A Gypsy in New York
by Juliette de Bairacli Levy
Pre-publication preview courtesy of Ash Tree Publishing
CHAPTER TWO
Two wide windows of a first floor apartment on the corner of 78th Street of Manhattan’s Second Avenue gave an interesting impression of New York City life. There was never a lull in the procession of traffic of all kinds that went down the broad, one-way street. 
When the usual assortment of teeming taxis, buses, commercial vans, and private cars had slackened off, as the midnight hour came and went, then the heavy truck traffic took over. They chose the early dawn hours when the winter mornings were cold-possessed and very still or ranting with the incoming sea winds that brought the snow and the sleet to the sleeping city.
The big trucks passing below my windows bore the names of almost every state in America, from the Empire State of New York itself to such distant places as Texas, Arizona, California, Washington and Oregon, and so on.
An old New York church on the East Side, the Shrine of the Sea, supplies special prayer tracts for truck drivers as well as for seamen and other travelers. And as I watched the trucks go by at dawn, skidding along the streets, which were often ice-bound, and thought of the great distances ahead of most of them, I felt that the drivers certainly needed the special prayers to help them safely to their destinations.
What a noise the full daytime traffic of New York made all the time that I lived within that close sound of it. One’s ears were assaulted, and yet it was only the background refrain to other common sounds of the city, including the screaming sirens of the ambulances, fire engines, and police cars, the din of the road menders and house builders (an old house adjoining the one in which I was staying was being partly knocked down and rebuilt, as part of the typical New York modernizing of buildings program).
Once there had been an overhead railway across Second Avenue, but the subway and the wonderful and colossal modern bridges have changed much of the face of old New York. I think that more than any other city I have known, the face of New York is the most changeful. The profile remains fairly constant, but for the rest one never knows on each return visit what one will find gone and what new.
The television tower on top of the Empire State Building on Fifth Avenue was new, taking that building almost one and a half thousand feet up into the sky. At night the fiery finger of its red light summit seems to press into the region of the dim stars.
Also new, but now important on the Manhattan skyline, is the clean-cut and beautiful and many-windowed building of the United Nations in its riverside setting.
In Greenwich Village many of its finest old houses have been torn down in recent years and been replaced by mammoth, characterless blocks of apartments renting at very high prices and far beyond the purse of the average Bohemian of the Village. Many of these new buildings in the Village overlook the fountain of Washington Square, in which fountain the women among the “Improper Bohemians” of that area used to celebrate various important village events, including May Day, by taking a nude dip in the fountain. On my recent visit to Washington Square there was no water to be seen in its fountain, only a dry, stony circle smattered with pigeons’ droppings. Loving, as I do, cold, splashing water, I might have been tempted to take a dip there myself if there had been water in the fountain!
As I was not writing a book while in New York but merely collecting material for one, my children and I were again able to lead the life of wandering Gypsies, with hound at side, out on “the road” in all weathers and at all hours. For most of our time there it was winter: but bad weather does not keep Gypsies in houses! I like wintertime in New York, with the threat of snow always present in the air brought citywards on the winds from sea and river. The American Indians called these “Winds of the White Deer,” and also had a name, the “Male Rain,” for the heavy rainstorms of the winter; and the warmer and more gentle showers of the spring were, to them, the “Female Rain.”
Before such winter rainstorms the sky was often like thick black treacle. I was always thankful for the cleansing downpours of the winter storms, for New York City, except in the vicinity of Central Park and the center parts of Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue, and several of the other near avenues, is not a clean place. One has only to watch new snowfall turn from its dazzling white to grey-black within a few hours to realize the amount of dirt that is blowing everywhere. The air in the New York subway, caught in a shaft of light filtering through, is an unpleasant sight to see with its suspended filth.
by Juliette de Bairacli Levy
Pre-publication preview courtesy of Ash Tree Publishing
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
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.
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Bird Vibes
Spiritual Insight Through Birds
Treat yourself to this new meditation deck!
• Receive positive, uplifting messages about current life situations and meditation paths
• Gain spiritual insight from the text on each card
• Learn more about the 8 chakras
• Discover interesting facts about 50 birds of North America
• Enjoy the 54 beautiful and unique paintings of birds and the four seasons
Bird Vibes is based on 54 birds that may be seen in various parts of North America, grouped by eight 
chakras according to the bird's colour, habitat or other characteristics.Each card shows a different bird through paintings commissioned from Ottawa nature painter, Heather Bale. Use this deck to gain insight into current life situations, to connect with Nature, and the Universal Life Energy around us and within us.
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Partner Earth: A Spiritual Ecology
by Pam Montgomery
Partner Earth provides a wide range of practical exercises, based on traditional wisdom, visualizations, and the author's experience as an herbalist, that enable one to create sacred space, find plant and animal allies, and embrace the spirit in all life that can help heal the rift between individuals and their environment.
Price: $12.95
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book from our Bookshop
"Well-written and thought-provoking...eminently practical, and deeply inspiring." Rosemary Gladstar Author of Herbal Healing for Women
