September 26, 2025 • 48 mins
Elizabeth Burdock is a storyteller, creator, and forest protector who has stood on the frontlines of environmental movements, including protests to defend old-growth forests in the Walbran Valley, Fairy Creek, and beyond. Known online as whichbetty, she has built a community of over two million people across TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook through her viral cooking shows, foraging adventures, and whimsical content series like Burdock & Yarrow. In addition to her digital presence, Elizabeth is a tattoo artist and herbalist whose work explores themes of resilience, creativity, and connection to the land. Whether she’s teaching about plants, sharing her story, or inspiring others to find joy and courage in everyday life, Elizabeth brings humor, honesty, and heart to everything she does.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Thank you for listening to the picture of the radiant.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Rat.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
You readything to me? Oh well, well say, oh well
(00:57):
not a bad stop. I just see you so smashion
(01:18):
stop along? Is it dead.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
A man?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Well, it's time time again to have coffee together. Today
we're going to speak with Elizabeth Burdock. Our screen name
is which Betty. You can find her on Instagram and
uh Facebook that way uh. She is a storyteller forrest
(02:01):
protector who stood on the front lines of environmental movements,
including protests to defend old growth forests in the Wallbrand Valley,
Fairy Creek and beyond Well. If you know anything about
the two valleys mentioned here, they're in British Columbia. She
(02:28):
has built a community of over two million people across TikTok, Instagram,
and Facebook, as we mentioned through her viral cooking shows,
Foraging Adventures the Whimsicle Contact series Like Burdock and Yarrow.
(02:51):
In addition to her digital presence, Elizabeth is a tattoo
artist and a herbalus who works to explore themes of resilience, creativity,
connection to the land. Whether she's teaching about plants, she's
(03:12):
sharing her story or inspiring others to find joy, encouraging
everyday life. Elizabeth brings humor, honesty, and heart to everything
she does. So finish gathering up that last cup of coffee,
your snack, and hurry up and sit down so that
(03:33):
we can speak to Elizabeth here on inspiring stories. Well,
(04:13):
welcome to the show, Elizabeth, or should I call you Betty?
I don't mind, you don't mind easy, You're easy, Okay.
So it really attracted me. I've I caught you caught
you talking one time about finding a salad that would
be just in your backyard, and you were talking about
(04:34):
nettles and all these really cool plants that are actually
edible that we like well as modern people, we spray
them with round up. Oh god?
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (04:46):
And and when when we could actually have have a
salad right there right? Not go to the store and
we all know that that package stuff that they have
in the storage, we put ourself at risk for this
little condition called listeria. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So you pecked
(05:09):
all that into like sixty to ninety seconds, and it
was like so cool. So and then when I look
at your website, you talk about did you spend even
your childhood running around the woods? So why don't we
start there and tell us about, you know, this little
girl running through the woods what you were thinking about.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
Well, I grew up on.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
Bowen Island in British Columbia, and when I was a kid,
it was a minute ago and there was very few
people there, so it probably had a population of maybe
eight fifty nine hundred people toops, and you know, only
a small percentage of that was children, and even smaller
percentage of that was children.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
My own age, and so.
Speaker 6 (05:53):
That I rarely saw kids my own age anyway, or
kids at all, And so I just spent a lot
of time building forts and collecting stuff in the forest.
And also Bowen had no natural predators, so the biggest
animal is a deer, and so it was kind of
safe to just run around. There's not going to be
anything dangerous out there other than perhaps other humans.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
So I spent a lot of time doing that.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Wow, it's get a good point that I think the
scarge predator on the planet is actually the human being.
But we're not going to go down that road. So
you always had an interest in the environment and protecting
our our planet and learning from our planet. Right, Yeah,
(06:45):
So how did you actually get how did all that
work out, that you do the herbalist thing and get
to know so much about what's growing around us.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
Well, I mean, it's just it has been sort.
Speaker 6 (07:02):
Of what seemed to me to be common knowledge for
a lot of it, because just because of the way
that I was raised, but for me to make it
any kind of a profession, my first try it that
was around eighteen, where I did some online courses about
Aroman therapy and it went into how to make like
(07:22):
salves and things like that. So I tried to do
that and make salves at markets and sell herbs that way.
But it's pretty unlikely that many people are going to
buy foraged goods or herbal medicines from an eighteen year old,
especially when you look like me at eighteen, because I
(07:43):
looked even younger than eighteen, so I just looked like
some kids trying to sell potionent, some kids trying to
sell potionan. So it didn't work out. So I tried
other things, but it was just something that always stayed
a part of me, and later in life when I
became more parent, that I wanted to.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Do this with my life.
Speaker 6 (08:07):
I have an aversion to and I don't think that
this is something that anyone should follow. But I personally
have an aversion to authority, and I have an aversion
to the way that schooling is done.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
And through lots of.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
Through lots of unfortunate experiences, I didn't have a good
time in school. So the idea of doing things conventionally
just never resonated with me in any way.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
So, but the universe provides and wanted me to do it.
Speaker 6 (08:41):
So while I was tattooing, a woman offered to trade
me all of her course material and books and everything
from a school called Dominion Herbal College in exchange for
a tattoo, as well as some other amazing herbal books
and which I of course took her up on.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
And so I.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
Completed the chartered Herbalist course at Dominion in Herbal College,
including all of the tests. But Dominion Herbal College has
no idea, and so that was where I got a
lot of the information.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Wow, that's that's actually pretty cold, because it has some
pretty amazing artwork.
Speaker 6 (09:25):
Yeah, I've been a tattoo artist for well eighteen years,
I guess.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Wow wow, uh, okay, because we're going to go a
cydeborrow on the in the environmental thing for a second, here.
What trew you in with the with the tattoo? Why
the body art?
Speaker 5 (09:48):
Well, that was another thing. I remember one time I
was about five years old and we were.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
Taking a trip to the city and I was like
holding my mom's hand and I saw a woman heavily tattooed,
and of course my head's spun and my British mother.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
Said, oh, that's awful. You would never want to look
like that.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
And I said I would, I would, And it just
kind of started from there. And then having a love
of music, especially rock and roll music and grun rock
and all of that. Through the nineties, all of my
heroes were tattooed, and well, I knew I couldn't get
close to them in other ways.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
It just kind of dawned on me.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
I was like, I bet if I did that, I'd
get to hang out with musicians and rock stars.
Speaker 5 (10:30):
And it works.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I do, ah, I see the ploy to hang out
with with with rock and roll.
Speaker 6 (10:43):
My husband likes to say that I am not adverse
to playing the long game. It's kind of my The
way that I do everything is I just plant it
out and play it long.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
There you go, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
Things worked out.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
The planet, the planet out and play it long. If
if everybody goes to your website, which is witch.
Speaker 6 (11:08):
Vetty dot com w h I c H b E
t y dot com.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
You gotta spell it right, then we get into the whole.
Speaker 6 (11:17):
Witch thing and like, oh she's a witch. Well, I
am a woman who plays with plants and well lives
in the forest.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Well, if we go the the the the wick away, right,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (11:30):
I suppose, but I'm not.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
It means that you're knowledgeable about the environment and that
you have a strong respect for for the plants and
living things around you. Uh, but but it's not spelled
that way. It's spelled w I c H so t
H what's that?
Speaker 5 (11:56):
Do you mean me? Or you mean me? That's w
h I c h W. Yeah, Like, which one is
she going to do next?
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (12:03):
Fix saying a car? Now we're building a tagent shop.
Oh wait, we're protesting.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Okay, So but you have you actually have have some
some herbal remedies and t's and things like that on
on your website that people can actually purchase.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
So I do, Yeah, mostly tinctures.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yes, So that's that's what it was. I couldn't a
sorry scramble brains sometimes, you know, you know what I
mean when you do like a lot of different things
for absolutely, I sure do so. So I noticed that
and they're all they are all herbal things that that
are close by this and that it didn't seem to
(12:44):
be anything important from far far away.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
No, everything that I sell is really small batch. And
every single herd, aside from the lines made which I
get from a grower on Vancouver Island who I work
with that's called Forager's Galley, everything else I have forged myself.
And sometimes they even give me the kits and I
grow them myself in my kitchen and use the lines
(13:10):
made that way. But I partner with them and I
do videos for them sometimes and yeah, and that's how
that works. But other than that, I don't sell or
use or make anything. I mean, sometimes i'll use it
if it's gifted, but I don't sell or make anything
that's not locally foraged that I haven't put my hands
in every single part of it. So like if I
(13:32):
make a tincture of say Usnia, the jar is a
regular Mason jar that I use. It only makes twelve bottles, like,
and so it's really really small batch and controlled, and
I know what. I put my hand on every single
part of the process, from picking the plant to cleaning
the plant, to processing it to turning it into a tincture.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
To bottling it.
Speaker 6 (13:54):
I made the labels, I designed the labels, I label
the bottles myself, and ship every single piece by hand
by myself.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
That is, that's actually a lot of work. I'll get
into off air about how I know that that's a
lot of work later on. But so you put your heart,
in your soul into into everything that you do.
Speaker 6 (14:25):
I certainly try to so. I feel I feel like
a long, a long time ago. I read the book
the Four Agreements, and one of the four agreements is
to always do your best. And so if I'm not
going to do my best at it, it's not really
somewhere I need to put my energy.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
I can't.
Speaker 6 (14:43):
I don't have time for half assing things when you
have so many things on the go. If something seems
like I'm not going to be able to give that
my full attention, it's just not something I try to
dive into.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
That makes sense, right, m there's books out there to
talk about the one thing and all that kind of stuff.
It means that you're focused on this is my purpose
and and then and this is my thing to to
fulfill that purpose. Right.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah. So it's a good way to live. And it
looks like you have a pretty cool life. Uh again,
go for those of you who are on Instagram, it's like,
actually type in which Betty and watch some of some
of her videos and reels, and it's like, you'll follow love,
(15:33):
You'll fall over with Elizabeth right away. I did.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
Thanks, Feelings mutual. It's nice to meet new friends.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, but you you live in a part of the
world that makes it easier for you to do that too, right,
because you're not exactly an urban area.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
This is true.
Speaker 6 (15:54):
I live on a I live on a small island
off another big island.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
M m m hm.
Speaker 6 (16:00):
So if you're coming from the mainland, you'd have to
either fly in or take a minimum of two fairies
to arrive here.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah. We were talking about that because I was maybe
planning one taking a trip out.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
So yeah, I know, I hope. So that's great.
Speaker 6 (16:21):
I'm currently opening a brick and mortar store here on
Gabriella Island called Raven Queen Tattoo, and it'll be a
store in the front where we have retail, and I'll
be selling like all of these potions.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
If you watch some of my videos.
Speaker 6 (16:34):
I recently did a salt video, actually, I think I
put it out today or on Instagram, and I extract
salt from the ocean and I do that not I mean,
you can absolutely do that and use it for cooking,
and I've done that as well. But buying salt is
fairly inexpensive. It depends how much.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
The sovereignty of your food is important to you.
Speaker 6 (16:56):
Like a lot of people do things like this just
so that they know that they're taking one step back
from the food supply and making themselves their own supply
more sovereign. But this I was actually doing this one
for intentions and potions and stuff, which is something that's
going to be available in the store at Raven Queen Tattoo.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Pretty cool, Okay, I have I have a question about
that because I've I live in the in in a
little town that that we have huge beach. Matter of fact,
we're known for our peer and our beach.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
I do love that beach. I do love that beach.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, it's it's it's really pretty. But here's my thing.
Because of the shipping lanes and things like that. Is
it safe to extract the salt from that water?
Speaker 6 (17:51):
I don't know, I mean I probably it's probably not advised.
Like I don't know that I would want to eat
much that comes out of the Puget Sound or like,
which is that similar same.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
Body of water?
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Right?
Speaker 6 (18:04):
But I know you're not in Puget Sound, but you
know what I mean, like those whole shipping lanes and
such high traffic areas.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
Maybe not.
Speaker 6 (18:12):
But also who's to say that's not where the sea
seal your buying comes from?
Speaker 5 (18:16):
Anyway?
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Well, the good point, you know, from from our point
of view at the beach, we can't see It's not
like English Bay exactly where you can actually see the
see that the boat sitting there, right, You can't. You
can't see the the you.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
See people fishing?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
No, not really.
Speaker 6 (18:39):
Well then maybe like here where I am, there's like
fishing boats sometimes and whatever.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
But crab, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 6 (18:48):
Well that's those things are eating all the gunk off
the bottom of.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
The ocean anyway.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
So M good point.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
I mean that's like one of the I actually love
that that question because people say that, oh, you can't
eat that the ocean's full of microplastics. I'm like, and
so are you, my friend, We're also we're all full
of microplastics. At this point, I'm half convinced that if
we figured some way to pull it all out of
us and not have it, I'm sure our bodies have
(19:15):
evolved to need it on some level at this point.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
I I would think the think that you that you
might have have a point, because the microplastic thing goes
back as far as from I understand, starting from when
we were children. I may have been, oh yeah, I
may have been like five or six when the problem
actually started and you were.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
Born and started being aware of it, And like the
plastic revolution was in the fifties, right, so like that's
before of our time.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah, so it's like I and it only means that
they've only been monitoring it since like nineteen seventy something.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
That's right exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
So you know, if we were to pull it out
of our systems, there could be some revolt like, no,
you can't do that.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
Yeah, exactly. My arteries may be made of partly plastic
at this point. I don't know.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
That's ridiculous, that's like, that's so funny. It'd be like
say you don't know science without saying you don't know science,
being like, yeah, my arteries are plastic now, so it's fine.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
You can sound that however you like.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah, it will lead that as a more comical statement.
But there's the truth to it. There's some truth truth
to it because our bodies learned to absorb what what's
around us. Thus me asking me asking the question about
(20:44):
about extracting the salt because or like I said, on
the other side of of that bay is the shipping lanes.
You can't see it from where I'm sitting, but it's
I know it's there. So because I thought about that,
because we I use a lot of of of sea
(21:08):
salt in in my in my spice mixtures and things
like that, because I'm a big barbecue fan and I
blend my own spices and everything from what from the
bulk store that they have there. I love box.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
Stores, bulk stores, bolk stores.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yes, which which also leads down the path of Okay,
going in our backyard, we know that it hasn't been sprayed,
it had doesn't have any of those nasty pesticides and
stuff into it, and sake, is that a more conscious
way of actually feeding our bodies.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Well you okay, now, h.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
M hmm, okay, do you want to ask that one again?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Foraging for for for for different plants and everything in
our backyards and everything if we can, is that a
more conscious way of actually finding our food and uh
in nourishing our bodies.
Speaker 5 (22:45):
I mean, I would say so.
Speaker 6 (22:47):
I have a hard time speaking in absolutes because I
don't believe that I'm the authority on all things like this,
but but in my opinion, yeah, because now we've taken
out the transportation of those vegetables, We've taken out the monocropping,
We've taken out the idea that meat juice has fallen
on our lettuce and it's now going to give us ecoli.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
People. I see a lot of memes like, oh, bacon
never gave anybody ecola?
Speaker 6 (23:11):
Well, it does. But it's not the recall on the
bacon we're worried about. It's the recall on the way
that the vegetables have been stored and the carbon footprint
of moving those vegetables around to try to get it there.
Is it actually reasonable and viable to think that we
can do it just out of our lawns, like we
did say for my video and have that enough to
(23:34):
sustain us?
Speaker 5 (23:34):
No, to do that, we would need to be using those.
Speaker 6 (23:37):
Quarter acre lots that we have that we call lawns
to grow food, because a quarter acre of grown food
can feed a family of four if you know how
to preserve it, you have some different canning techniques, you
know what you're growing at the right times. Then yes,
absolutely we could be feeding ourselves and our families out
of our backyards in a more conscious manner that helps
both ourselves in the planet.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Right. That is a very good answer, because I don't
think any of us are truly experts, or maybe we
are experts and maybe something else that's telling us that
we're not allowed to be experts. But that's a conspirator
to you and.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
I love a good story.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Okay, good story, and that's something that we both share.
You are also a storyteller.
Speaker 5 (24:29):
What is the truth? What is the truth? I do
tend to tell to tell stories in my own way,
or try.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
To help people visualize something that is in my heart
or my soul through my actions and my videos. Or
I've actually been working on a children's program with another
herbalist named Yaro Willard called The Adventures of Burdock and Yerow,
where I've created these characters and we use My last
(24:58):
name is actually legally and you know not because I
made it up Burdock and his first name is Yarrow,
so it just seemed like given name, and so it
just seemed supernatural for us to.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Do these things together.
Speaker 6 (25:12):
And he has a YouTube channel as well, and so
I knew he'd be good on camera. Just finding the
time to make We've got three episodes, two completely done
and edited, and we've got one that just needs a
couple tweaks, and we were hoping to have six or
eight to do a whole season. By finding time, he
(25:33):
has also flown around the world to speak at different things.
I believe he's in Toronto right now at a trade show.
He went to Estonia and then I'm also doing things
like this as well as I am being flown to Morellia,
Mexico in January to speak at the People's Reset to
talk about things like this like food, sovereignty and relationships
(25:54):
to plants.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, everything sounds freet like they aches until we asked
the question what is elizabeth message to the world.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
I think that.
Speaker 6 (26:12):
My message to the world would just be to try
to tread a little bit lightly and lead with kindness,
think about the great, greater picture. We tend to a
lot of the time look at things selfishly or through
our own lens.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
What's kindness to us? Which is also important.
Speaker 6 (26:30):
Don't get me wrong, but I try to think that
every step I take, is this the kindest move for
the planet and for my future?
Speaker 5 (26:37):
Seven generations?
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Wow? Future seven generations. That's a very very indigenous thinking.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
I was, I was.
Speaker 6 (26:49):
I had a lot of indigenous influence growing up and
still do because I live on unseated territory of the
Shnanama people currently. And if you don't feel their influence,
it's because you're you know, stupid or you don't care.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
So we we can define that they that one s
word as you don't care.
Speaker 6 (27:16):
Yeah, I was, Actually I was. I was stealing part
of that from a song lyric. It was an Ani
de Franco lyrics. She says, if you're not angry, you're
just stupid or you don't care. How else could you
react to something so unfair? But I was just paraphrasing
in my gen x way, as we do. Because if
you say, tell me a sentence that has any kind
(27:37):
of song lyric. I am immediately singing that song out
loud to the world because I can't help it and
I don't want.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
To help it.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Would you? I was gonna say, why would you want
to help it? Hey? That's our generation, isn't it?
Speaker 6 (27:53):
You know?
Speaker 5 (27:53):
And we're the best ones, Like every generation says about
their generation.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yeah we were. We were kind of squishing the middle
of a whole bunch of us their stuff. But yeah,
that's what makes us one of the best because we
can scream the loudest.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
Right if we care to, which was probably don't David.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
We we ended apart that in in uh in South Africa, right.
Speaker 5 (28:16):
I don't think I had any part in that, but
I'm glad it happened.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Oh well, I'm at the I'm a little bit ahead
of you in the in the generation and yes, the
nineteen eighty something as a as a ninth grader, I
remember marching for a part.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Yeah, I remember, I remember it happening.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
So yeah, but uh but yeah, but you you you do.
You do a lot of protests, and that protest is
wrapped around your what that story is and what your
and what your message is. To be a little kinder
to the planet.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
Right, Yeah, that that that began for me.
Speaker 6 (28:59):
Really young, like when I was I don't know, probably
sixteen somewhere. And then they started on vank For Island.
There was a fight which was until Fairy Creek. The
largest act of civil disobedience in Canada was the fight
for to save Clackwat Sound and fortunately for them, unfortunately
for the Fairy Creek Forest defenders, they went and Clockwatt
(29:24):
Sound was saved.
Speaker 5 (29:26):
But I had tried to get out there with a friend.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
There was like also stuff in the Wallburne Valley and
we would go to smaller protests and smaller things like that.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
I never made it to.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
Clackwatt for the big thing because I was, you know, young,
and but we did do the smaller protests on the
outside for that. But then a series of events my
having a child at just after my twenty first birthday,
and I was living on Bowen Island again. I was
going to a place called Family Place, and I met
a woman named Suppora Burman and she asked me to
(29:59):
come live with her and be her nanny for her
son named Forrest. And at the time I believe she
was working for Rainforest Action Network but she is the
woman charge with the thousand faces of clackwatt sound. So
this is another thing where I believe spirit has always
just been trying to pull me in and make me
a part of these things. I met people there that
I like with no you know, I didn't finish high school.
(30:21):
I didn't have very much formal education of any kind.
I met people there that had because she during the
time I lived there, she got a moratorium put on
what is called the Great Bear Rainforest, which stretches from
the tip of Vancouver Island to Alaska, and they had
a celebration and they had inspiring people. I was like
(30:42):
imposter syndrome level ten thousand, even just being in their
presence that had done things like like uh interned at
the White House and they had they they tried to
get me involved in something called Ruckus, the School of Ruckus,
which was learning to do access civil disobedience and fly
(31:03):
signs and tree sit and things like that, which I
wasn't able to do because I was busy trying to
raise a small child with little guidance on how to
do so.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
But it's still at the same time lit that continued
that fire to.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Grow well Okay, so we all can't do the tree setting,
but we can support the tree.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
Absolutely ill so absolutely.
Speaker 6 (31:36):
When we went to Fairy Creek, I was I worked
for the media team there and I started their TikTok
and I did all of the video work and I
would film and make videos of the actions. But I
wasn't in a position to throw myself in it and
get arrested because I have things to do and I
(31:56):
don't want to travel. I mean, had it come down
to it, but there was enough people, in my opinion,
and someone needs to document.
Speaker 5 (32:04):
It, absolutely, so I did a lot of them.
Speaker 6 (32:10):
We did that, and then we did some of the
when people would come back from like a sleeping dragon.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
For those who don't know what that is.
Speaker 6 (32:19):
A sleeping dragon is when they cement something underground and
they put bars in it and then they make like
a tube.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
With a hole.
Speaker 6 (32:30):
You stick your arm in it and you lock cough
yourself to it so now you can't get out and
so the machine hopefully doesn't just run you over. When
the people come to tear down the forest that were
trying so desperately to defend, and there would be young
people who were in sleeping dragons and when they would
(32:52):
come back from these actions mildly traumatized from the way
they've been spoken to the things that happened. We would
do the intake and talk to them then things like that, Wow,
And I would feed that a lot of them lemon
bomb tincture because it acts very quickly on the nervous
system and calms you.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
That's amazing that you would know that, But.
Speaker 6 (33:20):
To feed them lemon bob Yeah, wow, that's kind of
my jam.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
Verbal medicine is kind of my thing.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, it's just saying that that's not exactly as common
knowledge as well, would think.
Speaker 6 (33:36):
Right, Yeah, I suppose, Yeah, absolutely, So there was a
lot of studying that came through some of those things
as well. Yeah, just like I said that, while I
may not hold certificates from actual institutions, there's no denying
that I've spent many, many hours, months, days, and years
(34:01):
studying all of these things.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
Yeah, your books, workshops and whatever else.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Because because it's pretty apparent that you're an avid reader, okay,
and it's like, ultimately it doesn't matter that you went
to an institution to get the book to read, and
we're told to assign things out of that book by
some teacher. It doesn't matter that if you did read
(34:31):
the book that way, or if you just found the
book and you read the book and you learn from
the book, It doesn't matter which way do you do it?
Speaker 6 (34:39):
Right?
Speaker 1 (34:39):
I completely yeah, And.
Speaker 6 (34:43):
I think that's the thing, like why I'm always nervous
to talk about it is because I don't ever want
to take away the value that that that can be
found out of regular institutionalized learning. We're not all the same.
Not everyone as the the willpower or drive to want
to do these things on their own.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
They don't even know where to start or how to start.
Speaker 6 (35:06):
So without these institutionalized learning centers, there's many people who
wouldn't ever get the knowledge that they needed to do
the great things that they do today. So I don't
think that anything's lost when learning is involved, and regardless
regardless of how you do it, I just wasn't capable
and I'm still not capable of doing it in that way.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
And they're saying there's nothing wrong with that, exactly because
you love books, and you did you said that you
love books without even saying that you love books, because
you've talked about, oh, I've read this or I read that,
you've said it several times, right, the idea of burning books.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
The idea of burning books, well, I mean, let's take
it from a book. How do we feel about George
Orwell's nineteen eighty four? You know, I mean, if you
did make it through some institutionalized learning, you should be
quite familiar.
Speaker 5 (36:11):
With those books.
Speaker 6 (36:13):
Although I'm not convinced they're teaching it today in school.
But but I don't. I mean, it depends why you
burned a book. I mean, I don't think that it's
good and we shouldn't burn all of them, But what
if you needed to stay warm. I might have ripped
a couple pages out of a Bible to make to
turn into a rollie a few times in my life.
(36:35):
I'm not saying that it's a good idea, but also
it's not a great rollie either. But but you know,
I I.
Speaker 5 (36:45):
It's a tricky one, right, Like I don't think that
I think I don't.
Speaker 6 (36:49):
I don't believe in censorship at all, Like under any circumstance,
I don't think it's okay. I believe in teaching people
the difference between what is false and what is real.
I believe in teaching people to use critical thinking. Skills
so that we don't need to shield them and not
let them have.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
Any false media. See the false media, laugh at it
or take it in.
Speaker 6 (37:12):
Have discussions with those people who are like absolutely over
the top on flat earth or whatever it is they're into,
and have actual discussions about it.
Speaker 5 (37:23):
Learn why they thought that what fringe.
Speaker 6 (37:26):
Society brought them into being white supremacist because they never felt,
you know, that they had community in something else.
Speaker 5 (37:33):
And these people were like, we will give you community.
Speaker 6 (37:36):
Just hate everybody else because you kind of do anyway
because you're upset or whatever. But if we open conversations
to all kinds of people, I just feel like we
could I know it's idealistic, but have a more functional
society as a whole.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Well, but if we don't have idealists to promote the
ideals to begin with, how we ever going to get there?
Speaker 5 (38:00):
Amen?
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Wait a second, you see I'm a fellow idealist. Uh,
on a serious note, what is your ideal in that
in that way ideal for our human society?
Speaker 5 (38:24):
I'd like to see, well, I mean i'd like to see.
I want to live in Wakanda. If I'm being honest,
Can I move to Wakanda? Please? I would like to
see a place where.
Speaker 6 (38:40):
Science is important and seen as questions that need answers,
not answers that can't be questioned. I'd like to see
a place where none of us are are judged by
the way that we look, based on our color, our size,
our creed, our cast. I would like to see a
(39:01):
place where we can discuss things rather than fight. I
don't want to fight for resources. I don't want to.
I don't want to. I would like to lose all
ideals of capitalism. I'd love to see a socialist society
in a way that that could work.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
So you know, Wakanda, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6 (39:26):
Like I'd like to see technology help us do things
and us to be grateful for it.
Speaker 5 (39:33):
To advance society. But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 6 (39:38):
I can see it in my mind, but to paint
the picture of it for the rest of the world
without just looking like someone who has no grepin reality,
which isn't far from the truth, it's difficult.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
No, you have real, grippled reality. But before I m
what is your grip on reality?
Speaker 5 (40:07):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (40:07):
I think this is probably a simulation. It's kidding, I
don't know. I just want to make sure you have
lots of good soundbites here to pull in some people,
it's all a simulation.
Speaker 5 (40:24):
None of this is real. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna
wake up and.
Speaker 6 (40:27):
Have to unplug from the matrix at some point, but
I don't think that I want to, because I saw.
Speaker 5 (40:32):
What happens when you unplugg This is better.
Speaker 6 (40:35):
Mm hmm, yeah, but I I don't know. Yeah, I
don't know.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
I question. I question everything that is my That is
my take on reality.
Speaker 6 (40:45):
When things go really well in my favor, as they
often do a lot of the time, I always I'll
turn to one of my good friends, Jared, who is
actually a clinical therapist with two master's degrees and one
of my best friends, and we'll say, not a simulation,
not a simulation.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
To quote or paraphrase, I'm actually quote uh Neil Tyson
de Grassi. I'm not going to be I'm not going
to directly quote him, because we will paraphrase him. He said,
one of the points of science is to question everything
that we see, the question every answers that we receive.
(41:26):
It is. It isn't about finding the answers, It's about
developing the right questions.
Speaker 6 (41:33):
That's why everything is considered if in science as a theory.
This is the theory of gravity. It's a theory. We
don't know that's why it's working for sure. I mean
we're pretty sure we do, but we don't know for sure.
Like for example, if who was.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
That guy who spoke on Joe Rogan he's also an actor.
Speaker 6 (41:53):
It was great, and he talked about opening the the
the Flower of life frong and he said gravity is
not real and that it's just uh ah, like something
that comes from like electromagnetic I don't know, I can't
even remember right now, but anyway, he was trying to
(42:14):
debunk the theory of gravity, which I thought was interesting.
So to remind us that all of these things are theories,
which is any real scientists will tell you. It's the
rest of the keyboard warrior scientists that think that it's
already all been answered.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Hmm, far from all been answered. But yeah, but we
we need to we need to question more. And it's
been a lot of fun questioning you and I look
forward to having you back another time to talk about
more stuff that sounds great.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
I would look love that.
Speaker 6 (42:56):
I hope that I hope that I didn't rant too
much and that I answered the questions.
Speaker 5 (42:59):
You'd hope to ask.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
It's a good, good amount of rant. It's good cool,
so if we if we want to get a hold
of this tintures, and of course you're also a tattoo artist,
so there's two different things, which Betty I know has
the tintures and your herbal work.
Speaker 6 (43:20):
Right, my tattoo work can also be seen on my
website at which Beetty dot com. Sadly, right now I'm
unable to sell to anybody in the United States, which
is ninety five percent of my.
Speaker 5 (43:32):
Sales, because of just the way that these terrafts have gone.
Speaker 6 (43:38):
The cost of sending something I'd have to make add
fifty percent to my cost to cover it, or fifty
percent to the price on top of what's already being
asked just to cover it as well as I tried
to do it anyway and it won't print the labels
and I can't do it.
Speaker 5 (43:54):
So I've just had to close the store of the
United States.
Speaker 6 (43:56):
But that doesn't mean you can't come see me in person,
because I am opening this tattoo studio and store. That
doesn't but I don't expect people to just come up
for a day. If you're coming from Oregon or from
I don't know, Tennessee or Texas. So instead I'm pairing
with some of the local places here to be able
to offer vacation packages.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
So we'll have rooms offered.
Speaker 6 (44:20):
You can do multi day stays with a package where
you can include powerboarding and kayaking foraging days with me,
so I can take you in the forest and teach
you the things that I do.
Speaker 5 (44:33):
We can talk some shinrin yoku.
Speaker 6 (44:35):
Some forest bathing, and as well as booking your tattoo
time with either me or my business partner, Michelle. And
you can get that by looking at Raven Queen Tattoo
on Instagram or by checking out which Betty.
Speaker 5 (44:53):
Dot com awesome which. Yeah, I also have a blog
there you can read and all sorts of.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Things th cool. So for those of you who go
as far as it as to find your way onto
our blog, we will put lots of cool links in
stuff in Elizabeth's blog posts about what we just talked about.
Speaker 5 (45:18):
Yeah, awesome, Thank you so much, Michael.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, thank you for being on the show, and thank
you everybody for listening today. And Betty dot com awesome.
Speaker 5 (45:29):
Thanks. Let's chat against you.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
He us. I don't know, so I wish your phone action.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
So what.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Listen days.
Speaker 4 (46:16):
A reason to.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
Save me out?
Speaker 4 (46:27):
Cho shows.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
We can't try sur wait.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
So w.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
The show has been produced by Depictions Media. Please contact
us at depictions dot media for more information
Thank you for listening to the picture of the radiant.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Rat.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
You readything to me? Oh well, well say, oh well
(00:57):
not a bad stop. I just see you so smashion
(01:18):
stop along? Is it dead.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
A man?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Well, it's time time again to have coffee together. Today
we're going to speak with Elizabeth Burdock. Our screen name
is which Betty. You can find her on Instagram and
uh Facebook that way uh. She is a storyteller forrest
(02:01):
protector who stood on the front lines of environmental movements,
including protests to defend old growth forests in the Wallbrand Valley,
Fairy Creek and beyond Well. If you know anything about
the two valleys mentioned here, they're in British Columbia. She
(02:28):
has built a community of over two million people across TikTok, Instagram,
and Facebook, as we mentioned through her viral cooking shows,
Foraging Adventures the Whimsicle Contact series Like Burdock and Yarrow.
(02:51):
In addition to her digital presence, Elizabeth is a tattoo
artist and a herbalus who works to explore themes of resilience, creativity,
connection to the land. Whether she's teaching about plants, she's
(03:12):
sharing her story or inspiring others to find joy, encouraging
everyday life. Elizabeth brings humor, honesty, and heart to everything
she does. So finish gathering up that last cup of coffee,
your snack, and hurry up and sit down so that
(03:33):
we can speak to Elizabeth here on inspiring stories. Well,
(04:13):
welcome to the show, Elizabeth, or should I call you Betty?
I don't mind, you don't mind easy, You're easy, Okay.
So it really attracted me. I've I caught you caught
you talking one time about finding a salad that would
be just in your backyard, and you were talking about
(04:34):
nettles and all these really cool plants that are actually
edible that we like well as modern people, we spray
them with round up. Oh god?
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (04:46):
And and when when we could actually have have a
salad right there right? Not go to the store and
we all know that that package stuff that they have
in the storage, we put ourself at risk for this
little condition called listeria. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So you pecked
(05:09):
all that into like sixty to ninety seconds, and it
was like so cool. So and then when I look
at your website, you talk about did you spend even
your childhood running around the woods? So why don't we
start there and tell us about, you know, this little
girl running through the woods what you were thinking about.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
Well, I grew up on.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
Bowen Island in British Columbia, and when I was a kid,
it was a minute ago and there was very few
people there, so it probably had a population of maybe
eight fifty nine hundred people toops, and you know, only
a small percentage of that was children, and even smaller
percentage of that was children.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
My own age, and so.
Speaker 6 (05:53):
That I rarely saw kids my own age anyway, or
kids at all, And so I just spent a lot
of time building forts and collecting stuff in the forest.
And also Bowen had no natural predators, so the biggest
animal is a deer, and so it was kind of
safe to just run around. There's not going to be
anything dangerous out there other than perhaps other humans.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
So I spent a lot of time doing that.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Wow, it's get a good point that I think the
scarge predator on the planet is actually the human being.
But we're not going to go down that road. So
you always had an interest in the environment and protecting
our our planet and learning from our planet. Right, Yeah,
(06:45):
So how did you actually get how did all that
work out, that you do the herbalist thing and get
to know so much about what's growing around us.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
Well, I mean, it's just it has been sort.
Speaker 6 (07:02):
Of what seemed to me to be common knowledge for
a lot of it, because just because of the way
that I was raised, but for me to make it
any kind of a profession, my first try it that
was around eighteen, where I did some online courses about
Aroman therapy and it went into how to make like
(07:22):
salves and things like that. So I tried to do
that and make salves at markets and sell herbs that way.
But it's pretty unlikely that many people are going to
buy foraged goods or herbal medicines from an eighteen year old,
especially when you look like me at eighteen, because I
(07:43):
looked even younger than eighteen, so I just looked like
some kids trying to sell potionent, some kids trying to
sell potionan. So it didn't work out. So I tried
other things, but it was just something that always stayed
a part of me, and later in life when I
became more parent, that I wanted to.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Do this with my life.
Speaker 6 (08:07):
I have an aversion to and I don't think that
this is something that anyone should follow. But I personally
have an aversion to authority, and I have an aversion
to the way that schooling is done.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
And through lots of.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
Through lots of unfortunate experiences, I didn't have a good
time in school. So the idea of doing things conventionally
just never resonated with me in any way.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
So, but the universe provides and wanted me to do it.
Speaker 6 (08:41):
So while I was tattooing, a woman offered to trade
me all of her course material and books and everything
from a school called Dominion Herbal College in exchange for
a tattoo, as well as some other amazing herbal books
and which I of course took her up on.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
And so I.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
Completed the chartered Herbalist course at Dominion in Herbal College,
including all of the tests. But Dominion Herbal College has
no idea, and so that was where I got a
lot of the information.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Wow, that's that's actually pretty cold, because it has some
pretty amazing artwork.
Speaker 6 (09:25):
Yeah, I've been a tattoo artist for well eighteen years,
I guess.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Wow wow, uh, okay, because we're going to go a
cydeborrow on the in the environmental thing for a second, here.
What trew you in with the with the tattoo? Why
the body art?
Speaker 5 (09:48):
Well, that was another thing. I remember one time I
was about five years old and we were.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
Taking a trip to the city and I was like
holding my mom's hand and I saw a woman heavily tattooed,
and of course my head's spun and my British mother.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
Said, oh, that's awful. You would never want to look
like that.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
And I said I would, I would, And it just
kind of started from there. And then having a love
of music, especially rock and roll music and grun rock
and all of that. Through the nineties, all of my
heroes were tattooed, and well, I knew I couldn't get
close to them in other ways.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
It just kind of dawned on me.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
I was like, I bet if I did that, I'd
get to hang out with musicians and rock stars.
Speaker 5 (10:30):
And it works.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I do, ah, I see the ploy to hang out
with with with rock and roll.
Speaker 6 (10:43):
My husband likes to say that I am not adverse
to playing the long game. It's kind of my The
way that I do everything is I just plant it
out and play it long.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
There you go, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
Things worked out.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
The planet, the planet out and play it long. If
if everybody goes to your website, which is witch.
Speaker 6 (11:08):
Vetty dot com w h I c H b E
t y dot com.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
You gotta spell it right, then we get into the whole.
Speaker 6 (11:17):
Witch thing and like, oh she's a witch. Well, I
am a woman who plays with plants and well lives
in the forest.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Well, if we go the the the the wick away, right,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (11:30):
I suppose, but I'm not.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
It means that you're knowledgeable about the environment and that
you have a strong respect for for the plants and
living things around you. Uh, but but it's not spelled
that way. It's spelled w I c H so t
H what's that?
Speaker 5 (11:56):
Do you mean me? Or you mean me? That's w
h I c h W. Yeah, Like, which one is
she going to do next?
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (12:03):
Fix saying a car? Now we're building a tagent shop.
Oh wait, we're protesting.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Okay, So but you have you actually have have some
some herbal remedies and t's and things like that on
on your website that people can actually purchase.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
So I do, Yeah, mostly tinctures.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yes, So that's that's what it was. I couldn't a
sorry scramble brains sometimes, you know, you know what I
mean when you do like a lot of different things
for absolutely, I sure do so. So I noticed that
and they're all they are all herbal things that that
are close by this and that it didn't seem to
(12:44):
be anything important from far far away.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
No, everything that I sell is really small batch. And
every single herd, aside from the lines made which I
get from a grower on Vancouver Island who I work
with that's called Forager's Galley, everything else I have forged myself.
And sometimes they even give me the kits and I
grow them myself in my kitchen and use the lines
(13:10):
made that way. But I partner with them and I
do videos for them sometimes and yeah, and that's how
that works. But other than that, I don't sell or
use or make anything. I mean, sometimes i'll use it
if it's gifted, but I don't sell or make anything
that's not locally foraged that I haven't put my hands
in every single part of it. So like if I
(13:32):
make a tincture of say Usnia, the jar is a
regular Mason jar that I use. It only makes twelve bottles, like,
and so it's really really small batch and controlled, and
I know what. I put my hand on every single
part of the process, from picking the plant to cleaning
the plant, to processing it to turning it into a tincture.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
To bottling it.
Speaker 6 (13:54):
I made the labels, I designed the labels, I label
the bottles myself, and ship every single piece by hand
by myself.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
That is, that's actually a lot of work. I'll get
into off air about how I know that that's a
lot of work later on. But so you put your heart,
in your soul into into everything that you do.
Speaker 6 (14:25):
I certainly try to so. I feel I feel like
a long, a long time ago. I read the book
the Four Agreements, and one of the four agreements is
to always do your best. And so if I'm not
going to do my best at it, it's not really
somewhere I need to put my energy.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
I can't.
Speaker 6 (14:43):
I don't have time for half assing things when you
have so many things on the go. If something seems
like I'm not going to be able to give that
my full attention, it's just not something I try to
dive into.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
That makes sense, right, m there's books out there to
talk about the one thing and all that kind of stuff.
It means that you're focused on this is my purpose
and and then and this is my thing to to
fulfill that purpose. Right.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah. So it's a good way to live. And it
looks like you have a pretty cool life. Uh again,
go for those of you who are on Instagram, it's like,
actually type in which Betty and watch some of some
of her videos and reels, and it's like, you'll follow love,
(15:33):
You'll fall over with Elizabeth right away. I did.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
Thanks, Feelings mutual. It's nice to meet new friends.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, but you you live in a part of the
world that makes it easier for you to do that too, right,
because you're not exactly an urban area.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
This is true.
Speaker 6 (15:54):
I live on a I live on a small island
off another big island.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
M m m hm.
Speaker 6 (16:00):
So if you're coming from the mainland, you'd have to
either fly in or take a minimum of two fairies
to arrive here.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah. We were talking about that because I was maybe
planning one taking a trip out.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
So yeah, I know, I hope. So that's great.
Speaker 6 (16:21):
I'm currently opening a brick and mortar store here on
Gabriella Island called Raven Queen Tattoo, and it'll be a
store in the front where we have retail, and I'll
be selling like all of these potions.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
If you watch some of my videos.
Speaker 6 (16:34):
I recently did a salt video, actually, I think I
put it out today or on Instagram, and I extract
salt from the ocean and I do that not I mean,
you can absolutely do that and use it for cooking,
and I've done that as well. But buying salt is
fairly inexpensive. It depends how much.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
The sovereignty of your food is important to you.
Speaker 6 (16:56):
Like a lot of people do things like this just
so that they know that they're taking one step back
from the food supply and making themselves their own supply
more sovereign. But this I was actually doing this one
for intentions and potions and stuff, which is something that's
going to be available in the store at Raven Queen Tattoo.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Pretty cool, Okay, I have I have a question about
that because I've I live in the in in a
little town that that we have huge beach. Matter of fact,
we're known for our peer and our beach.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
I do love that beach. I do love that beach.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, it's it's it's really pretty. But here's my thing.
Because of the shipping lanes and things like that. Is
it safe to extract the salt from that water?
Speaker 6 (17:51):
I don't know, I mean I probably it's probably not advised.
Like I don't know that I would want to eat
much that comes out of the Puget Sound or like,
which is that similar same.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
Body of water?
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Right?
Speaker 6 (18:04):
But I know you're not in Puget Sound, but you
know what I mean, like those whole shipping lanes and
such high traffic areas.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
Maybe not.
Speaker 6 (18:12):
But also who's to say that's not where the sea
seal your buying comes from?
Speaker 5 (18:16):
Anyway?
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Well, the good point, you know, from from our point
of view at the beach, we can't see It's not
like English Bay exactly where you can actually see the
see that the boat sitting there, right, You can't. You
can't see the the you.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
See people fishing?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
No, not really.
Speaker 6 (18:39):
Well then maybe like here where I am, there's like
fishing boats sometimes and whatever.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
But crab, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 6 (18:48):
Well that's those things are eating all the gunk off
the bottom of.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
The ocean anyway.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
So M good point.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
I mean that's like one of the I actually love
that that question because people say that, oh, you can't
eat that the ocean's full of microplastics. I'm like, and
so are you, my friend, We're also we're all full
of microplastics. At this point, I'm half convinced that if
we figured some way to pull it all out of
us and not have it, I'm sure our bodies have
(19:15):
evolved to need it on some level at this point.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
I I would think the think that you that you
might have have a point, because the microplastic thing goes
back as far as from I understand, starting from when
we were children. I may have been, oh yeah, I
may have been like five or six when the problem
actually started and you were.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
Born and started being aware of it, And like the
plastic revolution was in the fifties, right, so like that's
before of our time.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah, so it's like I and it only means that
they've only been monitoring it since like nineteen seventy something.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
That's right exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
So you know, if we were to pull it out
of our systems, there could be some revolt like, no,
you can't do that.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
Yeah, exactly. My arteries may be made of partly plastic
at this point. I don't know.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
That's ridiculous, that's like, that's so funny. It'd be like
say you don't know science without saying you don't know science,
being like, yeah, my arteries are plastic now, so it's fine.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
You can sound that however you like.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah, it will lead that as a more comical statement.
But there's the truth to it. There's some truth truth
to it because our bodies learned to absorb what what's
around us. Thus me asking me asking the question about
(20:44):
about extracting the salt because or like I said, on
the other side of of that bay is the shipping lanes.
You can't see it from where I'm sitting, but it's
I know it's there. So because I thought about that,
because we I use a lot of of of sea
(21:08):
salt in in my in my spice mixtures and things
like that, because I'm a big barbecue fan and I
blend my own spices and everything from what from the
bulk store that they have there. I love box.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
Stores, bulk stores, bolk stores.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yes, which which also leads down the path of Okay,
going in our backyard, we know that it hasn't been sprayed,
it had doesn't have any of those nasty pesticides and
stuff into it, and sake, is that a more conscious
way of actually feeding our bodies.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Well you okay, now, h.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
M hmm, okay, do you want to ask that one again?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Foraging for for for for different plants and everything in
our backyards and everything if we can, is that a
more conscious way of actually finding our food and uh
in nourishing our bodies.
Speaker 5 (22:45):
I mean, I would say so.
Speaker 6 (22:47):
I have a hard time speaking in absolutes because I
don't believe that I'm the authority on all things like this,
but but in my opinion, yeah, because now we've taken
out the transportation of those vegetables, We've taken out the monocropping,
We've taken out the idea that meat juice has fallen
on our lettuce and it's now going to give us ecoli.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
People. I see a lot of memes like, oh, bacon
never gave anybody ecola?
Speaker 6 (23:11):
Well, it does. But it's not the recall on the
bacon we're worried about. It's the recall on the way
that the vegetables have been stored and the carbon footprint
of moving those vegetables around to try to get it there.
Is it actually reasonable and viable to think that we
can do it just out of our lawns, like we
did say for my video and have that enough to
(23:34):
sustain us?
Speaker 5 (23:34):
No, to do that, we would need to be using those.
Speaker 6 (23:37):
Quarter acre lots that we have that we call lawns
to grow food, because a quarter acre of grown food
can feed a family of four if you know how
to preserve it, you have some different canning techniques, you
know what you're growing at the right times. Then yes,
absolutely we could be feeding ourselves and our families out
of our backyards in a more conscious manner that helps
both ourselves in the planet.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Right. That is a very good answer, because I don't
think any of us are truly experts, or maybe we
are experts and maybe something else that's telling us that
we're not allowed to be experts. But that's a conspirator
to you and.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
I love a good story.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Okay, good story, and that's something that we both share.
You are also a storyteller.
Speaker 5 (24:29):
What is the truth? What is the truth? I do
tend to tell to tell stories in my own way,
or try.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
To help people visualize something that is in my heart
or my soul through my actions and my videos. Or
I've actually been working on a children's program with another
herbalist named Yaro Willard called The Adventures of Burdock and Yerow,
where I've created these characters and we use My last
(24:58):
name is actually legally and you know not because I
made it up Burdock and his first name is Yarrow,
so it just seemed like given name, and so it
just seemed supernatural for us to.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Do these things together.
Speaker 6 (25:12):
And he has a YouTube channel as well, and so
I knew he'd be good on camera. Just finding the
time to make We've got three episodes, two completely done
and edited, and we've got one that just needs a
couple tweaks, and we were hoping to have six or
eight to do a whole season. By finding time, he
(25:33):
has also flown around the world to speak at different things.
I believe he's in Toronto right now at a trade show.
He went to Estonia and then I'm also doing things
like this as well as I am being flown to Morellia,
Mexico in January to speak at the People's Reset to
talk about things like this like food, sovereignty and relationships
(25:54):
to plants.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, everything sounds freet like they aches until we asked
the question what is elizabeth message to the world.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
I think that.
Speaker 6 (26:12):
My message to the world would just be to try
to tread a little bit lightly and lead with kindness,
think about the great, greater picture. We tend to a
lot of the time look at things selfishly or through
our own lens.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
What's kindness to us? Which is also important.
Speaker 6 (26:30):
Don't get me wrong, but I try to think that
every step I take, is this the kindest move for
the planet and for my future?
Speaker 5 (26:37):
Seven generations?
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Wow? Future seven generations. That's a very very indigenous thinking.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
I was, I was.
Speaker 6 (26:49):
I had a lot of indigenous influence growing up and
still do because I live on unseated territory of the
Shnanama people currently. And if you don't feel their influence,
it's because you're you know, stupid or you don't care.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
So we we can define that they that one s
word as you don't care.
Speaker 6 (27:16):
Yeah, I was, Actually I was. I was stealing part
of that from a song lyric. It was an Ani
de Franco lyrics. She says, if you're not angry, you're
just stupid or you don't care. How else could you
react to something so unfair? But I was just paraphrasing
in my gen x way, as we do. Because if
you say, tell me a sentence that has any kind
(27:37):
of song lyric. I am immediately singing that song out
loud to the world because I can't help it and
I don't want.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
To help it.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Would you? I was gonna say, why would you want
to help it? Hey? That's our generation, isn't it?
Speaker 6 (27:53):
You know?
Speaker 5 (27:53):
And we're the best ones, Like every generation says about
their generation.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yeah we were. We were kind of squishing the middle
of a whole bunch of us their stuff. But yeah,
that's what makes us one of the best because we
can scream the loudest.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
Right if we care to, which was probably don't David.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
We we ended apart that in in uh in South Africa, right.
Speaker 5 (28:16):
I don't think I had any part in that, but
I'm glad it happened.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Oh well, I'm at the I'm a little bit ahead
of you in the in the generation and yes, the
nineteen eighty something as a as a ninth grader, I
remember marching for a part.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Yeah, I remember, I remember it happening.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
So yeah, but uh but yeah, but you you you do.
You do a lot of protests, and that protest is
wrapped around your what that story is and what your
and what your message is. To be a little kinder
to the planet.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
Right, Yeah, that that that began for me.
Speaker 6 (28:59):
Really young, like when I was I don't know, probably
sixteen somewhere. And then they started on vank For Island.
There was a fight which was until Fairy Creek. The
largest act of civil disobedience in Canada was the fight
for to save Clackwat Sound and fortunately for them, unfortunately
for the Fairy Creek Forest defenders, they went and Clockwatt
(29:24):
Sound was saved.
Speaker 5 (29:26):
But I had tried to get out there with a friend.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
There was like also stuff in the Wallburne Valley and
we would go to smaller protests and smaller things like that.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
I never made it to.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
Clackwatt for the big thing because I was, you know, young,
and but we did do the smaller protests on the
outside for that. But then a series of events my
having a child at just after my twenty first birthday,
and I was living on Bowen Island again. I was
going to a place called Family Place, and I met
a woman named Suppora Burman and she asked me to
(29:59):
come live with her and be her nanny for her
son named Forrest. And at the time I believe she
was working for Rainforest Action Network but she is the
woman charge with the thousand faces of clackwatt sound. So
this is another thing where I believe spirit has always
just been trying to pull me in and make me
a part of these things. I met people there that
I like with no you know, I didn't finish high school.
(30:21):
I didn't have very much formal education of any kind.
I met people there that had because she during the
time I lived there, she got a moratorium put on
what is called the Great Bear Rainforest, which stretches from
the tip of Vancouver Island to Alaska, and they had
a celebration and they had inspiring people. I was like
(30:42):
imposter syndrome level ten thousand, even just being in their
presence that had done things like like uh interned at
the White House and they had they they tried to
get me involved in something called Ruckus, the School of Ruckus,
which was learning to do access civil disobedience and fly
(31:03):
signs and tree sit and things like that, which I
wasn't able to do because I was busy trying to
raise a small child with little guidance on how to
do so.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
But it's still at the same time lit that continued
that fire to.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Grow well Okay, so we all can't do the tree setting,
but we can support the tree.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
Absolutely ill so absolutely.
Speaker 6 (31:36):
When we went to Fairy Creek, I was I worked
for the media team there and I started their TikTok
and I did all of the video work and I
would film and make videos of the actions. But I
wasn't in a position to throw myself in it and
get arrested because I have things to do and I
(31:56):
don't want to travel. I mean, had it come down
to it, but there was enough people, in my opinion,
and someone needs to document.
Speaker 5 (32:04):
It, absolutely, so I did a lot of them.
Speaker 6 (32:10):
We did that, and then we did some of the
when people would come back from like a sleeping dragon.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
For those who don't know what that is.
Speaker 6 (32:19):
A sleeping dragon is when they cement something underground and
they put bars in it and then they make like
a tube.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
With a hole.
Speaker 6 (32:30):
You stick your arm in it and you lock cough
yourself to it so now you can't get out and
so the machine hopefully doesn't just run you over. When
the people come to tear down the forest that were
trying so desperately to defend, and there would be young
people who were in sleeping dragons and when they would
(32:52):
come back from these actions mildly traumatized from the way
they've been spoken to the things that happened. We would
do the intake and talk to them then things like that, Wow,
And I would feed that a lot of them lemon
bomb tincture because it acts very quickly on the nervous
system and calms you.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
That's amazing that you would know that, But.
Speaker 6 (33:20):
To feed them lemon bob Yeah, wow, that's kind of
my jam.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
Verbal medicine is kind of my thing.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, it's just saying that that's not exactly as common
knowledge as well, would think.
Speaker 6 (33:36):
Right, Yeah, I suppose, Yeah, absolutely, So there was a
lot of studying that came through some of those things
as well. Yeah, just like I said that, while I
may not hold certificates from actual institutions, there's no denying
that I've spent many, many hours, months, days, and years
(34:01):
studying all of these things.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
Yeah, your books, workshops and whatever else.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Because because it's pretty apparent that you're an avid reader, okay,
and it's like, ultimately it doesn't matter that you went
to an institution to get the book to read, and
we're told to assign things out of that book by
some teacher. It doesn't matter that if you did read
(34:31):
the book that way, or if you just found the
book and you read the book and you learn from
the book, It doesn't matter which way do you do it?
Speaker 6 (34:39):
Right?
Speaker 1 (34:39):
I completely yeah, And.
Speaker 6 (34:43):
I think that's the thing, like why I'm always nervous
to talk about it is because I don't ever want
to take away the value that that that can be
found out of regular institutionalized learning. We're not all the same.
Not everyone as the the willpower or drive to want
to do these things on their own.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
They don't even know where to start or how to start.
Speaker 6 (35:06):
So without these institutionalized learning centers, there's many people who
wouldn't ever get the knowledge that they needed to do
the great things that they do today. So I don't
think that anything's lost when learning is involved, and regardless
regardless of how you do it, I just wasn't capable
and I'm still not capable of doing it in that way.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
And they're saying there's nothing wrong with that, exactly because
you love books, and you did you said that you
love books without even saying that you love books, because
you've talked about, oh, I've read this or I read that,
you've said it several times, right, the idea of burning books.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
The idea of burning books, well, I mean, let's take
it from a book. How do we feel about George
Orwell's nineteen eighty four? You know, I mean, if you
did make it through some institutionalized learning, you should be
quite familiar.
Speaker 5 (36:11):
With those books.
Speaker 6 (36:13):
Although I'm not convinced they're teaching it today in school.
But but I don't. I mean, it depends why you
burned a book. I mean, I don't think that it's
good and we shouldn't burn all of them, But what
if you needed to stay warm. I might have ripped
a couple pages out of a Bible to make to
turn into a rollie a few times in my life.
(36:35):
I'm not saying that it's a good idea, but also
it's not a great rollie either. But but you know,
I I.
Speaker 5 (36:45):
It's a tricky one, right, Like I don't think that
I think I don't.
Speaker 6 (36:49):
I don't believe in censorship at all, Like under any circumstance,
I don't think it's okay. I believe in teaching people
the difference between what is false and what is real.
I believe in teaching people to use critical thinking. Skills
so that we don't need to shield them and not
let them have.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
Any false media. See the false media, laugh at it
or take it in.
Speaker 6 (37:12):
Have discussions with those people who are like absolutely over
the top on flat earth or whatever it is they're into,
and have actual discussions about it.
Speaker 5 (37:23):
Learn why they thought that what fringe.
Speaker 6 (37:26):
Society brought them into being white supremacist because they never felt,
you know, that they had community in something else.
Speaker 5 (37:33):
And these people were like, we will give you community.
Speaker 6 (37:36):
Just hate everybody else because you kind of do anyway
because you're upset or whatever. But if we open conversations
to all kinds of people, I just feel like we
could I know it's idealistic, but have a more functional
society as a whole.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Well, but if we don't have idealists to promote the
ideals to begin with, how we ever going to get there?
Speaker 5 (38:00):
Amen?
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Wait a second, you see I'm a fellow idealist. Uh,
on a serious note, what is your ideal in that
in that way ideal for our human society?
Speaker 5 (38:24):
I'd like to see, well, I mean i'd like to see.
I want to live in Wakanda. If I'm being honest,
Can I move to Wakanda? Please? I would like to
see a place where.
Speaker 6 (38:40):
Science is important and seen as questions that need answers,
not answers that can't be questioned. I'd like to see
a place where none of us are are judged by
the way that we look, based on our color, our size,
our creed, our cast. I would like to see a
(39:01):
place where we can discuss things rather than fight. I
don't want to fight for resources. I don't want to.
I don't want to. I would like to lose all
ideals of capitalism. I'd love to see a socialist society
in a way that that could work.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
So you know, Wakanda, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6 (39:26):
Like I'd like to see technology help us do things
and us to be grateful for it.
Speaker 5 (39:33):
To advance society. But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 6 (39:38):
I can see it in my mind, but to paint
the picture of it for the rest of the world
without just looking like someone who has no grepin reality,
which isn't far from the truth, it's difficult.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
No, you have real, grippled reality. But before I m
what is your grip on reality?
Speaker 5 (40:07):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (40:07):
I think this is probably a simulation. It's kidding, I
don't know. I just want to make sure you have
lots of good soundbites here to pull in some people,
it's all a simulation.
Speaker 5 (40:24):
None of this is real. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna
wake up and.
Speaker 6 (40:27):
Have to unplug from the matrix at some point, but
I don't think that I want to, because I saw.
Speaker 5 (40:32):
What happens when you unplugg This is better.
Speaker 6 (40:35):
Mm hmm, yeah, but I I don't know. Yeah, I
don't know.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
I question. I question everything that is my That is
my take on reality.
Speaker 6 (40:45):
When things go really well in my favor, as they
often do a lot of the time, I always I'll
turn to one of my good friends, Jared, who is
actually a clinical therapist with two master's degrees and one
of my best friends, and we'll say, not a simulation,
not a simulation.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
To quote or paraphrase, I'm actually quote uh Neil Tyson
de Grassi. I'm not going to be I'm not going
to directly quote him, because we will paraphrase him. He said,
one of the points of science is to question everything
that we see, the question every answers that we receive.
(41:26):
It is. It isn't about finding the answers, It's about
developing the right questions.
Speaker 6 (41:33):
That's why everything is considered if in science as a theory.
This is the theory of gravity. It's a theory. We
don't know that's why it's working for sure. I mean
we're pretty sure we do, but we don't know for sure.
Like for example, if who was.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
That guy who spoke on Joe Rogan he's also an actor.
Speaker 6 (41:53):
It was great, and he talked about opening the the
the Flower of life frong and he said gravity is
not real and that it's just uh ah, like something
that comes from like electromagnetic I don't know, I can't
even remember right now, but anyway, he was trying to
(42:14):
debunk the theory of gravity, which I thought was interesting.
So to remind us that all of these things are theories,
which is any real scientists will tell you. It's the
rest of the keyboard warrior scientists that think that it's
already all been answered.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Hmm, far from all been answered. But yeah, but we
we need to we need to question more. And it's
been a lot of fun questioning you and I look
forward to having you back another time to talk about
more stuff that sounds great.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
I would look love that.
Speaker 6 (42:56):
I hope that I hope that I didn't rant too
much and that I answered the questions.
Speaker 5 (42:59):
You'd hope to ask.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
It's a good, good amount of rant. It's good cool,
so if we if we want to get a hold
of this tintures, and of course you're also a tattoo artist,
so there's two different things, which Betty I know has
the tintures and your herbal work.
Speaker 6 (43:20):
Right, my tattoo work can also be seen on my
website at which Beetty dot com. Sadly, right now I'm
unable to sell to anybody in the United States, which
is ninety five percent of my.
Speaker 5 (43:32):
Sales, because of just the way that these terrafts have gone.
Speaker 6 (43:38):
The cost of sending something I'd have to make add
fifty percent to my cost to cover it, or fifty
percent to the price on top of what's already being
asked just to cover it as well as I tried
to do it anyway and it won't print the labels
and I can't do it.
Speaker 5 (43:54):
So I've just had to close the store of the
United States.
Speaker 6 (43:56):
But that doesn't mean you can't come see me in person,
because I am opening this tattoo studio and store. That
doesn't but I don't expect people to just come up
for a day. If you're coming from Oregon or from
I don't know, Tennessee or Texas. So instead I'm pairing
with some of the local places here to be able
to offer vacation packages.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
So we'll have rooms offered.
Speaker 6 (44:20):
You can do multi day stays with a package where
you can include powerboarding and kayaking foraging days with me,
so I can take you in the forest and teach
you the things that I do.
Speaker 5 (44:33):
We can talk some shinrin yoku.
Speaker 6 (44:35):
Some forest bathing, and as well as booking your tattoo
time with either me or my business partner, Michelle. And
you can get that by looking at Raven Queen Tattoo
on Instagram or by checking out which Betty.
Speaker 5 (44:53):
Dot com awesome which. Yeah, I also have a blog
there you can read and all sorts of.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Things th cool. So for those of you who go
as far as it as to find your way onto
our blog, we will put lots of cool links in
stuff in Elizabeth's blog posts about what we just talked about.
Speaker 5 (45:18):
Yeah, awesome, Thank you so much, Michael.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, thank you for being on the show, and thank
you everybody for listening today. And Betty dot com awesome.
Speaker 5 (45:29):
Thanks. Let's chat against you.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
He us. I don't know, so I wish your phone action.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
So what.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Listen days.
Speaker 4 (46:16):
A reason to.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
Save me out?
Speaker 4 (46:27):
Cho shows.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
We can't try sur wait.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
So w.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
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