Herbalist Silk Worms

The first time I met Lamara Bezhashvili, she greeted me with a hug, a warm smile and some leaves she had just plucked from her garden. Soon she was giving helpful hints about their curative powers: how a dried walnut-leaf tisane is antiseptic for tooth problems, or how boiling an onion with apple and potato cures a cough. She’s a healer who seems immediately in tune with whomever she encounters.

Lamara’s alchemy extends to other aspects of nature. She’s keeping the ancient tradition of breeding silkworms alive. Her rambling garden contains a small hut filled with trays of millions of grey-green silkworms in various stages of development. They live on fresh mulberry leaves.