Juliette began traveling, learning and working, gathering herbal remedies from America, Spain, France, North Africa and
Turkey. She
loved especially the herbivorous creatures, sheep, goats, cows, horses, camels
and wild deer. She was certain that these creatures knew and ate what they
needed to stay healthy. She held a distemper clinic for dogs in London in the
1930’s and was credited with curing many sheep of black scour, feeding them
herbs, milk and molasses.
From Edmond Szekely,
a Hungarian doctor at Rancho La Puerta near San Diego, Juliette learned that,
in human health, the whole body must be treated, not just the local symptoms of
a disease. Fasting and herbs were often among the remedies. From nomads,
Gypsies and peasants, she learned herbal remedies and the “simple laws of
health and happiness.”
After much travel
and learning, Juliette published a Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm and
Stable in England in 1952. Before this, knowledge had only been passed down
verbally. She met her husband, Francisco Lancha Dominguez in Spain and they had
two children, Rafik and Luz. But Juliette found she could not live in cities,
whereas her husband “could not get used to the country life. We warred much
concerning this. He thought that it was madness on my part to choose to be
alone in an old mill in the Spanish Sierra Nevada for the birth of our second
child, and not with him in Tetuan,” where he was a journalist.
Juliette with her baby, right |
Juliette’s writing is rich with her love of flowers, herbs
and animals. She describes the people she meets and lives with, as well as the
insects and rodents and salamanders. In the spring, in the Sierra Nevada in
Spain she writes: “I could not forgo our walks despite the snow and rain, for
all the terraced slopes of the fertile lower areas of the sierra were in blossom.
Fruit trees of every kind seemed as multitudinous as the sierra animals, and
the blossom lay lovely upon them, of all colors of white and pink, from the
ivory of pear flowers to the darker rose hue of quince and almond, to the
green-white, most fragrant blossoms of the orange and lemon trees. Trees in
blossom, seen against a turquoise sky when the rains clear, are a fair thing.
And later, the carmine of pomegranate flowers against the blue was the
loveliest of all.”
In the 1990’s Tish Streeten began filming Juliette, making a
documentary entitled Juliette of the Herbs. The film tells Juliette’s
biography, but also has much footage of her in the home and garden she made on
Kythera, an island off Greece. Juliette’s distinctive voice describes what she
has learned in a long, brave life. “The main purpose of having a garden is to have
the garden as a teacher and friend. If you have a problem then the garden will
give you the plants you need. You are always learning from your garden. I’ve
had ten gardens and miss them all,” she says. Clips from this beautiful film
can be found here.
Juliette died peacefully in 2009 at the age of 96, in
Switzerland, where she lived near her daughter. Her legacy has been preserved
and most of her books are still in print. Two of my sisters were herbalists and
Gypsy lovers, much inspired by Juliette de Bairacli Levy. I myself, though more
scholar than Gypsy, cling to the aesthetics of the natural life and the fine example
of health and happiness Juliette set before us.
A very exciting and natural life.
ReplyDeleteConnie, would you kindly tell me what year Luz (her daughter) was born?
She was born in Spain, I think.
A very exciting and natural life.
ReplyDeleteConnie, would you kindly tell me what year Luz (her daughter) was born?
She was born in Spain, I think.
Enrique, Luz was born in Lanjaron, Spain as detailed in Juliette's book "Spanish Mountain Life." I cannot find an exact date, except that it was in the early 1950's. The book was first published 1955. Thank you for your comment!
ReplyDeleteI love Juliette dearly. Beloved and special rare soul. Wonderful too to find this blog
ReplyDeleteThank you Caroline!
ReplyDeleteJuliette has inspired me beyond words. I would have walked across the earth to meet her and sit with her and listen to her, What an intuitive soul who loved and cherished her dogs and all life around her. This blog is fantadtic, thankyou, she is with us everywhere xx
ReplyDelete