Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's your thickest paras socks that don't fit
Speaker 1: in your boots. But you have no intention of leaving
Speaker 1: the house anyway. Ali Ward, breathe deep. Fill your lungs
Speaker 1: with some plant with and your brain with some info
Speaker 1: because this guest has bushel and knowledge. You ready, Okay?
Speaker 1: So this guest has a master's degree in ethnobotany from
Speaker 1: the University of Victoria and is just finishing her PhD
Speaker 1: studying ethnobotany at the University in Montreal. But her education
Speaker 1: goes much farther back as a member of the Squamish
Speaker 1: First Nation. Now she works with First Nations communities with
Speaker 1: this focus on traditional knowledge, renewal of plant foods and medicines.
Speaker 1: She's the author of the book Held by the Land,
Speaker 1: a Guide to Indigenous Plants for Wellness, and also founded
Speaker 1: the skincare company Scholowin' Botanicals. So this is what she
Speaker 1: does and she's amazing. So we're about to get into it.
Speaker 1: But first you may have noticed we had no episode
Speaker 1: last week, which has only happened once in our seven
Speaker 1: year history. Because I got a double whammy of RSV
Speaker 1: respiratory nasty and a bonus neurovirus, So that was not pleasant.
Speaker 1: But what was were the patrons at patreon dot com
Speaker 1: slash ologies who support the show and they send in
Speaker 1: their questions. You can join for one hot dollar a
Speaker 1: month and love that everyone opened their holiday gifts of
Speaker 1: ologies merch and tagged us and posts y'all look fantastic.
Speaker 1: And also thanks to everyone who just simply rates and
Speaker 1: reviews the show, which keeps us up in the charts
Speaker 1: so people can find it. And I read every single review.
Speaker 1: For example, this newly plucked one from Casey out here,
Speaker 1: who wrote this podcast is like waking up to a
Speaker 1: gentle thunderstorm on a day you don't have to go
Speaker 1: to work. Casey out there, what a vibe. Thank you,
Speaker 1: and thanks to anyone who left reviews. Okay onto ethno ecology.
Speaker 1: Ethno is from the Greek meaning nation and ecology of
Speaker 1: course where things live. And in this episode, we're going
Speaker 1: to sit down and chat about how to identify plants,
Speaker 1: Latin names, traditional names, how knowledge is passed or silenced,
Speaker 1: the chilling history that inspired some of the guests work
Speaker 1: uses for barks and berries and SAPs and teas, pharmaceuticals
Speaker 1: derived from indigenous knowledge ceremonial plants, the dews and absolute
Speaker 1: do nots of harvesting, Indigenous perspectives toward plant relations, invasive weeds,
Speaker 1: skin remedies, and so much more with ethnobotanist, author, entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: scholar and ethno ecologist that very soon to be doctor
Speaker 1: Lee Joseph.
Speaker 2: I'll just also introduce myself in my Squamish language, just
Speaker 2: as a cultural teaching to kind of open up the
Speaker 2: conversation and ground myself as well. Off squal Le Joseph,
Speaker 2: Quinsta stoet Kushaman School, mesh mail on an Oxton, Squalow
Speaker 2: and aok Tin Sequetal. So I just introduced myself. My
Speaker 2: English name is Lee Joseph, my ancestral name is Stowt,
Speaker 2: and I come from the Squamish First Nation. And I'm
Speaker 2: so happy to be here today with you. My heart
Speaker 2: is full.
Speaker 1: And if you're unfamiliar with the geography of her ancestral land,
Speaker 1: the main reserves lie on the shore of an inlet
Speaker 1: about an hour north of Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada.
Speaker 1: So picture a horizon of snow capped mountains and conifer forests,
Speaker 1: pebbled coastal beaches, with driftwood and of course a lot
Speaker 1: of greenery. I'm wondering if you can tell people who
Speaker 1: don't know what exactly is an ethnobotanist, and how did
Speaker 1: you decide this was the course you wanted to go
Speaker 1: at From a scholastic and academic way too.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, esnbotan used to find as the study of the
Speaker 2: cultural inter relationships between people and plants, and I would
Speaker 2: add in to that place as well. It hasn't always
Speaker 2: been defined like that. In fact, it has very colonial beginnings,
Speaker 2: starting as a very extractive area of research founded to
Speaker 2: look at the utilitarian nature of plants, what could be
Speaker 2: taken from cultural knowledge and then applied in a European
Speaker 2: context or a non indigenous context. And so since this
Speaker 2: term ethnobotany was coined in the late eighteen hundreds, it
Speaker 2: really has transformed and changed a lot. That being said
Speaker 2: that the field of study really is still very much
Speaker 2: in the early stages of having more indigenous voices at
Speaker 2: the table, both in the literature and kind of in
Speaker 2: the discipline. More broadly, so.
Speaker 1: Eth noboanny how humans use and relate to the plants
Speaker 1: around them. And this is morphed from a hey, how
Speaker 1: do y'all use this and how can we harvest all
Speaker 1: of it for our financial gain toward thankfully more Native
Speaker 1: voices and expertise.
Speaker 2: How I found out about this field of study. I
Speaker 2: went to a free lecture that doctor Nancy Turner gave
Speaker 2: at the Vancouver Public Library, and she was talking about
Speaker 2: her work as a prominent ethnobotanist working across BC and
Speaker 2: other regions within Canada, and just really sharing a storytelling
Speaker 2: approach and a relationship based approach to how she had
Speaker 2: been working with elders and different communities, you know, over
Speaker 2: the course of her career. And I remember leaving that
Speaker 2: talk and feeling like, oh my goodness, this is something
Speaker 2: that I could study. And I really wanted to pursue
Speaker 2: studying with Nazi Turners. So I set my I guess
Speaker 2: goals to upgrade all my science courses because I hadn't
Speaker 2: been a quote unquote science student in high school, and
Speaker 2: then to apply for a botany undergrad and then worked
Speaker 2: towards doing a master's with Nancy.
Speaker 1: Just a side note, Nancy Turner absolute boss. She's an
Speaker 1: ethnobotanist and emeritus professor at the University of Victoria for
Speaker 1: over five decades. This woman has worked with First Nation
Speaker 1: specialists and elders to document their traditional knowledge of plants
Speaker 1: and places. For more on her work, you can see
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty volume she edited titled Plants, People and
Speaker 1: Places The Roles of Ethnobotany and ethno Ecology in Indigenous
Speaker 1: People's Land Rights in Canada and Beyond. But Yes, Lee
Speaker 1: applied to do a master's with doctor Turner as her
Speaker 1: advisor and folks, I hear this from a lot of
Speaker 1: ologists whose lives were changed by attending a chance free lecture.
Speaker 1: So go to the free talks. Maybe they even have snacks.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I made that up.
Speaker 2: And so this was really exciting for me because I
Speaker 2: was at a point where I was looking to go
Speaker 2: back to post secondary. I've been working in the outdoor
Speaker 2: guiding and kind of advent true leadership space for a
Speaker 2: few years, and I realized that really what I loved
Speaker 2: about that was being outside and I really loved connecting
Speaker 2: to my natural environment. But I was really wanting to
Speaker 2: find an area of study where I could incorporate that. Plus,
Speaker 2: coming from a mixed background of Indigenous and European ancestry,
Speaker 2: I had always had this conversation within myself about you know,
Speaker 2: where do I belong, how do I connect more deeply
Speaker 2: to my Indigenous heritage and roots. Even though I'd spent
Speaker 2: a lot of time growing up visiting family and in community,
Speaker 2: I hadn't lived in Squamish, which is the home territory
Speaker 2: on my dad's side for our family. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: this area of study really felt like a pathway towards
Speaker 2: those things. But certainly there's been some you know, lots
Speaker 2: of learning and kind of surprises along the way as well.
Speaker 1: When you say surprises, good surprises, bad surprises, I.
Speaker 2: Would say both, I feel you and I can elaborate
Speaker 2: a little bit. So some of the good surprises have
Speaker 2: been just how direct a path plants have really guided
Speaker 2: me on in terms of reconnecting with community, finding a
Speaker 2: deeper purpose for my research. Like when I had kids,
Speaker 2: I was really aware that my parents' generation, my grandparents'
Speaker 2: generation on my father's side, did not have a chance
Speaker 2: to really engage in land based knowledge and experiences because
Speaker 2: a lot of their time and energy was really dedicated
Speaker 2: to surviving, you know, as residential school survivors and just
Speaker 2: many of the aspects there. And so when I had kids,
Speaker 2: I really wanted to rebuild the intergenerational transmission of knowledge
Speaker 2: and giving my kids that sense of belonging on the land.
Speaker 2: And they did that alongside me as I really kind
Speaker 2: of deepened my own hands on and experiential learning with plants.
Speaker 2: And so those were all great. And then some of
Speaker 2: the harder surprises, I guess were as I was going
Speaker 2: through my undergrad and botany, I absolutely loved it. When
Speaker 2: I got to my upper level botany courses. I loved
Speaker 2: the taxonomy courses. I loved learning the Latin names, you know.
Speaker 2: I was just so excited to be learning about plants.
Speaker 2: And towards the end of that degree, I received a
Speaker 2: recording actually from Nancy Turner, who was my master's supervisor,
Speaker 2: who I had set out to study with, and the
Speaker 2: recording was from some work she'd done in the seventies
Speaker 2: in Squamish with elders, and it was an audio recording
Speaker 2: of these elders saying the plant names in the Scopemish
Speaker 2: snatchem or my Squamish language yep see swat stall slay.
Speaker 2: Chipman told me.
Speaker 1: Course this eighth.
Speaker 2: To not and it was really incredible. I was so excited.
Speaker 2: I listened to these tracks over and over and over again,
Speaker 2: and then I noticed a you know, a sadness or
Speaker 2: a feeling come up of just unease. And it took
Speaker 2: me a while to kind of reflect on what that was,
Speaker 2: but it was really just again that sort of feeling
Speaker 2: of I wanted this language to belong to me, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to belong to this language, but it felt
Speaker 2: so foreign to me. It was difficult for me to
Speaker 2: access to different sounds in the language. And I recognized
Speaker 2: that that was because, you know, my parents, my grandparents,
Speaker 2: they were not language speakers. And the reason for that
Speaker 2: again stems back to the impacts of colonization and the
Speaker 2: residential school system within my family.
Speaker 1: And heads Up Lee unfortunately couldn't obtain those recordings. So
Speaker 1: what you just heard was a sample of Squamish language
Speaker 1: from the YouTube account Squamish Language and just for context.
Speaker 1: Canada's residential school system began in the late eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: with one hundred and fifty thousand estimated First Nations children
Speaker 1: removed from their homes and family to attend Christian run
Speaker 1: schools that would supposedly civilize them and change their clothing
Speaker 1: and keep them from learning their native languages and way
Speaker 1: of life, and up to a third of these children
Speaker 1: may have died. Mass graves are still being found in.
Speaker 1: The last residential school in Canada closed in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: not eighteen ninety seven, nineteen ninety seven. They were operating
Speaker 1: up until the late nineteen nineties. So for more on this,
Speaker 1: including survivor's testimonies, you can see the twenty fifteen paper
Speaker 1: Honoring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future, Summary of the
Speaker 1: Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
Speaker 1: And in twenty twenty two, Canada's House of Commons finally
Speaker 1: and unanimously recognized the residential school system as genocide and
Speaker 1: the victims and survivors legacies. They're recognized on September thirtieth
Speaker 1: every year, and that's known as Orange Shirt Day. That
Speaker 1: was coined from the story of one survivor, Phyllis Jack
Speaker 1: Webstad's account of having this bright new shirt that was
Speaker 1: orange that her grandmother gave to her before she left,
Speaker 1: and it was stripped from her wardrobe and it was
Speaker 1: replaced with a uniform and all ties to her real
Speaker 1: life felt severed. And again Lee's family was also impacted
Speaker 1: by the residential school system.
Speaker 2: So that sadness was there at the same time as
Speaker 2: this excitement you know about botany and really looking at
Speaker 2: this path of learning with plants from both I guess,
Speaker 2: a Western science, you know, approach, but also a deeply
Speaker 2: personal and culturally led path as well.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting that that emotionally impacted you through language
Speaker 1: at the same time that you like learning the Latin
Speaker 1: names of things, but also hearing them in the indigenous
Speaker 1: language of your ancestors. I know that you write about
Speaker 1: plants being like relatives, being something more related to do
Speaker 1: you feel like you're learning the identity of the same
Speaker 1: plants from two really different perspectives and different languages, from
Speaker 1: indigenous versus Western.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think that was something that I really felt,
Speaker 2: especially in my science undergrad within the scientific method and
Speaker 2: within the botany classes I was taking, or the organic
Speaker 2: chemistry classes, or you know, there wasn't the space for
Speaker 2: me to kind of insert myself and my culture and
Speaker 2: me personally within the content that I was learning, within
Speaker 2: the papers I was reading, even in the methods of
Speaker 2: writing that I was learning. You know, hearing the names
Speaker 2: spoken really started me off on a different trajectory, I
Speaker 2: would say, with both my master's research and especially my
Speaker 2: doctoral research which I'm just completing now.
Speaker 1: For more on her master's work, you can see her
Speaker 1: thesis Finding Our Roots ethno Ecological restoration of Thosa Fortilaria, Kamsha,
Speaker 1: Tensus and Iconic plant Food in the Squamish River Estuary,
Speaker 1: British Columbia, which is about the plant rice root. Rice
Speaker 1: root is sometimes called black lily and it looks like
Speaker 1: a tiger lily with narrow leaves and this deep purple
Speaker 1: modeled flower that bows to the ground. But while getting
Speaker 1: that degree, it wasn't all roses.
Speaker 2: One of the other I guess points of discomfort for
Speaker 2: me was when I got to my master's I was
Speaker 2: pouring through literature, and really the literature I was drawing
Speaker 2: on was mostly older ethnographies written by non Indigenous researchers
Speaker 2: or ethnographers, and I didn't see myself reflected in that.
Speaker 2: And in fact, the language that was utilized to speak
Speaker 2: about Indigenous people indigenous knowledge was really difficult, you know,
Speaker 2: it was really hard to read and remove my own
Speaker 2: personal response, you know, emotional response to the racist language
Speaker 2: and the stereotypical language embedded in these documents, but also
Speaker 2: to see like, oh, my gosh, here's an absolute gem
Speaker 2: of information about root garden cultivation, which was the focus
Speaker 2: of my masters. And this is changing and has changed
Speaker 2: since then. But I really felt at that point that
Speaker 2: as an academic, I wanted to be able to contribute
Speaker 2: to the literature in a way that upcoming indigenous scholars
Speaker 2: and students would see and feel themselves reflected.
Speaker 1: And which is a beautiful legacy. I'm sure that that's
Speaker 1: got to feel really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to plants, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know this, but there's a lot of them. So
Speaker 1: what's that plan called that plant? There's just a lot
Speaker 1: of plants and there in so many places. Can you
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about when you're doing your research,
Speaker 1: where is the scope for it? How local is local?
Speaker 1: And also how does one define a native or indigenous
Speaker 1: plant versus something that's introduced and it's been around for
Speaker 1: a while. Where do you even how do you wrap
Speaker 1: your brain abound it if you're not if you're not
Speaker 1: a plant person, this fun is green.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great questions. So I would say that it would
Speaker 2: vary depending on the approach. Ethn Nobotany is a very
Speaker 2: interdisciplinary field of study. So people can come at this
Speaker 2: from varying backgrounds and pathways. I would say that for me,
Speaker 2: it was really important to understand the basic some of
Speaker 2: the things that you would find in a plant field guide,
Speaker 2: for example, So where are you going to find this
Speaker 2: plant growing? What are some of the key identifiers, what
Speaker 2: is the range of this plant? And then to add
Speaker 2: on to that, when it comes to that cultural interaction
Speaker 2: with a plant, which may involve harvesting part of that,
Speaker 2: what does sustainable harvesting or cultivation look like?
Speaker 1: So yes, first off, who are you plant, where do
Speaker 1: you like to live? Who knows about you? And how
Speaker 1: much of you can we use without taking advantage and
Speaker 1: making you sad? So one way to start out might
Speaker 1: be the app seek Biinaturalist, which lets you log and
Speaker 1: share encounters with like flora and fauna. Or of course
Speaker 1: there's a book called Held by the Land, A Guide
Speaker 1: to Indigenous Plants for a Wellness, which was written by
Speaker 1: someone named Lee Joseph, with whom I'm doing an episode presently.
Speaker 2: You know, I get a lot of people who are
Speaker 2: interested in planting native plants in their garden, for example,
Speaker 2: which I think is such an excellent way to get
Speaker 2: acquainted with plants to not put pressure on wild native
Speaker 2: plant populations, and especially if there's a question about the
Speaker 2: cultural sensitivity of a particular plant, going to a native
Speaker 2: plant nursery is such a great way to have that
Speaker 2: conversation about where that plant is sourced, about actually growing
Speaker 2: that plant in your garden as opposed to going out
Speaker 2: into wild spaces to say forage plant. So native plants,
Speaker 2: you know, as I understand them, are plants that occur
Speaker 2: naturally in a region in which they have evolved, you know,
Speaker 2: over a long time frame. Often within ethnobotany, these plants
Speaker 2: have co evolved with people, and so there are in
Speaker 2: depth management and cultivation systems of knowledge and practice that
Speaker 2: go along with those tools like fire, like weeding, like pruning,
Speaker 2: you know, different methods to really ensure that particular culturally
Speaker 2: important plant, food, or medicine or material species are really
Speaker 2: thriving in those managed environments. For me, I started with
Speaker 2: a very particular focus on the plants that are considered
Speaker 2: native plants and culturally important plants within the Squamish territory,
Speaker 2: and as I've worked in other indigenous communities, that's really
Speaker 2: a starting point is going to the community and starting
Speaker 2: that conversation or engaging in that conversation of what are
Speaker 2: the plants of interest? Who in the community is already
Speaker 2: an expert so that as a researcher, you're not going
Speaker 2: in and assuming that you're going to be bringing the expertise,
Speaker 2: but instead you can bring a set of skills and
Speaker 2: background to support work that's already happening in connection to
Speaker 2: culturally important plants. Out of the multitude of plants growing
Speaker 2: in a region, not all plants are considered culturally important.
Speaker 2: All plants would be considered important in terms of that
Speaker 2: relational aspect and us being connected to everything in our
Speaker 2: natural environments, that foundational understanding of how we're all connected.
Speaker 1: So yes, hello, plants, all plants, even the interlopers. Should
Speaker 1: we be mad at them?
Speaker 2: There are plants that have originated from elsewhere that have
Speaker 2: been naturalized in an area, and some examples from Squamish
Speaker 2: would be broad leaf plantained for example, has become really
Speaker 2: integrated into local ethnobotanical knowledge and practices, burdock root. So
Speaker 2: there are examples of plants that are not considered native,
Speaker 2: but do you get invited in in terms of really
Speaker 2: valuing their role and the gifts that they carry come
Speaker 2: in please for.
Speaker 1: You specifically, when it came down to which plants you
Speaker 1: were going to really study and focus on, how did
Speaker 1: you select from so many beautiful, wonderful plants, how did
Speaker 1: you narrow down which ones you would study more intensely?
Speaker 2: Right in my masters, the selection of plant species was
Speaker 2: really guided by the management practice in a system called
Speaker 2: estuary root gardens. So these root gardens were family owned
Speaker 2: and managed and were located in estuary environments, so where
Speaker 2: fresh water and ocean water mixed and create this brackish
Speaker 2: water environment that is exposed to tidal influence that has
Speaker 2: varying degrees of salinity and is just a really really
Speaker 2: biodiversely rich area an ecosystem.
Speaker 1: So remember that deep purplish modeled lily that we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: So at its roots is a bulb that looks like
Speaker 1: you stuck your dirty fingers into a rice cooker and
Speaker 1: then wadded together a loose lump. And that bulb is
Speaker 1: composed of rice looking bulblets that are traditionally harvested to
Speaker 1: leave what's called the grandmother bulb, which is replanted to
Speaker 1: continue growing. And that involves a respect and a foresight.
Speaker 1: That's very uncolonialist.
Speaker 2: So estraroot gardens have three main root species that were
Speaker 2: really intensively cultivated, and so spring bank clover is one,
Speaker 2: Pacific silver weed and northern rice root. And so the
Speaker 2: species northern rice root in the Squamish language is clossom
Speaker 2: and in Latin is Fritillaria camps a census. And this
Speaker 2: plant became the focus of my research, and the reason
Speaker 2: for that was really within my community. And in early conversations,
Speaker 2: I was asking who were the plant people in the
Speaker 2: community who were already carrying this knowledge, what are their
Speaker 2: priorities in terms of me being both a squamishtation member
Speaker 2: but also a researcher coming into community, what value can
Speaker 2: I bring to this interest and desire to connect more
Speaker 2: deeply to our plant relatives. And this was one plant
Speaker 2: that kept coming up, clossom or northern rice route. And
Speaker 2: the interesting thing to me was that the people bringing
Speaker 2: up this plant had never actually seen it, because it's
Speaker 2: been really highly impacted through just the history of a
Speaker 2: Squamish estuary. But this plant had this place and people memory,
Speaker 2: you know, remembering grandparents talking about it, being really enamored
Speaker 2: by the fact that it's an edible bulb plant. That
Speaker 2: has been cultivated because carbohydrates in a traditional diet really
Speaker 2: were much harder to come by. You know, these root
Speaker 2: vegetables really played a really important role in traditional diet.
Speaker 1: So that's one reason that Lee zeroed in on it.
Speaker 1: And according to the twenty nineteen paper to Combat Diabetes
Speaker 1: Native People's Rediscover Traditional Plants Ethnobotanists partner with Indigenous communities,
Speaker 1: it reads, in the colonial era, the military deliberately destroyed
Speaker 1: these root gardens as part of a campaign to subdue
Speaker 1: Native people. Yet the colonial government insisted that Indigenous people
Speaker 1: did no farming, a claim that was used to justify
Speaker 1: seizure of their lands by settlers for cattle pasture and
Speaker 1: European agriculture. So Lee's book notes that the Northern rice
Speaker 1: route takes five to seven years to germinate from a seed,
Speaker 1: which is why conservation now is so important. Also, we'll
Speaker 1: link in the show notes another great episode we have
Speaker 1: on indigenous cooking called Indigenous Colonology with Indigit Kitchen's Mariah Gladstone.
Speaker 1: And we also just released a shorter edited Smology's version
Speaker 1: which is kid safe. But yes, Lee worked with her
Speaker 1: community who engaged in her field research and shared valuable
Speaker 1: history and current contact with her as well.
Speaker 2: Totally. Yeah, it was a huge learning for me as well,
Speaker 2: which was really wonderful.
Speaker 1: How do you separate what is field work versus what
Speaker 1: is going on a hike? Are you stopping and looking
Speaker 1: at every plant? I imagine that must be so fun.
Speaker 2: It's so fun, much to the annoyance sometimes of my family.
Speaker 2: My kids just call me the plant lady, and they
Speaker 2: have loved you know, especially when they were little. They
Speaker 2: would just come out with me and they tootle around
Speaker 2: while I was out picking cottonwood buds or checking up
Speaker 2: on where different plants were kind of in the in
Speaker 2: their seasons. I remember we were in Colloquiat Territory on
Speaker 2: the west coast of Vancouver Island, close to the area
Speaker 2: that's now known as Tafino, and we were on a
Speaker 2: bog boardwalk and I was literally crawling along this bog
Speaker 2: boardwalk and the kids tore like I just want to
Speaker 2: get back. So yeah, I would consider my walks kind
Speaker 2: of blurring the lines between fieldwork and family outings. But no,
Speaker 2: I mean I absolutely love being connected to the environment,
Speaker 2: you know, looking at the details, really looking for Yeah,
Speaker 2: those details that help you over time to build relationships
Speaker 2: through identification of plants at different times in the year.
Speaker 2: I would say from a research perspective, my master's was
Speaker 2: more alogy and restoration focused, and so the methods were
Speaker 2: more clearly scientific methods and doing transsex studies and percent
Speaker 2: cover and trying to quantify things like pH and soil
Speaker 2: moisture for trying to get an idea of what more
Speaker 2: ideal habitat for planting clossom or northern rice root inter
Speaker 2: restoration setting what that looked like.
Speaker 1: Hey, if you don't know what a transsext study is,
Speaker 1: welcome to my brain. So I looked it up for us,
Speaker 1: and it's a series of these long tape measurements that
Speaker 1: botanists use to grid off areas. That way they can
Speaker 1: count and calculate populations of our plant friends within that grid.
Speaker 1: And Lee's work involves her community, so a land based
Speaker 1: session might look like walking with elders and community members
Speaker 1: institute kind of the opposite of what most early ethnobotany
Speaker 1: involved on purpose, and.
Speaker 2: Then definitely that cultural interface in terms of if we're
Speaker 2: going to be harvesting the bark or the leaves or
Speaker 2: the flowers, what does that look like from a sustainable
Speaker 2: standpoint through a squamish lens. And so that's really kind
Speaker 2: of where some of the teachings around reciprocity, responsibility, and
Speaker 2: respect really come in.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious too when it comes to terminology, Like
Speaker 1: I noticed that in your book you use harvesting, and
Speaker 1: you've been talking about harvesting. Do you find that in
Speaker 1: pop culture the term foraging has a different maybe connotation
Speaker 1: than harvesting or how do you approach that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. I tend to use harvesting
Speaker 2: more and I think often people will talk about foraging
Speaker 2: or wildcrafting, and I think for me, and this isn't
Speaker 2: across the board, but there are undertones of storylines within
Speaker 2: those conversations where there's aspects of cultural appropriation or you know,
Speaker 2: not necessarily thinking about the reci peace, like over harvesting
Speaker 2: being so excited, and I share in this excitement of
Speaker 2: what it means to be able to go out identify something,
Speaker 2: harvest something for your own health or wellness is a
Speaker 2: really powerful act. But when it's not done within any
Speaker 2: kind of context of our responsibility and our reciprocity, that
Speaker 2: is something that is really problematic and is somewhat and
Speaker 2: maybe unfairly in my own kind of mind, more attributed
Speaker 2: to some of the forums and conversations around while crafting
Speaker 2: and foraging. So that might be why I tend to
Speaker 2: talk about harvesting more. Whether it's in a family member's
Speaker 2: backyard garden, or in a forest or camping spot somewhere,
Speaker 2: Going to that place and feeling like we're sustaining ourselves
Speaker 2: or healing ourselves from the land is a really powerful act.
Speaker 1: Do you have any big pieces of advice for people
Speaker 1: who are excited but don't want to do it without
Speaker 1: reciprocity or don't want to kind of engage with any
Speaker 1: kind of harvesting without knowing some basic tenets I listen up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one big piece of advice that I think is
Speaker 2: really great again is kind of going back to doing
Speaker 2: some research to look at your local native plant nursery,
Speaker 2: really engaging them to say, what are their priorities in
Speaker 2: terms of growing and selling native plants? Are there any
Speaker 2: partnerships with local indigenous communities that they're supporting, you know,
Speaker 2: are they growing them in localized seed and propagation fields
Speaker 2: or are they bringing them in from other regions? So
Speaker 2: I think just educating yourself and really going like native
Speaker 2: plant nurseries can be such a wealth of information. And
Speaker 2: then if there's a plant like I say, for example,
Speaker 2: a plant like stinging needle, which is so popular as
Speaker 2: a plant food and a plant medicine and also a material, and.
Speaker 1: Stinging netle looks kind of like a siso leaf if
Speaker 1: you've ever seen one in a sushi wri and Lee
Speaker 1: says on her website Squalin that each year, around late
Speaker 1: March through mid May, it's stinging nettle harvesting time in
Speaker 1: Squamish and it's harvested for eating when the young shoots
Speaker 1: are less than a foot tall and still have a
Speaker 1: purple tinge to the leaves because they're at their most
Speaker 1: tender then. And she says that nettles are very easy
Speaker 1: to grow in a garden, which is the most sustainable
Speaker 1: way to harvest this wonderful plant. And she says that
Speaker 1: the stems are gathered for fiber in September and also
Speaker 1: notes that native butterflies depend on the nettle to lay
Speaker 1: their eggs on the leaves. Birds enjoy the seeds of
Speaker 1: nettle each fall, and so it's important to remember to
Speaker 1: leave some of the plant for non human life. But
Speaker 1: does warn do not harvest nettles for food or tea
Speaker 1: once they've flowered, as they develop these gritty particles called
Speaker 1: cisto liths that can irritate your urinary tract. If you're
Speaker 1: curious about your urinary tract. By the way, we have
Speaker 1: a urology episode that you will love. We also have
Speaker 1: a kidney anyway. Her book details so many plants and
Speaker 1: their uses, like, for example, licorice fern, which grows on
Speaker 1: mossy trees and it's chewed by the Squamish people during
Speaker 1: ceremony to keep their voices strong. There's also sas case
Speaker 1: aka salmonberry shoots which have this fresh herbal flavor and
Speaker 1: they can be enjoyed raw in the spring. Others western
Speaker 1: hemlock which can provide this boost of vitamin C plus electrolytes.
Speaker 1: There are a ton of descriptions in her book of
Speaker 1: local plants, including, but not limited to you ready for this.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to list a couple black poplar, western
Speaker 1: red ceedar, beaked hazel nut, bog cranberry, saskatoon berry, soapberry, thimbleberry,
Speaker 1: wild rose, fireweed, nodding onions, wappato, wild ginger, bearded lichen,
Speaker 1: common horsetails, devils, club broad leaved plantains. She talks about
Speaker 1: a bunch of them. So that's a lot of plants
Speaker 1: specific to one region. But let's say you have some
Speaker 1: wonderful ethnopotanical resources in your area. What do you do?
Speaker 1: Do you take yourself to a parking lot at the
Speaker 1: mall and start scream toward the guy I want to
Speaker 1: be friends with plants? You can. It's not illegal, but
Speaker 1: there are alternatives to that, and.
Speaker 2: It's also very culturally important to cross all those aspects.
Speaker 2: If you are uncertain about wanting to go out and
Speaker 2: you're interested in this plant, but you one aren't sure
Speaker 2: if you have permission to harvest in a particular area,
Speaker 2: a really great way to learn about that plant and
Speaker 2: grow it and even grow some extra to share if
Speaker 2: you have a local community, contact the indigenous community, for example,
Speaker 2: sharing some plants, starts or seeds is a really great
Speaker 2: way to also enact that reciprocity. I would say for
Speaker 2: anybody who has that feeling and that questioning of should
Speaker 2: I be doing this? Like should I be here harvesting
Speaker 2: this plant, then it probably means you should pause and
Speaker 2: do a bit more, you know, self education or reflection,
Speaker 2: because often that question maybe coming from the intuitive understanding
Speaker 2: that maybe this plant is really culturally important, and when
Speaker 2: we think about that from a critical lens, like the
Speaker 2: indigenous people living and residing in that region have had
Speaker 2: centuries of barriers put in place to accessing some of
Speaker 2: these plants and the knowledge connected to it, and these
Speaker 2: plants have also often been really highly impacted through land
Speaker 2: development and privatization and just many different layers of impacts.
Speaker 2: And then another piece of that too is, you know,
Speaker 2: along the lines of building connections with local indigenous communities
Speaker 2: or if you yourself are Indigenous and you're wanting to
Speaker 2: engage in this really just finding the people in community
Speaker 2: to talk with and to sort of work up to
Speaker 2: that place of asking permission or asking for guidance or mentorship.
Speaker 2: And I say this with the caveat of you know,
Speaker 2: you definitely don't want to go into a local Indigenous
Speaker 2: community and say, okay, I'm ready to learn who's going
Speaker 2: to mentor me? Because you know that's people are busy.
Speaker 2: People are you know, doing a lot of their own work.
Speaker 2: But if it is in the setting where that is
Speaker 2: something that's available to you, then that can be a
Speaker 2: really great way as well to just simply ask permission
Speaker 2: and ask for those guidelines.
Speaker 1: Do you want to bring up white sage or should
Speaker 1: I do it?
Speaker 2: You can do it?
Speaker 1: Oh yikes, I think here in California, southern California. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe that awareness isn't everywhere in the US, but I
Speaker 1: feel like white sage is really the plant that is
Speaker 1: the most kind of visible in terms of how not
Speaker 1: to approach it if you are especially doing so for commerce.
Speaker 1: Any thoughts on that you want to share?
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. White sage is
Speaker 2: definitely a plant that holds deep cultural importance, importance and
Speaker 2: ceremony and in a whole the spiritual wellness of people,
Speaker 2: indigenous people who've utilized it for thousands of years, and
Speaker 2: it has relatively recently become very popularized and commercialized without
Speaker 2: any context grounding or reciprocity towards the people who've stewarded
Speaker 2: this knowledge of this plant and the plant itself. And
Speaker 2: so what happens in situations like that is, I mean, one,
Speaker 2: just sheer over harvesting and removing that plant from these
Speaker 2: communities who've utilized it culturally for thousands of years, and
Speaker 2: then two just not really not understanding what the impact
Speaker 2: of that harvest is going to have on the plant,
Speaker 2: you know, on the ecosystem, again on the people who
Speaker 2: are utilizing it from a cultural context, and even worse,
Speaker 2: sort of layering in a shallow verse version of cultural
Speaker 2: importance and kind of generalizing it and not connecting it
Speaker 2: back to any particular community or even culture, but really
Speaker 2: appropriating the practices are sort of kind of I guess,
Speaker 2: butchering and then appropriating certain parts of the practices that
Speaker 2: fit into broader society can be more easily commercialized.
Speaker 1: And white sage, just for some context, is a member
Speaker 1: of the mint family, but it's not common sage. It's
Speaker 1: a different species. It's native only to southern California and
Speaker 1: Baja Mexico, And according to the article Plant of the
Speaker 1: Month White Sage by the Smithsonian Fellow and a cap Cannon,
Speaker 1: it's been used as a food, as a spice, as
Speaker 1: a shampoo, deodorant, a cold remedy, a cough medicine, and
Speaker 1: a pain reliever for headaches, rheumatism, and body aches, Ana writes,
Speaker 1: and its leaves were also burned over hot coals to
Speaker 1: produce the smoke to fumigate houses after these waves of
Speaker 1: European diseases like smallpox and measles and even tuberculosis. And
Speaker 1: why sage is not just functional or medicinal. It's also
Speaker 1: a ceremonial plant, and it's used for good luck and
Speaker 1: in coming of age ceremonies. It's given as a gift,
Speaker 1: using it to clean the air of bad luck or spirits.
Speaker 1: It's called smudging. But it's grown in popularity so much
Speaker 1: among non indigenous folks that the market for it is
Speaker 1: very hot. It's not easily farmed, so white sage is
Speaker 1: typically taken from the wild and even poached in these
Speaker 1: massive volumes. So that little bundle of sage you might
Speaker 1: see in the crystal shop or a natural food store,
Speaker 1: it may have a more complex journey there than you realize.
Speaker 2: And when something becomes so popularized and so disconnected from
Speaker 2: its roots and origins, it's not only retraumatizing people who
Speaker 2: have had to really fight to find a way to
Speaker 2: reconnect to this plant, to this knowledge and these practices.
Speaker 2: It's also now layering in this fight of how do
Speaker 2: we stop this plant from disappearing to support large scale
Speaker 2: commercialized products, And also just this kind of blatant use
Speaker 2: and appropriation of a practice without really any of the context.
Speaker 2: So I would say that that's a plant that that
Speaker 2: certainly falls in that appropriation category and should not be
Speaker 2: wild harvested by anybody outside of communities. I would argue
Speaker 2: that have a cultural connection to that plant.
Speaker 1: So I mentioned to Lee that two years ago we
Speaker 1: sought out the nonprofit Wild Yards Project, who cultivated for
Speaker 1: us this native garden, turning this dusty, weedy hillside into
Speaker 1: just a party, a rager of sage brush and milkweed
Speaker 1: and coyote brush. We got white and black sage and
Speaker 1: then some really rare native volunteer plants that just must
Speaker 1: have been waiting until the soil became more friendly. We
Speaker 1: didn't even plant them. They were just like, Hi, We're like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing here? We're so excited you showed up,
Speaker 1: But you don't need a whole hillside.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I would say, like, that's so wonderful to
Speaker 2: just your experience of planting note a native plant garden,
Speaker 2: and then again just how working with plants in a
Speaker 2: garden or even a garden box setting really helps you
Speaker 2: to kind of zero in on these plants growing in
Speaker 2: the regions where we live. And I think building that
Speaker 2: familiarity in relationships is just so it's so wonderful. In
Speaker 2: terms of invasive plants. It never set well with me
Speaker 2: during some of the restoration courses I took just how
Speaker 2: like evil invasive plants were, you know, made out to be.
Speaker 2: It was like almost like we're going to war. And
Speaker 2: I get that, like a lot of these invasive plants
Speaker 2: are extremely difficult to remove. They're extremely difficult to remove effectively,
Speaker 2: and so there is certainly a sense of urgency, and yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a challenging scenario. But something a perspective that I
Speaker 2: heard that really resonated with me was, you know, if
Speaker 2: we think about doing decolonizing work, saying within a research setting,
Speaker 2: and we kind of translate to what does it mean
Speaker 2: to decolonize the landscape from a plant based perspective? You know,
Speaker 2: by removing invasive species, we are creating space for these
Speaker 2: endemic plants, for these native plants to come back onto
Speaker 2: the landscape, to create to carry on those relationships with
Speaker 2: the soil, with pollinators and with people who have been
Speaker 2: in a relationship with these plants, and for new people
Speaker 2: to learn about them and build these connections. And so
Speaker 2: I think there could be invasive species removal with care
Speaker 2: and with love, even though you are literally, you know,
Speaker 2: pulling out these plants from this area. Kind of thinking
Speaker 2: about it in the way of creating the space for
Speaker 2: these other plants to come back and thrive. Is I
Speaker 2: just I like that way of thinking about it, and
Speaker 2: then also of learning of some of the creative ways
Speaker 2: that people, you know, after an invasive species pull might
Speaker 2: be utilizing some of the plants as well for cooking
Speaker 2: or for materials, because that is something people have talked about,
Speaker 2: especially with plants like kimalai and BlackBerry or Japanese not
Speaker 2: weed that have that edible component to them, then there
Speaker 2: certainly are some that do really have very detrimental impacts
Speaker 2: and risks and the actual removal of them, like giant hogweed.
Speaker 1: A great episode for this is the Foraging Ecology one
Speaker 1: with Alexis Nelson aka Black Forager. What a wonderful lady.
Speaker 1: She now has a PBS series called Crash Course Botany.
Speaker 1: She talks a lot about foraging in the context of
Speaker 1: communities of color in indigenous folks. So she's great and
Speaker 1: a Rewilding magazine article titled invasive species as a metaphor
Speaker 1: for colonization. Featured excerpts from the twenty twenty two book
Speaker 1: Fresh Banana Leaves by author and indigenous scientist Jessica Hernandez.
Speaker 1: And Jessica writes, invasive species harm and entire ecosystem times
Speaker 1: out competing all native plants in the same landscape. However,
Speaker 1: we are taught as indigenous peoples that regardless of whether
Speaker 1: this plant belongs there or not, we must ask its
Speaker 1: spirit for permission. As I shared before, Jessica writes, we
Speaker 1: acknowledge them as displaced relatives rather than invasive species, since
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, they are also someone's
Speaker 1: plant relatives. So yes, Ethno, ecology isn't just about plants,
Speaker 1: but about places and people's relationships with plants, which vary
Speaker 1: from culture to culture and place to place and first
Speaker 1: to person. Oh, speaking of people, can I ask you
Speaker 1: some questions from patrons who know that you're coming on? Sure,
Speaker 1: we'll see how many we can answer. Okay, but of course,
Speaker 1: let's first take a quick break and highlight a charity
Speaker 1: of leaves selection. This week, we're splitting the donation between
Speaker 1: two the Seeding Sovereignty Project, which seeds paths of land, body, community, cultural,
Speaker 1: and political sovereignty by bringing gender expansive people, women let empowerment,
Speaker 1: focused and intentional collaboration to the forefront of a movement
Speaker 1: to protect people and preserve our planet. And we're also
Speaker 1: donating to the Indigenous Climate Action which is ICA. It's
Speaker 1: an Indigenous led organization guided by a diverse group of
Speaker 1: Indigenous knowledge keepers, water protectors, and land defenders from communities
Speaker 1: and regions across the country. And we've linked both organizations
Speaker 1: in the show note to learn more. And those donations
Speaker 1: were made possible by sponsors of the show. Okay, these
Speaker 1: questions came from patrons via Patreon dot com Soshologies, which
Speaker 1: you can join for a buck a month. So let's
Speaker 1: get to the root of your curiosity. Let's leave you
Speaker 1: more informed with questions such as this one asked by
Speaker 1: Samantha Tovi who just moved to a new house, and
Speaker 1: Sarah Sunshine, who belongs to a local Native plant society. Cool,
Speaker 1: all right, A bunch of people puppy dog Becky to
Speaker 1: saccgrass scientists, first time question asker Beth Palous and a
Speaker 1: bunch of other people. In Beth's words, want to know
Speaker 1: about native ours and crosses between cultivars and native of
Speaker 1: plants and says that they seem to be controversial. And
Speaker 1: do you have any experience using native ars or do
Speaker 1: you have any thoughts on them? How do we feel
Speaker 1: about cultivars?
Speaker 2: Okay, what I do know and what I've learned from
Speaker 2: some of the people who I went to school with
Speaker 2: and now collaborate with who have a native plant nursery.
Speaker 2: Are you know, it's really important to think about the
Speaker 2: origins of the seed or the plant that you're planting,
Speaker 2: So has it been locally sourced or like, in the
Speaker 2: case of I don't know, something like yarrow, for example,
Speaker 2: may have been hybridized with different ornamental yarrow plants, in
Speaker 2: which case you start to potentially have a change, I
Speaker 2: would say, in the ways that the plant might be used,
Speaker 2: Like it may have different kind of qualities to it.
Speaker 2: So I would say, like from a perspective of harvesting
Speaker 2: that people will definitely notice differences and will likely go
Speaker 2: back to particular areas or stands of plants to harvest
Speaker 2: from time and time. Again, really like the cultivation practices
Speaker 2: from a sort of standpoint of indigenous management. Really it's
Speaker 2: looking at things that will enhance kind of the growth
Speaker 2: and productivity of a particular part of the plant, whether
Speaker 2: it's the roots or the fruit, and it's not about
Speaker 2: adjusting any aspect of those in terms of things like
Speaker 2: foliage color or necessarily disease resistance, but there is some
Speaker 2: selection for like larger roots, or leaving particular roots one
Speaker 2: year to grow a bit larger, and then saving seeds
Speaker 2: from particular plants in order to keep the population of
Speaker 2: that plant growing.
Speaker 1: One thing that was so interesting with the garden we planted.
Speaker 1: We planted certain number of plants, certain you know, number
Speaker 1: of species, and then a few that we didn't plant
Speaker 1: that hadn't been seen in our neighborhood in years popped
Speaker 1: up out of nowhere. And so folks that have native
Speaker 1: nurseries around here, it was so cool to have them
Speaker 1: come out and take some of the seeds to then cultivate.
Speaker 1: That way they can keep kind of propagating them. But
Speaker 1: it was so interesting to see that once the hillside
Speaker 1: and once an area is given the space to kind
Speaker 1: of foster native plants, that they start crapping up out
Speaker 1: of nowhere, which is so so cool. That's something that
Speaker 1: we didn't expect and it was really exciting. In the
Speaker 1: plant nerds that I know. We're like, where did that
Speaker 1: come from? We're like, I know, just what it was
Speaker 1: a volunteer. We loved it again. This was the wonderful
Speaker 1: wild Yards project and its founder, David Newsom, has brought
Speaker 1: by some of LA's leading botany experts and tribal ethnobotanists, zersees,
Speaker 1: entomologists and native seed grower just to marvel at this
Speaker 1: biome that's sprung up. He's like, come check it out.
Speaker 1: We've been so honored to be like, oh, who's in
Speaker 1: our backyard? This is exciting. It's truly a joy. Every
Speaker 1: season we're getting to learn so much, and so far
Speaker 1: we haven't used any of them medicinally, but many of
Speaker 1: you listeners on Patreon asked about that, such as Britney
Speaker 1: peak Is, Bille Newman, Rick Ty, Alicia Smith, Morgan, Jean Phillips,
Speaker 1: Jen Clinton, Neurotic Gardner, Greg Wallach, Daniel Kelly, Rosalie DeFore,
Speaker 1: Lee Anderson Club, Caleb Catron and Lee, Joseph Fann, jose
Speaker 1: your Mom. A lot of folks had questions about medicinal uses.
Speaker 1: Of course, Shaela fay Watson, first time question ask erses
Speaker 1: love this topic and always wondered how Native folks identified
Speaker 1: the healing properties of plants. Science seems to lag behind
Speaker 1: affirming knowledge of medicinal values of plants that Native people
Speaker 1: have known him for thousands of years. So can you
Speaker 1: speak it all to how certain plants are identified or
Speaker 1: how that knowledge gets passed down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's such a diversity in indigenous communities and
Speaker 2: you know, across North America and beyond, and I would
Speaker 2: say that similar to that, there's a diversity of language
Speaker 2: across each of those communities. And also, you know, knowledge
Speaker 2: systems in terms of how cultural plant knowledge was and
Speaker 2: is carried within communities. So some places it would really
Speaker 2: be like a single person, like a medicine person, who
Speaker 2: really worked on this knowledge. This was their area of
Speaker 2: expertise and their gift. Because often learning really came from
Speaker 2: a variety of ways, in terms of experiential learning, in
Speaker 2: terms of learning from once elders, like knowledge they had
Speaker 2: gathered about this plant. But there's also an aspect of
Speaker 2: learning from the plant itself in terms of, you know,
Speaker 2: on a spiritual level or on a level where some
Speaker 2: teachings might come in dreams, some teachings might come from
Speaker 2: how animals utilize that plant and the seasonality of that.
Speaker 2: And in Squamish, I've been told that it really was
Speaker 2: certain families that held this knowledge and expertise of plants
Speaker 2: and plant medicine, and so if someone in the community
Speaker 2: needed something, they would go to this family and ask
Speaker 2: for that and then it would be prepared for them
Speaker 2: and given or gifted to them by this family. So,
Speaker 2: you know, I worked really closely with an elder in
Speaker 2: my community, and really he would be considered a medicine person.
Speaker 2: He worked a lot with bark medicines, and it was
Speaker 2: really important for him to share with me, you know,
Speaker 2: the teaching that this knowledge at this point in time
Speaker 2: needs to be shared as widely as possible in our community,
Speaker 2: especially with youth, because it's been so highly impacted.
Speaker 1: And in terms of bark medicine, Lee writes in her
Speaker 1: book that if you are harvesting the bark from a plant,
Speaker 1: timing is key. You can only access the inner bark
Speaker 1: of a plant when the sap is running in the springtime,
Speaker 1: and she writes this is the time when the plant
Speaker 1: mobilizes stored energy and nutrients from its roots up into
Speaker 1: the above ground parts of the plant to support all
Speaker 1: that new growth in the spring, and it's at that
Speaker 1: time that the new inner bark growth can be separated,
Speaker 1: not just for medicines, but also as vital weaving material.
Speaker 1: It was also reading it's important not to girdle a tree,
Speaker 1: meaning to strip the bark in a ring around it,
Speaker 1: which would cut off that nutrient and sap highway up
Speaker 1: to the top. And some folks recommend just pruning select
Speaker 1: branches and using the bark off those, but the intention
Speaker 1: of taking the least you need is important in terms
Speaker 1: of how it's used. The bark from by burnin Opulus
Speaker 1: has been used to relieve cramping. Some SAPs have anti
Speaker 1: microbial properties, and of course the bark of the willow
Speaker 1: salx alba contains a form of sallasitic acid that's been
Speaker 1: administered as a pain reliever and an anti inflammatory for
Speaker 1: thousands of years and eventually led to the synthesis of
Speaker 1: what we call aspirin. But this is not without controversy.
Speaker 1: People fight about who invented it, oh so much back
Speaker 1: and forth, And according to this twenty twenty one piece
Speaker 1: in the Pharmacy Times, there was a chemist who worked
Speaker 1: for Bear and he synthesized acetylesalisinic acid. He also invented
Speaker 1: a little thing called heroin, all within the same two weeks.
Speaker 1: Maybe he was on one or both of them. Who knows,
Speaker 1: busy dude, But in this pharmacological historical community, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of debate about another chemist who may have synthesized it.
Speaker 1: They're like, which European man made a derivative of this
Speaker 1: valuable ethnobotanical resource first, which is so on brand potato potato?
Speaker 2: Back to plants, the language connected to local ethnobotany, which
Speaker 2: includes plat names, but it also includes place names often
Speaker 2: that will have very practical language embedded in the translation,
Speaker 2: like place of many thimbleberry bushes or place of Devil's club.
Speaker 2: You know, this elder really shared with me that it's
Speaker 2: so important to share that knowledge broadly and to just
Speaker 2: ensure that people develop that understanding that we can nourish
Speaker 2: ourselves from our traditional landscapes or traditional homelands, and that
Speaker 2: that's a really powerful act of cultural, you know, and
Speaker 2: political resurgence, and one that really centralizes like a cultural
Speaker 2: view of health and wellness, which is really important for people,
Speaker 2: especially just with the disparities within the Western health system
Speaker 2: and some of the discomforts that people have engaging within
Speaker 2: Western health systems. And it's not that you know traditional
Speaker 2: medicines or knowledge replace that, but taking a preventative approach
Speaker 2: to one's health by learning what plants can really uphold
Speaker 2: health or help reduce the impacts of particular lifestyle diseases,
Speaker 2: for example, will really help people feel empowered in their
Speaker 2: own pathway to health and wellness.
Speaker 1: Oh, dive headfirst into this Bowlaberry kids. A twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: study in the journal Botany title comparison of the anti
Speaker 1: glycation activity of leaves from eight blueberry species from Northern
Speaker 1: Canada and Europe with their phyto chemistry, reported that they
Speaker 1: tried extracts from seven blueberry species, all of which showed
Speaker 1: an in vitro potent anti glycation activity correlated to phenolic content.
Speaker 1: What does that even mean? If you're screaming at your windshield,
Speaker 1: I hear you.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: A phenol is a type of chemical compound. It's been
Speaker 1: used in a bunch of life saving drugs like amoxicillin
Speaker 1: and an estradil, levothyroxine, which is a thyroid medication, and propofol,
Speaker 1: which was given to my husband before his colonoscopy and
Speaker 1: that anti glycation word that means that it prevents excess
Speaker 1: blood glucose from grabbing on to fats and proteins and
Speaker 1: damaging tissues and nerves. Frickin' blueberry leaf extract. Indigenous communities
Speaker 1: are like, Hi, yeah, hello. You know, clib had a
Speaker 1: a question kind of along those lines how to protect
Speaker 1: and be just to Native communities in relationship to big
Speaker 1: pharma exploration, and they said, there's a long list of
Speaker 1: over the counter medicine that comes from developed nations going
Speaker 1: into forests and stealing knowledge and species. Any thoughts on
Speaker 1: how to protect those particular plants in those lands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great question and definitely a very valid
Speaker 2: consideration and concern. It's one of the questions that I've
Speaker 2: worked with other Indigenous communities outside of Squamish, and including
Speaker 2: my own community in Squamish. The first question that the
Speaker 2: elders ask is how are you going to protect this
Speaker 2: knowledge and make sure it's not basically taken by big
Speaker 2: pharma and exploited. And there's no simple, straightforward answer to that.
Speaker 2: The reassurance that has kind of been given to me
Speaker 2: when I've asked some mentors about this question how to
Speaker 2: answer it for people is really the process of big
Speaker 2: farmer coming in and identifying and then taking through a
Speaker 2: plant ingredient to say create a new drug with it
Speaker 2: is is such an incredibly expensive and resource heavy process
Speaker 2: that that in itself is somewhat of a barrier. But
Speaker 2: that's not giving people a lot of reassurance right on
Speaker 2: a community level. So I think that it's so important
Speaker 2: as researchers within fields of ethnobotany or botany that intersects
Speaker 2: with Indigenous culture to really look at our responsibility in
Speaker 2: terms of how we're conducting research, how we're recording it,
Speaker 2: where that information lies, how can we protect that information
Speaker 2: at a community level, and then really what can and
Speaker 2: can't be shared more broadly. And those are all conversations
Speaker 2: that need to happen from the very get go.
Speaker 1: You're work involved so many different plants for so many
Speaker 1: different uses. Obviously a lot of folks had questioned about
Speaker 1: the dysinal plants and also skincare with plants, which is
Speaker 1: something I know you know a lot about. Other patrons
Speaker 1: with this question include Robta Hancock and Brian Sampson, whin
Speaker 1: He's a witch eating dog. Care for a living the
Speaker 1: aerial mapper. Carol Ruda and Isabelle Newman asked, are there
Speaker 1: any plants that are good for use for skincare, especially
Speaker 1: acne or swelling? And Hannah McCain want to know during
Speaker 1: your time creating a skincare line, how you manage the
Speaker 1: debate over clean and natural ingredients and how do you
Speaker 1: feel about the US regulations over personal care products versus
Speaker 1: other countries. So a lot of questions about what you
Speaker 1: love to use and how you develop that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So my skincare line or brand is called Squalown Botanicals,
Speaker 2: and it really came out of a desire to be
Speaker 2: interacting with the plant knowledge and the reconnection to that
Speaker 2: knowledge that I was experiencing and working with in a community,
Speaker 2: research based setting, but really approaching that from like a
Speaker 2: very creative way. It really started in me taking my
Speaker 2: kids out on the land, learning about plants, starting eventually
Speaker 2: to harvest some plants, and then starting to create some formulations,
Speaker 2: which started as things like selves so infusing carrier oils
Speaker 2: with dried botanicals or tea blends, so drying and processing
Speaker 2: tea materials and then creating blends. And for me, that
Speaker 2: was a really exciting way and continues to be a
Speaker 2: really exciting way to think about formulating products that often
Speaker 2: have a botanical hero ingredient in them that can be
Speaker 2: paired with active ingredients that can be formulated. For gentle
Speaker 2: skincare very sensitive skin, and so really when I think
Speaker 2: about some ingredients that can really help with calming the skin,
Speaker 2: rose is such a wonderful ingredient, and that could be
Speaker 2: rose water, rose petals, powdered rose hips, rose hip seed oil,
Speaker 2: and there's many different species of rose that you are
Speaker 2: commercially available kind of in those formats. But I would
Speaker 2: say that from a cultural perspective too, like wild rose
Speaker 2: as many different species as there are across different, say
Speaker 2: indigenous territories, has a real connection to that, you know,
Speaker 2: the commune benefits of it both internally and topically and
Speaker 2: then nutritionally as well. Rose Hips, the fruit of rose
Speaker 2: plants is such an antioxidant in vitamin sea rich fruit
Speaker 2: that does have that importance for this approach to beauty,
Speaker 2: for sort of inside out beauty as well as the
Speaker 2: preventative kind of health aspects of plants that I mentioned.
Speaker 2: You know, it's been taught to me by some of
Speaker 2: my community mentors that whenever you can ingest a plant
Speaker 2: and utilize it topically, you're just enhancing the benefits of
Speaker 2: that plant. So rose hip would be a plant that
Speaker 2: sort of falls in in that category, as well as
Speaker 2: being one that's really great to address inflammation and also
Speaker 2: calm breakouts. So that's one plant that comes to mind.
Speaker 2: I like roses.
Speaker 1: Just to sign out, I was recently messaging with your
Speaker 1: favorite enigmatologist, New York Times crossword writer David Quang, who
Speaker 1: was having dinner with one at doctor Charles Davis, who's
Speaker 1: the curator of vascular Plants at the Harvard University or Baria.
Speaker 1: And given doctor Davis's field, I asked David to ask him, Hey,
Speaker 1: what should I slather on my face? For real? And
Speaker 1: David wrote back, everyone at the dinner table right now
Speaker 1: is yelling rose oil. So you heard it here. Second, Now,
Speaker 1: what if your face is not a problem but an
Speaker 1: itchy separating rash is Alicia Smith gently demanded poison IVY
Speaker 1: exposure tips and tricks and effective remedies please. Someone else
Speaker 1: asked if you have any tips about poison ivy? Hmmm,
Speaker 1: anything to web on that?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, My best guess would be if there's plantain
Speaker 2: growing nearby, give that a try. I haven't personally knock
Speaker 2: on wood coming to contact poison ivy, but with plants
Speaker 2: like stinging nettle, for example, plantain is a really great
Speaker 2: plant to make a quick pultice with, so even rinting
Speaker 2: it off, chewing it up and putting it right on topically,
Speaker 2: that plant seems to be really great for topically use.
Speaker 2: So I would suggest that.
Speaker 1: So this green shrubby plant, it's thought to originate from Scandinavia,
Speaker 1: and it's brought over by Europeans, and it spread so
Speaker 1: widely in North America it's referred to as the white
Speaker 1: Man's footprint. But it's not closely related to the banana.
Speaker 1: Like plantain, it has these wide cup like leaves with
Speaker 1: this fingery stalk in the middle, kind of like a
Speaker 1: lily or a tiny dong. And you may have heard
Speaker 1: our biology episode on moss with doctor Wall Kimmerer, and
Speaker 1: in her book Breeding sweet Grass, which I know a
Speaker 1: ton of you had read, she writes garlic mustard poisons
Speaker 1: the soil so that native species will die. Tamarisk uses
Speaker 1: up all the water. Foreign invaders like loose dryfe, kudzoo
Speaker 1: and cheat grass have the colonizing habit of taking over
Speaker 1: others' homes and growing without regard to limits. But plantain
Speaker 1: is not like that. Its strategy was to be useful,
Speaker 1: to fit into small places, to coexist with others around
Speaker 1: the dooryard to heal wounds. Plantain is so prevalent, so
Speaker 1: well integrated. She writes that we think of it as native.
Speaker 1: Why is it so helpful? While plantain or Plantago major
Speaker 1: the broad leaf plantain contains quote biologically active compounds such
Speaker 1: as polysaccharides, lipids, cafaeic acid derivatives, flavonoids, iridoid glycosides, and
Speaker 1: terpenoids useful for wound healing, anti inflammatory agents, analgesics, antioxidants,
Speaker 1: weak antibiotics, immunomodulating and anti ulcogenic activity. And if you
Speaker 1: need more info on this, just get yourself over to
Speaker 1: the paper titled the traditional uses, chemical constituents and biological
Speaker 1: activities of Plantago major. A review from the Journal of Ethnopharmacology,
Speaker 1: Rosalie de laforesaid, too often people dismiss plants unless there's
Speaker 1: a scientific study or twenty of them showing positive results.
Speaker 1: Can you share the limitations of science in regard to
Speaker 1: medicinal plants in terms of not having enough focus maybe
Speaker 1: for some of these really expensive studies. Any thoughts on that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great point.
Speaker 2: I would say. One of the first things that comes
Speaker 2: to mind is within my research, it's kind of bridged
Speaker 2: plants and health. In my doctoral research, part of one
Speaker 2: of the areas that my research originally was grounded in
Speaker 2: was looking at culturally based and botanically based approaches to
Speaker 2: the reduction and management of type two diabetes. And so
Speaker 2: within that research project, there were five different indigenous communities
Speaker 2: that were given the leeway to really look at how
Speaker 2: the community wanted to address this topic, and in Squamish,
Speaker 2: we ended up setting up a one year land based
Speaker 2: seasonal program. We were going out learning about plants, bringing
Speaker 2: them back, creating something with them, either topical or internal
Speaker 2: creation or recipe. And one thing that in the process
Speaker 2: to kind of landing on that approach, we did look
Speaker 2: at doing more medicalized, you know, kind of interventions, and
Speaker 2: that wasn't something that is in my background, but I
Speaker 2: was collaborating with a committee of people including public health
Speaker 2: nurses and physicians, and while we were going down that path,
Speaker 2: the question that really came up time and time again
Speaker 2: was for people who are on prescription medicines, How do
Speaker 2: you incorporate native plant medicines when there isn't the literature
Speaker 2: understanding about contraindications. And that's a really important question, and
Speaker 2: one for sure that doesn't have you know, it's not
Speaker 2: supported in the literature for a variety of reasons. But
Speaker 2: in that particular case, I remember working with some medicine
Speaker 2: knowledge holders in a Northern Creek community who were working
Speaker 2: alongside the nurses and physicians in their community, and they
Speaker 2: were adopting the process of going low and slow, so
Speaker 2: taking extremely low concentration and slow increments of these traditional
Speaker 2: medicines in combination with sort of the western medicine approaches.
Speaker 1: For example, those blueberry leaf extracts. And in the twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen Bioscience Journal article called to Combat Diabetes Native People's
Speaker 1: Rediscovered Traditional Plants Ethnobotanist Partner with Indigenous Communities, the author
Speaker 1: quotes Lee herself saying that type two diabetes is such
Speaker 1: a crisis in so many Indigenous communities. We need to
Speaker 1: build the understanding that this disease did not exist in
Speaker 1: this way pre European contact. And the piece goes on
Speaker 1: to name bitter gourd tea used to increase insulin secretion,
Speaker 1: American larch and labrador tea to enhance insulin sensitivity. Extracts
Speaker 1: of balsam fur reducing the release of glucose from the liver,
Speaker 1: and the purple pitcher plant that can stimulate glucose uptake
Speaker 1: and must cells and can prevent against that peripheral nerve
Speaker 1: damage neuropathy. And we have a whole episode by the
Speaker 1: way on pitcher plants and venus fly traps and other
Speaker 1: carnivorous swamp babies just in case you want it, we're
Speaker 1: link in the show notes. But yes, plants have many
Speaker 1: chemical compounds that can help us out, and we owe
Speaker 1: a lot of that knowledge to indigenous wisdom.
Speaker 2: So that's one thing that comes up is that I
Speaker 2: think that it's quite specialized knowledge and application, but you
Speaker 2: also kind of need to find that balance where you're
Speaker 2: not waiting on the scientific studies to verify knowledge that
Speaker 2: has been in practice for a very long time, but
Speaker 2: you also have to take care when reintroducing that in
Speaker 2: a different time than when those would have been the
Speaker 2: only in the primary medicines for example, that are drawn on.
Speaker 1: So make sure that remedies play nice, so do a
Speaker 1: little research on that. Now. This next one was on
Speaker 1: the life of many, including Sarah Carter, Sophia Jones, Rachel
Speaker 1: Anna Easton, Ashley Dent, Worry, b Amy Johnson, Nicole d
Speaker 1: G Mushroom Screams to Laney, Sleepy Frog, Lauren will Clark, Metzicato,
Speaker 1: Magna Pina, Olivia Kotakushbam, Dave Brewer, Nicole, Heather Willis, and
Speaker 1: Emily Stuffer. So many people obviously wanted to know a
Speaker 1: last lister question here in Sarah Carter's words, in this
Speaker 1: time of bunk Ai created guides, what resources preferably written
Speaker 1: by women and or indigenous peoples would you recommend for
Speaker 1: learning more about and identifying native plants? Her Book of Course,
Speaker 1: which is linked in the show notes. Any other guides
Speaker 1: that you feel like are a great place to start.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I bring up this guide because I'm working
Speaker 2: with the authors right now on a rerelease of a
Speaker 2: coastal plant guide that will be published next year, but
Speaker 2: Plants of the Pacific Northwest by Andy McKinnon and Jim Poacher.
Speaker 2: So this is not written by women, but again, like
Speaker 2: I say, I'm working with them and another author, Jamie Fennerman,
Speaker 2: right now on an updated Coastal plant guide, and I'm
Speaker 2: working on all the ethnopotamical components of this guide, So
Speaker 2: I would say that that has been the original one.
Speaker 2: So Plans of the Pacific Northwest through Long Pine has
Speaker 2: been a real go to for me just from a
Speaker 2: plant identification perspective. And it also, you know, although it
Speaker 2: is outdated now, it has ethnopotamical components in that original publication,
Speaker 2: but keep your eyes out for the new one being
Speaker 2: released next year too.
Speaker 1: So that's Plants of the Pacific Northwest via the publisher
Speaker 1: Loan Pine. But I just looked at their site and
Speaker 1: they have a bunch of North American guides from Northeast
Speaker 1: mushrooms to the trees of Illinois to the flowers of
Speaker 1: the Sierra Nevadas near Tahoe. So sorry, other countries, we
Speaker 1: love you too. We love all of the countries. And
Speaker 1: your local librarian would probably be so thrilled if you
Speaker 1: paid them a visit for some plant guide recommendations. So
Speaker 1: what else?
Speaker 2: I would say that the Broil herbal is a really
Speaker 2: great resource by a non indigenous female herbalist out of
Speaker 2: the Yukon so in white Horse, really Gray. This book
Speaker 2: is one that I really love because it's just so
Speaker 2: jam packed with information from everything from plant identification through
Speaker 2: to recipes. But I feel like it's done in a
Speaker 2: really informative and informed way.
Speaker 1: And yes, of course were going to link them on
Speaker 1: our website and you can find a link to that
Speaker 1: in the show notes. We've got books, books and books
Speaker 1: and books. So take a hike, sniff a plant, tell it,
Speaker 1: I say hi, but before you have too much fun.
Speaker 1: The last questions I always usually ask, really, what's the
Speaker 1: hardest part about this work? Has there ever been a
Speaker 1: plant that's evaded you for years or one that's still
Speaker 1: on your to find list? Any challenges that you come
Speaker 1: up repeatedly, from something that's just irritating to giant structural
Speaker 1: things you'd like a soapbox for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 1: That's a you did me.
Speaker 2: Okay. So I was teaching an ethnobotney course and Hidaguay,
Speaker 2: and I was co teaching with a Haida instructor, and
Speaker 2: the day before the course started, I went out to
Speaker 2: harvest a handful of plants to bring into the classroom.
Speaker 2: Because lots of elders have said you know even if
Speaker 2: you're in the classroom, make sure to bring the plants
Speaker 2: in have them there. And so one of the plants
Speaker 2: on my intended list was chat Yai or Devil's Club.
Speaker 2: And so Devil's Club is a really culturally and spiritually
Speaker 2: important plant across its range, and I had seen this
Speaker 2: plant growing in previous trips to Hideaguay.
Speaker 1: And this location a swath of about four hundred small islands.
Speaker 1: It's located off the coast of British Columbia, and in
Speaker 1: twenty ten it was renamed from the Queen Charlotte Islands
Speaker 1: to recognize the thirteen thousand year history of its native
Speaker 1: inhabitants and the Devil's Club that grows there is native
Speaker 1: to the Pacific Northwest coast from Alaska down to northern California,
Speaker 1: and it grows as a shrub and it has huge
Speaker 1: spiny green leaves that look like a maple and clusters
Speaker 1: in a cone of bright red berries. And in her book,
Speaker 1: Lee explains that the plant offers anti inflammatory properties, but
Speaker 1: warns that it's potent and it's highly respected among the
Speaker 1: community and it should not be toyed with unless you
Speaker 1: know what you're doing. For many reasons, and so I.
Speaker 2: Went out on a trail and found the other plant
Speaker 2: species quite quickly and didn't harvest from the first stand,
Speaker 2: made sure they were thriving in the area. It spread
Speaker 2: out my harvest and took just a small amount from
Speaker 2: those other plants. And then as I was walking up
Speaker 2: the trail, just noticed that I was passing these wet
Speaker 2: depressions in the forest where Chai Yai or Devil's Club,
Speaker 2: you know, I would expect it to be growing. And
Speaker 2: as I went up the trail and kind of puzzled,
Speaker 2: you know, at this more a feeling came over me
Speaker 2: of realization, and I stopped and I thought about it,
Speaker 2: and I just felt that the message I was getting
Speaker 2: was that I wasn't invited to harvest this plant here,
Speaker 2: and so I sort of thought, okay, I thought back
Speaker 2: on my teachings around that, on the fact that I
Speaker 2: had asked permission, and so I turned around and I
Speaker 2: went to start hiking back down, and almost immediately I
Speaker 2: started seeing Chaii plants scattered throughout the forest. And you know,
Speaker 2: in the book, I kind of talked about how like
Speaker 2: my logical brain kind of kicked in and I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: like the trail can look different on the way down.
Speaker 2: You know, perhaps I was just so focused on certain
Speaker 2: areas that I missed the scarce plants growing in the
Speaker 2: forest here. But I reflect that I knew that wasn't
Speaker 2: the case, and I felt that that was not the case,
Speaker 2: and that in fact, what seemed to have happened is that,
Speaker 2: knowing that my intention was to harvest, the plant had
Speaker 2: hidden itself from me. You can't see me. And when
Speaker 2: I got back and I told my co instructor about this,
Speaker 2: she said, yeah, it's a really good thing you didn't harvest,
Speaker 2: because the invasive deer population or introduced deer population has
Speaker 2: been browsing Devil's Club and really reducing the numbers of
Speaker 2: this important plant on Hidaguai, and people were feeling really
Speaker 2: really sad about seeing this plant decline. And so it
Speaker 2: was just such a like learning moment and just such
Speaker 2: an illustration of yeah, just an example kind of beyond
Speaker 2: my explanation where I was told no when I asked
Speaker 2: permission to harvest a plant.
Speaker 1: Okay, so maybe you came up against a little bit
Speaker 1: of gentle opposition, which was good. Have you ever had
Speaker 1: a time when you've been out doing your work that's
Speaker 1: just been a moment that's really stuck with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So a moment comes to mind when I was
Speaker 2: volunteering in community off the north end of Vancouver Island
Speaker 2: in Muscama Zawadana Territory, which is in quiquak Walk Territory,
Speaker 2: in a village known as kinkom Inlet, and I had
Speaker 2: the opportunity to go and to spend some time learning
Speaker 2: in an estuary root garden there that had been cultivated
Speaker 2: up until about seventy five years before we were doing
Speaker 2: this work, so it was really quite defined and really
Speaker 2: quite amazing to see the delineation of these particular root
Speaker 2: vegetables that were still really thriving in this managed site.
Speaker 2: So I was doing field work with another with a
Speaker 2: graduate student, and we were going down to the estuary
Speaker 2: each day, and then at the end of that work,
Speaker 2: we got a chance to take youth and elders from
Speaker 2: the community with us on one of our field days
Speaker 2: and to do a harvest of the roots. And then
Speaker 2: we brought them back to the longhouse and did a
Speaker 2: pitcook where we cooked the roots underground and we sat
Speaker 2: in the long house together after we opened up the
Speaker 2: pitcook and I just remember listening to people in the
Speaker 2: long House just talking about which root was their favorite.
Speaker 2: You know, Oh, I really like the flavor of the
Speaker 2: rice root, but oh the silver beads so bitter, and
Speaker 2: it's better if you dip it in the butter or
Speaker 2: you know. And it is just this illustration to me
Speaker 2: of what I hope and want to contribute to is
Speaker 2: creating opportunities, contributing to opportunities where people are learning from
Speaker 2: the land, rebuilding their relationships, and really integrating that knowledge
Speaker 2: and experience back into their own lives and finding joy
Speaker 2: and strength and grounding an identity, you know, in that
Speaker 2: process for themselves. And that was one example where I
Speaker 2: just felt so happy because one I was trying these
Speaker 2: root vegetables that I I learned so much about from
Speaker 2: an academic standpoint, and then I was literally listening to
Speaker 2: the responses as the community was inviting them back in
Speaker 2: a fee setting. So that was really special.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so beautiful. That's just I'm sure everything you
Speaker 1: love in one place and one experience.
Speaker 2: Definitely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh that's amazing. Any other parting words or advice
Speaker 1: you'd want to give to any aspiring Indigenous ethnobotanicists out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I would say sit with people in your
Speaker 2: community because they will help guide you and really come
Speaker 2: back and lean on your community and the teachings there
Speaker 2: for how to carry yourself in a good way and
Speaker 2: also to give you that strength and direction to continue
Speaker 2: pursuing your dreams and contributing your voice in your chosen field.
Speaker 1: This has been such a joy. This has been so
Speaker 1: fun to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: So ask really brilliant people panical questions and check out
Speaker 1: all of Lee's work at the links in the show notes,
Speaker 1: including her book and her social media. We are at
Speaker 1: ologies on Instagram and Twitter. I'm Ali word with one
Speaker 1: L on both. Ologies. Merch is available at ologiesmerch dot com.
Speaker 1: If you have little ones or you need clean versions.
Speaker 1: Smologies episodes are classroom safe and they're all available for
Speaker 1: free at alliwoard dot com slash Hosmologies. Thank you Mercedes
Speaker 1: Maitland for editing those. Aaron Talbert admin's the Oologies podcast
Speaker 1: Facebook group. Longtime ologite and professional transcriber Aveline Malick makes
Speaker 1: our transcripts after the amazing Emily White of their worderies
Speaker 1: years of service. Congrats Emily on your plate overflowing. We
Speaker 1: love you so much. Noel Dilworth does our scheduling and
Speaker 1: posts your ologies art on Fridays and your merch Monday
Speaker 1: pictures on Instagram each week. Are Managing director. Susan Hale
Speaker 1: handles everything under the Ologies roof, from making sure we
Speaker 1: all get paid to making social posts too, and I
Speaker 1: totally forgot to mention them in that Aliology episode that
Speaker 1: I goodbye with a ton of help from Noel and
Speaker 1: Susan in that department, although all three of us are
Speaker 1: a bit TikTok confused, but Kelly R. Dwyer is our website.
Speaker 1: Susan Hale also did a ton of research for this
Speaker 1: episode and fact checking, and Mercedes contributed as well, and
Speaker 1: lead editor A Balm to our souls is Mercedes Maitland
Speaker 1: of Maitland Audio herself in the snowy Expanse of Canada,
Speaker 1: getch thick socks on. It's chili all right. Nick Thorburn
Speaker 1: made the theme music and if you stick around till
Speaker 1: the end of the episode, I tell you a secret,
Speaker 1: and y'all may know I was really hellisic last week.
Speaker 1: I didn't get out of bed for four or five days.
Speaker 1: I had fevers every day, sweating things coming out of
Speaker 1: my body like an exorcism. But earlier this spring, something
Speaker 1: else weird was happening. I would bruise after barely touching something.
Speaker 1: I was going to the gym, I'd come back looking
Speaker 1: like my legs were tie dyed. My dentist asked if
Speaker 1: I was on heart attack medication because my gums bled
Speaker 1: at like the tiniest poke. So of course I did
Speaker 1: a little googling, and I determined that I had terminal
Speaker 1: cancer of the blood variety like my father had. So
Speaker 1: I went to urgent care just in case. I was like,
Speaker 1: can you run a little bit of a blood panel?
Speaker 1: They did came back completely normal. A month or so later,
Speaker 1: I realized that when I was getting headaches, I'd treat
Speaker 1: myself to a few chewable baby aspirin because they're much
Speaker 1: more delicious than swallowing a pill. You don't need water.
Speaker 1: It's like, I love these and they taste like childhood.
Speaker 1: I just kept them on my purse and sometimes I'd
Speaker 1: be like, hmm, let's eat one or two, so tangy,
Speaker 1: and they're good for your heart or something. Reader I
Speaker 1: was thinning my blood because children's aspirin was so nostalgically
Speaker 1: delicious and impulse control is difficult. I just slipped one
Speaker 1: too many here there. They're not candy. Medicine is not candy.
Speaker 1: And please talk to your doctor before doing anything that
Speaker 1: we talk about in this episode. Doctor your doctors anyway.
Speaker 1: That's all folks by pacodermatology, homeology or doo zoology, Lithology
Speaker 1: and technology, meteorology, pathology, apology, seriology, selenology. Thank you and
Speaker 1: thanks to anyone else who left reviews. That was my dog. Okay,
Speaker 1: So onto ethno ecology. Ethno is from the Greek meaning
Speaker 1: nation and ecology of I'm really this is so unprofessional.
Speaker 2: Who sorry,