine Comedy, the great psychopomp narrative of the indigenous European imagination.
Dante travels through the 3 great realms: the inferno (the Underworld), purgatory (this middle Earth), and eventually to paradise (the Starry Heavens).
Each realm as real and distinctive as it is mythical and necessary.
Come join me for a telling of Dante’s sojourn, as I return from my own journey back to my ancestral homelands, back to the Earth where Dante walked and wept and rebelled and imagined, and where his body still rests.
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~What is Stories from Stardust?~
A one of a kind story-telling, stargazing deep-dive that braids together myth, cosmology & poetics with intellectual history, cultural remembering, practical astronomy & heart-centered teachings. These events are a form of ritual attunement that weave together imagination, landscape, cross-cultural star-lore, wonder, ancient perceptions & an alchemical courting of the night sky. I tell stories the way our ancestors did: under the night sky, around a fire, along shorelines, communing with the treasure trove of constellational images and folklore that is our starry heavens. Doing it this way is an inheritance that reaches deep into an embodied culture of belonging and plucks the long-forgotten heartstrings of the human psyche.
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Date: Friday, February 6th
Time: Doors 6pm, Story 6:30pm
Where: Ritual Botanica, 10 Old Leicester Hwy, Woodfin, NC
**important directions and parking info below**
- and on Zoom, info below -
Suggested donation: $12-36, no one turned away for lack of funds
You can Venmo @MedicineOfTheStarryHeavens, book a ticket on Eventbrite, or bring cash the night of the event.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1980339376384
This event is indoors. There will be chairs available, but bring blankets and cushions if you want to get cozy, or whatever you need to be comfy and open to the medicine of the starry heavens.
Thank you to Ritual Botanica for hosting us again in their magical apothecary! www.ritualbotanica.com
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Zoom info
Meeting ID: 889 4659 4897
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88946594897
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**IMPORTANT DIRECTIONS/PARKING**
Type "ritual botanica" into Google or Apple Maps and it will bring you to the right place. Usually typing in the address does not bring you to the right place. There is a graphic shared in the discussion section of this event page that shows where you can park.
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Frank Salzano is an astrologer, cultural astronomer & storyteller that focuses on old-world astrology, cross-cultural star myths, and celestial folklore. He is based in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
Learn more at www.medicineofthestarryheavens.com
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Where is it happening?
ritual botanica, 10 Old Leicester Hwy, Woodfin, NC, 2 Old Leicester Hwy, Asheville, NC 28804-9618, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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