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Which Betty the Storyteller Who Wants to Heal Are Planet · Inspiring Stories

0:04
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the picture of the radiant.
0:26
Speaker 2: Rat.
0:28
Speaker 3: You readything to me? Oh well, well say, oh well
0:57
not a bad stop. I just see you so smashion
1:18
stop along? Is it dead.
1:32
Speaker 4: A man?
1:37
Speaker 1: Well, it's time time again to have coffee together. Today
1:43
we're going to speak with Elizabeth Burdock. Our screen name
1:48
is which Betty. You can find her on Instagram and
1:55
uh Facebook that way uh. She is a storyteller forrest
2:01
protector who stood on the front lines of environmental movements,
2:05
including protests to defend old growth forests in the Wallbrand Valley,
2:14
Fairy Creek and beyond Well. If you know anything about
2:18
the two valleys mentioned here, they're in British Columbia. She
2:28
has built a community of over two million people across TikTok, Instagram,
2:34
and Facebook, as we mentioned through her viral cooking shows,
2:42
Foraging Adventures the Whimsicle Contact series Like Burdock and Yarrow.
2:51
In addition to her digital presence, Elizabeth is a tattoo
2:56
artist and a herbalus who works to explore themes of resilience, creativity,
3:06
connection to the land. Whether she's teaching about plants, she's
3:12
sharing her story or inspiring others to find joy, encouraging
3:17
everyday life. Elizabeth brings humor, honesty, and heart to everything
3:23
she does. So finish gathering up that last cup of coffee,
3:30
your snack, and hurry up and sit down so that
3:33
we can speak to Elizabeth here on inspiring stories. Well,
4:13
welcome to the show, Elizabeth, or should I call you Betty?
4:17
I don't mind, you don't mind easy, You're easy, Okay.
4:22
So it really attracted me. I've I caught you caught
4:26
you talking one time about finding a salad that would
4:31
be just in your backyard, and you were talking about
4:34
nettles and all these really cool plants that are actually
4:39
edible that we like well as modern people, we spray
4:43
them with round up. Oh god?
4:45
Speaker 4: Uh?
4:46
Speaker 1: And and when when we could actually have have a
4:49
salad right there right? Not go to the store and
4:54
we all know that that package stuff that they have
4:58
in the storage, we put ourself at risk for this
5:02
little condition called listeria. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So you pecked
5:09
all that into like sixty to ninety seconds, and it
5:12
was like so cool. So and then when I look
5:15
at your website, you talk about did you spend even
5:18
your childhood running around the woods? So why don't we
5:21
start there and tell us about, you know, this little
5:25
girl running through the woods what you were thinking about.
5:29
Speaker 5: Well, I grew up on.
5:30
Speaker 6: Bowen Island in British Columbia, and when I was a kid,
5:35
it was a minute ago and there was very few
5:37
people there, so it probably had a population of maybe
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eight fifty nine hundred people toops, and you know, only
5:46
a small percentage of that was children, and even smaller
5:48
percentage of that was children.
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Speaker 5: My own age, and so.
5:53
Speaker 6: That I rarely saw kids my own age anyway, or
5:56
kids at all, And so I just spent a lot
5:58
of time building forts and collecting stuff in the forest.
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And also Bowen had no natural predators, so the biggest
6:07
animal is a deer, and so it was kind of
6:10
safe to just run around. There's not going to be
6:13
anything dangerous out there other than perhaps other humans.
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Speaker 5: So I spent a lot of time doing that.
6:21
Speaker 1: Wow, it's get a good point that I think the
6:25
scarge predator on the planet is actually the human being.
6:27
But we're not going to go down that road. So
6:31
you always had an interest in the environment and protecting
6:38
our our planet and learning from our planet. Right, Yeah,
6:45
So how did you actually get how did all that
6:50
work out, that you do the herbalist thing and get
6:55
to know so much about what's growing around us.
6:59
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, it's just it has been sort.
7:02
Speaker 6: Of what seemed to me to be common knowledge for
7:05
a lot of it, because just because of the way
7:08
that I was raised, but for me to make it
7:11
any kind of a profession, my first try it that
7:14
was around eighteen, where I did some online courses about
7:18
Aroman therapy and it went into how to make like
7:22
salves and things like that. So I tried to do
7:26
that and make salves at markets and sell herbs that way.
7:30
But it's pretty unlikely that many people are going to
7:33
buy foraged goods or herbal medicines from an eighteen year old,
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especially when you look like me at eighteen, because I
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looked even younger than eighteen, so I just looked like
7:49
some kids trying to sell potionent, some kids trying to
7:51
sell potionan. So it didn't work out. So I tried
7:53
other things, but it was just something that always stayed
7:59
a part of me, and later in life when I
8:01
became more parent, that I wanted to.
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Speaker 5: Do this with my life.
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Speaker 6: I have an aversion to and I don't think that
8:10
this is something that anyone should follow. But I personally
8:13
have an aversion to authority, and I have an aversion
8:17
to the way that schooling is done.
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Speaker 5: And through lots of.
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Speaker 6: Through lots of unfortunate experiences, I didn't have a good
8:29
time in school. So the idea of doing things conventionally
8:33
just never resonated with me in any way.
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Speaker 5: So, but the universe provides and wanted me to do it.
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Speaker 6: So while I was tattooing, a woman offered to trade
8:44
me all of her course material and books and everything
8:50
from a school called Dominion Herbal College in exchange for
8:54
a tattoo, as well as some other amazing herbal books
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and which I of course took her up on.
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Speaker 1: And so I.
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Speaker 6: Completed the chartered Herbalist course at Dominion in Herbal College,
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including all of the tests. But Dominion Herbal College has
9:08
no idea, and so that was where I got a
9:12
lot of the information.
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Speaker 1: Wow, that's that's actually pretty cold, because it has some
9:22
pretty amazing artwork.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, I've been a tattoo artist for well eighteen years,
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I guess.
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Speaker 1: Wow wow, uh, okay, because we're going to go a
9:37
cydeborrow on the in the environmental thing for a second, here.
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What trew you in with the with the tattoo? Why
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the body art?
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Speaker 5: Well, that was another thing. I remember one time I
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was about five years old and we were.
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Speaker 6: Taking a trip to the city and I was like
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holding my mom's hand and I saw a woman heavily tattooed,
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and of course my head's spun and my British mother.
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Speaker 5: Said, oh, that's awful. You would never want to look
10:04
like that.
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Speaker 6: And I said I would, I would, And it just
10:08
kind of started from there. And then having a love
10:11
of music, especially rock and roll music and grun rock
10:16
and all of that. Through the nineties, all of my
10:19
heroes were tattooed, and well, I knew I couldn't get
10:22
close to them in other ways.
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Speaker 5: It just kind of dawned on me.
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Speaker 6: I was like, I bet if I did that, I'd
10:27
get to hang out with musicians and rock stars.
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Speaker 5: And it works.
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Speaker 1: I do, ah, I see the ploy to hang out
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with with with rock and roll.
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Speaker 6: My husband likes to say that I am not adverse
10:47
to playing the long game. It's kind of my The
10:50
way that I do everything is I just plant it
10:53
out and play it long.
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Speaker 1: There you go, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 5: Things worked out.
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Speaker 1: The planet, the planet out and play it long. If
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if everybody goes to your website, which is witch.
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Speaker 6: Vetty dot com w h I c H b E
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t y dot com.
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Speaker 5: You gotta spell it right, then we get into the whole.
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Speaker 6: Witch thing and like, oh she's a witch. Well, I
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am a woman who plays with plants and well lives
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in the forest.
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Speaker 1: Well, if we go the the the the wick away, right,
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you know what I mean?
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Speaker 5: I suppose, but I'm not.
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Speaker 1: It means that you're knowledgeable about the environment and that
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you have a strong respect for for the plants and
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living things around you. Uh, but but it's not spelled
11:46
that way. It's spelled w I c H so t
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H what's that?
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Speaker 5: Do you mean me? Or you mean me? That's w
11:58
h I c h W. Yeah, Like, which one is
12:01
she going to do next?
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Speaker 1: Yeah?
12:03
Speaker 5: Fix saying a car? Now we're building a tagent shop.
12:06
Oh wait, we're protesting.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So but you have you actually have have some
12:15
some herbal remedies and t's and things like that on
12:18
on your website that people can actually purchase.
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Speaker 5: So I do, Yeah, mostly tinctures.
12:23
Speaker 1: Yes, So that's that's what it was. I couldn't a
12:29
sorry scramble brains sometimes, you know, you know what I
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mean when you do like a lot of different things
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for absolutely, I sure do so. So I noticed that
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and they're all they are all herbal things that that
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are close by this and that it didn't seem to
12:44
be anything important from far far away.
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Speaker 6: No, everything that I sell is really small batch. And
12:53
every single herd, aside from the lines made which I
12:56
get from a grower on Vancouver Island who I work
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with that's called Forager's Galley, everything else I have forged myself.
13:06
And sometimes they even give me the kits and I
13:08
grow them myself in my kitchen and use the lines
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made that way. But I partner with them and I
13:13
do videos for them sometimes and yeah, and that's how
13:17
that works. But other than that, I don't sell or
13:21
use or make anything. I mean, sometimes i'll use it
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if it's gifted, but I don't sell or make anything
13:25
that's not locally foraged that I haven't put my hands
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in every single part of it. So like if I
13:32
make a tincture of say Usnia, the jar is a
13:37
regular Mason jar that I use. It only makes twelve bottles, like,
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and so it's really really small batch and controlled, and
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I know what. I put my hand on every single
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part of the process, from picking the plant to cleaning
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the plant, to processing it to turning it into a tincture.
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Speaker 5: To bottling it.
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Speaker 6: I made the labels, I designed the labels, I label
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the bottles myself, and ship every single piece by hand
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by myself.
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Speaker 1: That is, that's actually a lot of work. I'll get
14:10
into off air about how I know that that's a
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lot of work later on. But so you put your heart,
14:19
in your soul into into everything that you do.
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Speaker 6: I certainly try to so. I feel I feel like
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a long, a long time ago. I read the book
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the Four Agreements, and one of the four agreements is
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to always do your best. And so if I'm not
14:39
going to do my best at it, it's not really
14:41
somewhere I need to put my energy.
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Speaker 5: I can't.
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Speaker 6: I don't have time for half assing things when you
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have so many things on the go. If something seems
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like I'm not going to be able to give that
14:49
my full attention, it's just not something I try to
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dive into.
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Speaker 1: That makes sense, right, m there's books out there to
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talk about the one thing and all that kind of stuff.
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It means that you're focused on this is my purpose
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and and then and this is my thing to to
15:08
fulfill that purpose. Right.
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Speaker 5: Absolutely.
15:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's a good way to live. And it
15:15
looks like you have a pretty cool life. Uh again,
15:18
go for those of you who are on Instagram, it's like,
15:24
actually type in which Betty and watch some of some
15:28
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.
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Speaker 5: Thanks, Feelings mutual. It's nice to meet new friends.
15:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you you live in a part of the
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world that makes it easier for you to do that too, right,
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because you're not exactly an urban area.
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Speaker 5: This is true.
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Speaker 6: I live on a I live on a small island
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off another big island.
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Speaker 1: M m m hm.
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Speaker 6: So if you're coming from the mainland, you'd have to
16:03
either fly in or take a minimum of two fairies
16:07
to arrive here.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. We were talking about that because I was maybe
16:13
planning one taking a trip out.
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Speaker 5: So yeah, I know, I hope. So that's great.
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Speaker 6: I'm currently opening a brick and mortar store here on
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Gabriella Island called Raven Queen Tattoo, and it'll be a
16:28
store in the front where we have retail, and I'll
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be selling like all of these potions.
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Speaker 5: If you watch some of my videos.
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Speaker 6: I recently did a salt video, actually, I think I
16:37
put it out today or on Instagram, and I extract
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salt from the ocean and I do that not I mean,
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you can absolutely do that and use it for cooking,
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and I've done that as well. But buying salt is
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fairly inexpensive. It depends how much.
16:52
Speaker 5: The sovereignty of your food is important to you.
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Speaker 6: Like a lot of people do things like this just
16:58
so that they know that they're taking one step back
17:02
from the food supply and making themselves their own supply
17:05
more sovereign. But this I was actually doing this one
17:08
for intentions and potions and stuff, which is something that's
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going to be available in the store at Raven Queen Tattoo.
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Speaker 1: Pretty cool, Okay, I have I have a question about
17:20
that because I've I live in the in in a
17:24
little town that that we have huge beach. Matter of fact,
17:29
we're known for our peer and our beach.
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Speaker 5: I do love that beach. I do love that beach.
17:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's really pretty. But here's my thing.
17:41
Because of the shipping lanes and things like that. Is
17:45
it safe to extract the salt from that water?
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Speaker 6: I don't know, I mean I probably it's probably not advised.
17:57
Like I don't know that I would want to eat
17:58
much that comes out of the Puget Sound or like,
18:01
which is that similar same.
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Speaker 5: Body of water?
18:04
Speaker 4: Right?
18:04
Speaker 6: But I know you're not in Puget Sound, but you
18:06
know what I mean, like those whole shipping lanes and
18:09
such high traffic areas.
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Speaker 5: Maybe not.
18:12
Speaker 6: But also who's to say that's not where the sea
18:15
seal your buying comes from?
18:16
Speaker 5: Anyway?
18:17
Speaker 1: Well, the good point, you know, from from our point
18:22
of view at the beach, we can't see It's not
18:25
like English Bay exactly where you can actually see the
18:29
see that the boat sitting there, right, You can't. You
18:33
can't see the the you.
18:35
Speaker 5: See people fishing?
18:37
Speaker 1: No, not really.
18:39
Speaker 6: Well then maybe like here where I am, there's like
18:42
fishing boats sometimes and whatever.
18:44
Speaker 1: But crab, yeah, there you go.
18:48
Speaker 6: Well that's those things are eating all the gunk off
18:51
the bottom of.
18:51
Speaker 5: The ocean anyway.
18:52
Speaker 1: So M good point.
18:54
Speaker 6: I mean that's like one of the I actually love
18:57
that that question because people say that, oh, you can't
18:59
eat that the ocean's full of microplastics. I'm like, and
19:03
so are you, my friend, We're also we're all full
19:07
of microplastics. At this point, I'm half convinced that if
19:11
we figured some way to pull it all out of
19:13
us and not have it, I'm sure our bodies have
19:15
evolved to need it on some level at this point.
19:18
Speaker 1: I I would think the think that you that you
19:22
might have have a point, because the microplastic thing goes
19:25
back as far as from I understand, starting from when
19:30
we were children. I may have been, oh yeah, I
19:34
may have been like five or six when the problem
19:37
actually started and you were.
19:38
Speaker 6: Born and started being aware of it, And like the
19:40
plastic revolution was in the fifties, right, so like that's
19:43
before of our time.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's like I and it only means that
19:50
they've only been monitoring it since like nineteen seventy something.
19:54
Speaker 5: That's right exactly.
19:56
Speaker 1: So you know, if we were to pull it out
19:58
of our systems, there could be some revolt like, no,
20:02
you can't do that.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. My arteries may be made of partly plastic
20:07
at this point. I don't know.
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Speaker 6: That's ridiculous, that's like, that's so funny. It'd be like
20:12
say you don't know science without saying you don't know science,
20:16
being like, yeah, my arteries are plastic now, so it's fine.
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Speaker 5: You can sound that however you like.
20:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, it will lead that as a more comical statement.
20:30
But there's the truth to it. There's some truth truth
20:34
to it because our bodies learned to absorb what what's
20:38
around us. Thus me asking me asking the question about
20:44
about extracting the salt because or like I said, on
20:49
the other side of of that bay is the shipping lanes.
20:55
You can't see it from where I'm sitting, but it's
20:57
I know it's there. So because I thought about that,
21:02
because we I use a lot of of of sea
21:08
salt in in my in my spice mixtures and things
21:14
like that, because I'm a big barbecue fan and I
21:19
blend my own spices and everything from what from the
21:24
bulk store that they have there. I love box.
21:27
Speaker 5: Stores, bulk stores, bolk stores.
21:32
Speaker 1: Yes, which which also leads down the path of Okay,
21:39
going in our backyard, we know that it hasn't been sprayed,
21:42
it had doesn't have any of those nasty pesticides and
21:44
stuff into it, and sake, is that a more conscious
21:49
way of actually feeding our bodies.
21:56
Speaker 2: Well you okay, now, h.
22:19
Speaker 5: M hmm, okay, do you want to ask that one again?
22:32
Speaker 1: Foraging for for for for different plants and everything in
22:35
our backyards and everything if we can, is that a
22:39
more conscious way of actually finding our food and uh
22:42
in nourishing our bodies.
22:45
Speaker 5: I mean, I would say so.
22:47
Speaker 6: I have a hard time speaking in absolutes because I
22:50
don't believe that I'm the authority on all things like this,
22:53
but but in my opinion, yeah, because now we've taken
22:57
out the transportation of those vegetables, We've taken out the monocropping,
23:01
We've taken out the idea that meat juice has fallen
23:05
on our lettuce and it's now going to give us ecoli.
23:08
Speaker 5: People. I see a lot of memes like, oh, bacon
23:10
never gave anybody ecola?
23:11
Speaker 6: Well, it does. But it's not the recall on the
23:14
bacon we're worried about. It's the recall on the way
23:16
that the vegetables have been stored and the carbon footprint
23:21
of moving those vegetables around to try to get it there.
23:25
Is it actually reasonable and viable to think that we
23:29
can do it just out of our lawns, like we
23:31
did say for my video and have that enough to
23:34
sustain us?
23:34
Speaker 5: No, to do that, we would need to be using those.
23:37
Speaker 6: Quarter acre lots that we have that we call lawns
23:39
to grow food, because a quarter acre of grown food
23:42
can feed a family of four if you know how
23:44
to preserve it, you have some different canning techniques, you
23:47
know what you're growing at the right times. Then yes,
23:50
absolutely we could be feeding ourselves and our families out
23:53
of our backyards in a more conscious manner that helps
23:56
both ourselves in the planet.
23:58
Speaker 1: Right. That is a very good answer, because I don't
24:04
think any of us are truly experts, or maybe we
24:07
are experts and maybe something else that's telling us that
24:10
we're not allowed to be experts. But that's a conspirator
24:13
to you and.
24:17
Speaker 5: I love a good story.
24:19
Speaker 1: Okay, good story, and that's something that we both share.
24:26
You are also a storyteller.
24:29
Speaker 5: What is the truth? What is the truth? I do
24:31
tend to tell to tell stories in my own way,
24:34
or try.
24:35
Speaker 6: To help people visualize something that is in my heart
24:42
or my soul through my actions and my videos. Or
24:45
I've actually been working on a children's program with another
24:48
herbalist named Yaro Willard called The Adventures of Burdock and Yerow,
24:53
where I've created these characters and we use My last
24:58
name is actually legally and you know not because I
25:02
made it up Burdock and his first name is Yarrow,
25:06
so it just seemed like given name, and so it
25:09
just seemed supernatural for us to.
25:11
Speaker 5: Do these things together.
25:12
Speaker 6: And he has a YouTube channel as well, and so
25:16
I knew he'd be good on camera. Just finding the
25:18
time to make We've got three episodes, two completely done
25:22
and edited, and we've got one that just needs a
25:26
couple tweaks, and we were hoping to have six or
25:28
eight to do a whole season. By finding time, he
25:33
has also flown around the world to speak at different things.
25:36
I believe he's in Toronto right now at a trade show.
25:38
He went to Estonia and then I'm also doing things
25:42
like this as well as I am being flown to Morellia,
25:45
Mexico in January to speak at the People's Reset to
25:50
talk about things like this like food, sovereignty and relationships
25:54
to plants.
25:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, everything sounds freet like they aches until we asked
26:03
the question what is elizabeth message to the world.
26:08
Speaker 5: I think that.
26:12
Speaker 6: My message to the world would just be to try
26:15
to tread a little bit lightly and lead with kindness,
26:19
think about the great, greater picture. We tend to a
26:22
lot of the time look at things selfishly or through
26:26
our own lens.
26:27
Speaker 5: What's kindness to us? Which is also important.
26:30
Speaker 6: Don't get me wrong, but I try to think that
26:33
every step I take, is this the kindest move for
26:35
the planet and for my future?
26:37
Speaker 5: Seven generations?
26:40
Speaker 1: Wow? Future seven generations. That's a very very indigenous thinking.
26:47
Speaker 5: I was, I was.
26:49
Speaker 6: I had a lot of indigenous influence growing up and
26:52
still do because I live on unseated territory of the
26:55
Shnanama people currently. And if you don't feel their influence,
27:00
it's because you're you know, stupid or you don't care.
27:04
Speaker 1: So we we can define that they that one s
27:13
word as you don't care.
27:16
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was, Actually I was. I was stealing part
27:18
of that from a song lyric. It was an Ani
27:21
de Franco lyrics. She says, if you're not angry, you're
27:24
just stupid or you don't care. How else could you
27:27
react to something so unfair? But I was just paraphrasing
27:33
in my gen x way, as we do. Because if
27:35
you say, tell me a sentence that has any kind
27:37
of song lyric. I am immediately singing that song out
27:40
loud to the world because I can't help it and
27:44
I don't want.
27:44
Speaker 5: To help it.
27:45
Speaker 1: Would you? I was gonna say, why would you want
27:47
to help it? Hey? That's our generation, isn't it?
27:53
Speaker 6: You know?
27:53
Speaker 5: And we're the best ones, Like every generation says about
27:55
their generation.
27:56
Speaker 1: Yeah we were. We were kind of squishing the middle
27:59
of a whole bunch of us their stuff. But yeah,
28:03
that's what makes us one of the best because we
28:05
can scream the loudest.
28:07
Speaker 5: Right if we care to, which was probably don't David.
28:11
Speaker 1: We we ended apart that in in uh in South Africa, right.
28:16
Speaker 5: I don't think I had any part in that, but
28:18
I'm glad it happened.
28:20
Speaker 1: Oh well, I'm at the I'm a little bit ahead
28:24
of you in the in the generation and yes, the
28:28
nineteen eighty something as a as a ninth grader, I
28:35
remember marching for a part.
28:37
Speaker 5: Yeah, I remember, I remember it happening.
28:39
Speaker 1: So yeah, but uh but yeah, but you you you do.
28:45
You do a lot of protests, and that protest is
28:47
wrapped around your what that story is and what your
28:52
and what your message is. To be a little kinder
28:54
to the planet.
28:55
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, that that that began for me.
28:59
Speaker 6: Really young, like when I was I don't know, probably
29:03
sixteen somewhere. And then they started on vank For Island.
29:07
There was a fight which was until Fairy Creek. The
29:10
largest act of civil disobedience in Canada was the fight
29:14
for to save Clackwat Sound and fortunately for them, unfortunately
29:19
for the Fairy Creek Forest defenders, they went and Clockwatt
29:24
Sound was saved.
29:26
Speaker 5: But I had tried to get out there with a friend.
29:29
Speaker 6: There was like also stuff in the Wallburne Valley and
29:32
we would go to smaller protests and smaller things like that.
29:36
Speaker 5: I never made it to.
29:37
Speaker 6: Clackwatt for the big thing because I was, you know, young,
29:39
and but we did do the smaller protests on the
29:43
outside for that. But then a series of events my
29:46
having a child at just after my twenty first birthday,
29:50
and I was living on Bowen Island again. I was
29:53
going to a place called Family Place, and I met
29:55
a woman named Suppora Burman and she asked me to
29:59
come live with her and be her nanny for her
30:01
son named Forrest. And at the time I believe she
30:04
was working for Rainforest Action Network but she is the
30:08
woman charge with the thousand faces of clackwatt sound. So
30:12
this is another thing where I believe spirit has always
30:14
just been trying to pull me in and make me
30:16
a part of these things. I met people there that
30:19
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.
30:25
I met people there that had because she during the
30:28
time I lived there, she got a moratorium put on
30:32
what is called the Great Bear Rainforest, which stretches from
30:35
the tip of Vancouver Island to Alaska, and they had
30:38
a celebration and they had inspiring people. I was like
30:42
imposter syndrome level ten thousand, even just being in their
30:46
presence that had done things like like uh interned at
30:50
the White House and they had they they tried to
30:54
get me involved in something called Ruckus, the School of Ruckus,
30:57
which was learning to do access civil disobedience and fly
31:03
signs and tree sit and things like that, which I
31:06
wasn't able to do because I was busy trying to
31:10
raise a small child with little guidance on how to
31:14
do so.
31:15
Speaker 5: But it's still at the same time lit that continued
31:20
that fire to.
31:21
Speaker 1: Grow well Okay, so we all can't do the tree setting,
31:28
but we can support the tree.
31:31
Speaker 5: Absolutely ill so absolutely.
31:36
Speaker 6: When we went to Fairy Creek, I was I worked
31:39
for the media team there and I started their TikTok
31:43
and I did all of the video work and I
31:46
would film and make videos of the actions. But I
31:49
wasn't in a position to throw myself in it and
31:53
get arrested because I have things to do and I
31:56
don't want to travel. I mean, had it come down
31:59
to it, but there was enough people, in my opinion,
32:03
and someone needs to document.
32:04
Speaker 5: It, absolutely, so I did a lot of them.
32:10
Speaker 6: We did that, and then we did some of the
32:12
when people would come back from like a sleeping dragon.
32:18
Speaker 5: For those who don't know what that is.
32:19
Speaker 6: A sleeping dragon is when they cement something underground and
32:25
they put bars in it and then they make like
32:28
a tube.
32:29
Speaker 5: With a hole.
32:30
Speaker 6: You stick your arm in it and you lock cough
32:32
yourself to it so now you can't get out and
32:38
so the machine hopefully doesn't just run you over. When
32:42
the people come to tear down the forest that were
32:44
trying so desperately to defend, and there would be young
32:48
people who were in sleeping dragons and when they would
32:52
come back from these actions mildly traumatized from the way
32:56
they've been spoken to the things that happened. We would
32:58
do the intake and talk to them then things like that, Wow,
33:06
And I would feed that a lot of them lemon
33:07
bomb tincture because it acts very quickly on the nervous
33:10
system and calms you.
33:15
Speaker 1: That's amazing that you would know that, But.
33:20
Speaker 6: To feed them lemon bob Yeah, wow, that's kind of
33:23
my jam.
33:25
Speaker 5: Verbal medicine is kind of my thing.
33:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just saying that that's not exactly as common
33:33
knowledge as well, would think.
33:36
Speaker 6: Right, Yeah, I suppose, Yeah, absolutely, So there was a
33:41
lot of studying that came through some of those things
33:43
as well. Yeah, just like I said that, while I
33:48
may not hold certificates from actual institutions, there's no denying
33:55
that I've spent many, many hours, months, days, and years
34:01
studying all of these things.
34:03
Speaker 5: Yeah, your books, workshops and whatever else.
34:08
Speaker 1: Because because it's pretty apparent that you're an avid reader, okay,
34:15
and it's like, ultimately it doesn't matter that you went
34:19
to an institution to get the book to read, and
34:23
we're told to assign things out of that book by
34:26
some teacher. It doesn't matter that if you did read
34:31
the book that way, or if you just found the
34:33
book and you read the book and you learn from
34:36
the book, It doesn't matter which way do you do it?
34:39
Speaker 6: Right?
34:39
Speaker 1: I completely yeah, And.
34:43
Speaker 6: I think that's the thing, like why I'm always nervous
34:45
to talk about it is because I don't ever want
34:48
to take away the value that that that can be
34:52
found out of regular institutionalized learning. We're not all the same.
34:57
Not everyone as the the willpower or drive to want
35:02
to do these things on their own.
35:04
Speaker 5: They don't even know where to start or how to start.
35:06
Speaker 6: So without these institutionalized learning centers, there's many people who
35:13
wouldn't ever get the knowledge that they needed to do
35:16
the great things that they do today. So I don't
35:18
think that anything's lost when learning is involved, and regardless
35:22
regardless of how you do it, I just wasn't capable
35:24
and I'm still not capable of doing it in that way.
35:30
Speaker 1: And they're saying there's nothing wrong with that, exactly because
35:36
you love books, and you did you said that you
35:39
love books without even saying that you love books, because
35:42
you've talked about, oh, I've read this or I read that,
35:46
you've said it several times, right, the idea of burning books.
35:56
Speaker 6: The idea of burning books, well, I mean, let's take
36:01
it from a book. How do we feel about George
36:03
Orwell's nineteen eighty four? You know, I mean, if you
36:08
did make it through some institutionalized learning, you should be
36:11
quite familiar.
36:11
Speaker 5: With those books.
36:13
Speaker 6: Although I'm not convinced they're teaching it today in school.
36:16
But but I don't. I mean, it depends why you
36:21
burned a book. I mean, I don't think that it's
36:24
good and we shouldn't burn all of them, But what
36:27
if you needed to stay warm. I might have ripped
36:30
a couple pages out of a Bible to make to
36:33
turn into a rollie a few times in my life.
36:35
I'm not saying that it's a good idea, but also
36:38
it's not a great rollie either. But but you know,
36:42
I I.
36:45
Speaker 5: It's a tricky one, right, Like I don't think that
36:48
I think I don't.
36:49
Speaker 6: I don't believe in censorship at all, Like under any circumstance,
36:53
I don't think it's okay. I believe in teaching people
36:57
the difference between what is false and what is real.
37:00
I believe in teaching people to use critical thinking. Skills
37:03
so that we don't need to shield them and not
37:06
let them have.
37:07
Speaker 5: Any false media. See the false media, laugh at it
37:10
or take it in.
37:12
Speaker 6: Have discussions with those people who are like absolutely over
37:17
the top on flat earth or whatever it is they're into,
37:21
and have actual discussions about it.
37:23
Speaker 5: Learn why they thought that what fringe.
37:26
Speaker 6: Society brought them into being white supremacist because they never felt,
37:30
you know, that they had community in something else.
37:33
Speaker 5: And these people were like, we will give you community.
37:36
Speaker 6: Just hate everybody else because you kind of do anyway
37:38
because you're upset or whatever. But if we open conversations
37:42
to all kinds of people, I just feel like we
37:43
could I know it's idealistic, but have a more functional
37:48
society as a whole.
37:50
Speaker 1: Well, but if we don't have idealists to promote the
37:56
ideals to begin with, how we ever going to get there?
38:00
Speaker 5: Amen?
38:03
Speaker 1: Wait a second, you see I'm a fellow idealist. Uh,
38:12
on a serious note, what is your ideal in that
38:18
in that way ideal for our human society?
38:24
Speaker 5: I'd like to see, well, I mean i'd like to see.
38:27
I want to live in Wakanda. If I'm being honest,
38:31
Can I move to Wakanda? Please? I would like to
38:36
see a place where.
38:40
Speaker 6: Science is important and seen as questions that need answers,
38:44
not answers that can't be questioned. I'd like to see
38:47
a place where none of us are are judged by
38:53
the way that we look, based on our color, our size,
38:56
our creed, our cast. I would like to see a
39:01
place where we can discuss things rather than fight. I
39:05
don't want to fight for resources. I don't want to.
39:08
I don't want to. I would like to lose all
39:11
ideals of capitalism. I'd love to see a socialist society
39:17
in a way that that could work.
39:18
Speaker 2: So you know, Wakanda, Yeah, yeah.
39:26
Speaker 6: Like I'd like to see technology help us do things
39:29
and us to be grateful for it.
39:33
Speaker 5: To advance society. But yeah, I don't know.
39:38
Speaker 6: I can see it in my mind, but to paint
39:40
the picture of it for the rest of the world
39:42
without just looking like someone who has no grepin reality,
39:46
which isn't far from the truth, it's difficult.
39:52
Speaker 1: No, you have real, grippled reality. But before I m
40:03
what is your grip on reality?
40:07
Speaker 5: I don't know.
40:07
Speaker 6: I think this is probably a simulation. It's kidding, I
40:11
don't know. I just want to make sure you have
40:19
lots of good soundbites here to pull in some people,
40:23
it's all a simulation.
40:24
Speaker 5: None of this is real. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna
40:27
wake up and.
40:27
Speaker 6: Have to unplug from the matrix at some point, but
40:30
I don't think that I want to, because I saw.
40:32
Speaker 5: What happens when you unplugg This is better.
40:35
Speaker 6: Mm hmm, yeah, but I I don't know. Yeah, I
40:40
don't know.
40:41
Speaker 5: I question. I question everything that is my That is
40:43
my take on reality.
40:45
Speaker 6: When things go really well in my favor, as they
40:48
often do a lot of the time, I always I'll
40:51
turn to one of my good friends, Jared, who is
40:54
actually a clinical therapist with two master's degrees and one
40:56
of my best friends, and we'll say, not a simulation,
41:00
not a simulation.
41:02
Speaker 1: To quote or paraphrase, I'm actually quote uh Neil Tyson
41:11
de Grassi. I'm not going to be I'm not going
41:12
to directly quote him, because we will paraphrase him. He said,
41:17
one of the points of science is to question everything
41:21
that we see, the question every answers that we receive.
41:26
It is. It isn't about finding the answers, It's about
41:31
developing the right questions.
41:33
Speaker 6: That's why everything is considered if in science as a theory.
41:37
This is the theory of gravity. It's a theory. We
41:42
don't know that's why it's working for sure. I mean
41:45
we're pretty sure we do, but we don't know for sure.
41:47
Like for example, if who was.
41:50
Speaker 5: That guy who spoke on Joe Rogan he's also an actor.
41:53
Speaker 6: It was great, and he talked about opening the the
41:59
the Flower of life frong and he said gravity is
42:01
not real and that it's just uh ah, like something
42:08
that comes from like electromagnetic I don't know, I can't
42:12
even remember right now, but anyway, he was trying to
42:14
debunk the theory of gravity, which I thought was interesting.
42:18
So to remind us that all of these things are theories,
42:22
which is any real scientists will tell you. It's the
42:25
rest of the keyboard warrior scientists that think that it's
42:30
already all been answered.
42:33
Speaker 1: Hmm, far from all been answered. But yeah, but we
42:42
we need to we need to question more. And it's
42:44
been a lot of fun questioning you and I look
42:48
forward to having you back another time to talk about
42:52
more stuff that sounds great.
42:55
Speaker 5: I would look love that.
42:56
Speaker 6: I hope that I hope that I didn't rant too
42:57
much and that I answered the questions.
42:59
Speaker 5: You'd hope to ask.
43:00
Speaker 1: It's a good, good amount of rant. It's good cool,
43:06
so if we if we want to get a hold
43:09
of this tintures, and of course you're also a tattoo artist,
43:13
so there's two different things, which Betty I know has
43:18
the tintures and your herbal work.
43:20
Speaker 6: Right, my tattoo work can also be seen on my
43:23
website at which Beetty dot com. Sadly, right now I'm
43:27
unable to sell to anybody in the United States, which
43:31
is ninety five percent of my.
43:32
Speaker 5: Sales, because of just the way that these terrafts have gone.
43:38
Speaker 6: The cost of sending something I'd have to make add
43:42
fifty percent to my cost to cover it, or fifty
43:45
percent to the price on top of what's already being
43:48
asked just to cover it as well as I tried
43:51
to do it anyway and it won't print the labels
43:53
and I can't do it.
43:54
Speaker 5: So I've just had to close the store of the
43:55
United States.
43:56
Speaker 6: But that doesn't mean you can't come see me in person,
44:00
because I am opening this tattoo studio and store. That
44:03
doesn't but I don't expect people to just come up
44:06
for a day. If you're coming from Oregon or from
44:09
I don't know, Tennessee or Texas. So instead I'm pairing
44:13
with some of the local places here to be able
44:15
to offer vacation packages.
44:17
Speaker 5: So we'll have rooms offered.
44:20
Speaker 6: You can do multi day stays with a package where
44:24
you can include powerboarding and kayaking foraging days with me,
44:30
so I can take you in the forest and teach
44:32
you the things that I do.
44:33
Speaker 5: We can talk some shinrin yoku.
44:35
Speaker 6: Some forest bathing, and as well as booking your tattoo
44:39
time with either me or my business partner, Michelle. And
44:45
you can get that by looking at Raven Queen Tattoo
44:49
on Instagram or by checking out which Betty.
44:53
Speaker 5: Dot com awesome which. Yeah, I also have a blog
44:57
there you can read and all sorts of.
44:58
Speaker 1: Things th cool. So for those of you who go
45:04
as far as it as to find your way onto
45:07
our blog, we will put lots of cool links in
45:11
stuff in Elizabeth's blog posts about what we just talked about.
45:18
Speaker 5: Yeah, awesome, Thank you so much, Michael.
45:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for being on the show, and thank
45:24
you everybody for listening today. And Betty dot com awesome.
45:29
Speaker 5: Thanks. Let's chat against you.
45:32
Speaker 3: He us. I don't know, so I wish your phone action.
46:04
Speaker 4: So what.
46:12
Speaker 3: Listen days.
46:16
Speaker 4: A reason to.
46:24
Speaker 3: Save me out?
46:27
Speaker 4: Cho shows.
46:33
Speaker 3: We can't try sur wait.
46:38
Speaker 4: So w.
47:54
Speaker 1: The show has been produced by Depictions Media. Please contact
47:59
us at depictions dot media for more information