
March 2007 |
Volume
7 Number 3
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What's Inside Wise Woman Herbal Ezine this Month...
INDEX |
HEALING WISE | MOTHER
&CHILD | WISDOMKEEPERS| WISE
WOMAN WISDOM
ANTI-CANCER LIFESTYLE |
THE GODDESS SPEAKS | GRANDMOTHER
GAIA | FEATURED LINKS
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A Gypsy in New York
by Juliette de Bairacli Levy
Pre-publication preview courtesy of Ash Tree Publishing
Chapter 1.8, continued from last month…
The Gypsies are some of the New York winter visitors who complain most about steam heating and are nostalgic for their big outdoor fires. Like migratory birds, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Gypsies enter New York for the winter season, congregating especially in and around Manhattan and Brooklyn.
They come for the profitable fortune-telling earnings of their women, and the odd metal-repairing piecework and cloth-trade dealing of their men. Many of the Gypsy lads work profitably as bootblacks.
They come also in troupes as dancers and singers, and the Hungarians among them provide violin music in restaurants and cafes. Many of them have been living outdoors in desert parts of California or in North America’s numerous forests, for even the American Gypsy, the most “civilized” of their race, remains nomad at heart: now they come to stifle in the city.
The American Gypsy mostly truck-travels today, although many of the fortune-telling families use expensive Cadillac cars and well-equipped trailers when on the roads. Indeed, the expensive Cadillac car is considered as being the most typical of the many cars that the American Gypsies drive.
Countless New York Gypsies have commiserated with me concerning the unpleasantness of life in steam-heated apartments. They stifle in the overheating, but when windows are opened the street dirt blows in upon them. If they turn off all the heating they freeze with the damp cold of shut-in house-places where the sunlight never enters. Gypsies in New York nearly always rent ground-floor rooms, because not only do they like to see the road, their beloved drom around them, but it is also better for business. However, today many Gypsies have to be satisfied with first-floor apartments. There they are still close enough to their drom (the road) for life to be bearable. One seldom finds Gypsies living higher up than the first floor.
And the Gypsies of New York, where are they? That is one of the first thoughts that occupy my mind when entering any new city. Will there be Gypsies? And, where will I find them? One is told, ask the police! They always keep track of the Gypsies! But do they keep track? I think they are unable to do so still; for it is rightly said of the New York Gypsies that no one knows how many there are in the city because they are nomads. They move from borough to borough and neighborhood to neighborhood, when they are not traveling farther afield from city to city or from state to state.
Then, more persistently than any other race, the Gypsies keep two or more names; constant enmity with soldiers and police has driven them to this. So the Gypsies have two names, a Romany family one and a “civilized” one in keeping with the land in which they settle or travel most. This second name they use for school (if their children ever attend one), business, and the police. The Gypsies themselves have told me that their population in New York is a shifting one of around 3,000 in the wintertime, but far less in the spring and summer. They reckon that in Los Angeles they are about 7,000 strong.
I get to know the Gypsies of every town that I visit, because I am sure of finding among them loyal friendship and interesting companionship and true amusement, song, music, dance, magic, all of these and more; love, sometimes.
To be continued…
by Juliette de Bairacli Levy
Author of Common Herbs for Natural Health
“In Memory of Juliette the Grandmother of Herbal medicine”

A Gypsy in New York
Author: Juliette de Bairacli Levy.
In this richly detailed memoir, Juliette de Bairacli Levy – one of the founders of American herbalism – offers us a rare documentary. It is at once an herbal, a travel book and a compendium of Gypsy lore and Gypsy ways. 210 pages,
index, illustrations.
Retails
for $21.95 buy
A Gypsy in New York in our Bookshop

This collection includes three great herbal medicine books and one video by Juliette de Bairacli Levy, well-known as the "grandmother of herbal medicine."
Nature's Children is a classic book on natural childrearing; it includes remedies, recipes, and fascinating lore.
Traveler's Joy is a unique guide to finding the wild bounty in simple living; Juliette covers topics such as travel, water, dwellings, medicine, and food.
Common Herbs for Natural Health is an essential herbal with lore and uses for 200 herbs including cosmetic, culinary, and medical recipes.
Juliette of the Herbs, the exceptional video included in this collection will delight, entrance, and inspire!
20% savings YOURS for $49.95 ($63.80 value), plus shipping.
Order Juliette of the Herbs Collection in our Bookshop
Seven Directions Movement Meditation DVD Video
Sacred Dance for Spirit and Body
White Feather's Seven Directions Movement Meditation
is now on DVD! This dance creates balance and centeredness as earth changes occur, strengthens our vibral core and brings clarity and focus. Dedicated to the generation to come, we keep the teachings of peace alive. Don't forget to check out the Seven Directions Movement Meditation book and CD.
Price: $24.95 (plus shipping).
Click here to read the introduction and an excerpt from The
Seven Directions Movement Meditation by Whitefeather
read another excerpt "Breath"
ORDER White Feather's Seven Directions Movement Meditation DVD
in our Bookshop
The Seven Directions Movement Meditation honors all life. As we move around the circle we remember, "Everything within the circle is sacred, all things outside of the circle is sacred, all is sacred."
- Moses Shongo, Seneca Medicine Man
Nourishing Traditions
by Sally Fallon with Mary G Enig, PhD
The
Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition
and the Diet Dictocrats.
This well-researched, thought-provoking guide
to traditional foods contains a startling message:
Animal fats and cholesterol are not villains but
vital factors in the diet, necessary for normal
growth, proper funciton of the brain and nervous
system, protection from disease and optimum energy
levels. Sally Fallon dispels the myths of the
current low-fat fad in this practical, entertaining
guide to a can-do diet that is both nutritious
and delicious.
Order
Sally Fallon's book at our bookshop Or
order via mail: Ash Tree Publishing PO Box 64
Woodstock, NY 12498 include a check or
money order for $29.95 (Nourishing Traditions
retails for $25.00 plus $4.95 shipping.
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INDEX | HEALING
WISE | MOTHER & CHILD | WISDOMKEEPERS | WISE
WOMAN WISDOM
ANTI-CANCER LIFESTYLE | GODDESS
SPEAKS | GRANDMOTHER GAIA | FEATURED
LINKS
|