Drab Lil: A Gypsy's Medicine Book - Paperback

by Clarissa Simmens (Author)

In a small row home, in 1956 South Philly, down in a dirt floor cellar, a drabarni grandmother picks up pieces of wood chips discarded on her husband's worktable. Using a carpenter's pencil she sketches a circle with spokes and hands it to her eight-year-old-granddaughter. "Ashok Chakra, Wheel of Origin," she says. "This is the first stop on your path. One day there will be twenty-two of them..." This book is one Romani's (Gypsy) grimoire, a family compendium about moving along our path in life with a minimum amount of stress. It is not meant to be a guide but it is a slice of life that I hope you will learn from and enjoy. Drab, in Romanes, means herb and fortune telling. A drabarni is one who can heal with herbs and advise by using cards, tea leaves, dreams and the lines on the palm of the hand. Fortune telling is not accurate because no future is engraved into gold and our past will determine our actions for the future. It is more a holistic way of looking at another's life and prescribing--through the use of herbs and advice--how to cope. This book mainly details a personal path similar to the tarot and numerology with a minimum accent on herbs.

Author Biography

After retiring from a Florida college I became an Indie (Independent) writer. This was a dream from the time I "wrote" my first poem at age four. Growing herbs and experimenting by concocting healing salves and infusions is part of my spiritual life. As a 75% Romani, I learned to create my path, The Drom Ek Romani, from my grandmother, a drabarni (herbalist) while growing up in Philadelphia. My books include Madame Sosostris Explains (A poetry patchwork); Maiden, Mother and Mage: A Day of Poetry; Poetic Alchemy (Talking Blues); and Poetry of Memory: Six Decades from the Space-Time Continuum.