Byte: Elizabeth Bruckner - The NDE That Changed Her World!

Hello,

Dear ones,

And welcome to the next episode of the podcast.

This time,

I'm introducing you to Elizabeth Bruckner,

Who,

When COVID hit,

Was at the grocery store and could find no fresh garlic.

You know,

The world was shutting down,

There was a lot of uncertainty,

Nobody knew what was going to happen,

And yeah,

She panicked,

Like a lot of us did.

And then,

As she says,

She got busy.

She taught herself how to grow food in her tiny front yard,

And after that,

Her whole world changed.

So,

Elizabeth is a homesteader,

An acupuncturist,

And an author.

And also,

She's kind of,

Quite honestly,

A badass.

Through research and experimentation,

She taught herself to compost kitchen scraps,

Ferment,

Like an alchemist,

Cook traditional food,

And live a life that is more connected than she ever thought possible.

Many people regard her as the fermentation maven,

And so,

You know what?

She's out in the world,

Speaking to crowds on topics such as healing herbs in the kitchen,

The life-changing power of habit creation for homesteaders,

And of course,

The art of lacto-fermentation.

But,

You know,

As always,

Here I am trying to summarize a dynamic and incredible human being with an intro that just really does not do it justice.

So without further ado,

Let's get into my conversation with Elizabeth Bruckner.

Then the next part of my religious upbringing is I nearly drowned when I was about two,

Maybe one and a half,

Two.

I got away from my mom,

I fell into a pool,

They didn't find me until I was unconscious and not breathing,

And she just kept,

You know,

Giving me CPR,

And,

You know,

My uncle was screaming,

It's too late,

It's too late,

And she just would not give up.

Well,

You know,

The second question I ask everybody,

And I'm intrigued,

I'm a panentheist,

Which means kind of an animus,

You know,

I think everything sentient,

You know,

That plant over there probably wants to talk to me,

But I might be a little busy.

Rocks have souls.

I just believe I live in a really creative,

Really dynamic universe.

And it's,

You know,

It's our fault as humans that we can't slow down enough to talk to a waterfall or what have you.

But,

You know,

Did you grow up in a religious household?

And what does that look like as you've gotten older?

You know,

Has homesteading shaped or informed the way you,

You know,

You connect to that,

Which we cannot explain that might be divine and outside of us?

I'm actually really curious about that.

Yeah,

Well,

Did I grow up in a religious household?

I grew up in a very.

.

.

I grew up in a household that was touched by religion and war.

So my grandparents and my mom and my aunts immigrated here from Belarus.

They were running from Stalin.

He had stolen their farm as they had stolen many people's farms.

And then they popped around in refugee camps for a while in Europe and then ended up in Ohio.

They were they were sold tickets.

And I tell you this story because that was part of the religion.

Our religion was at any moment things can go very badly.

Now,

I grew up in a very prosperous country.

I've never been to a store and up until,

You know,

10 years ago where shelves were empty.

And I remember hearing these stories time and time again.

We had to go share,

You know,

We had sheets and we had to go try and trade them for potatoes and we were starving.

And I knew that they were real.

I knew they weren't lying.

But I didn't know what that meant to me until I went to a nearby mall.

And one of the one of the Macy's floors was empty.

This was before the pandemic.

And I was like,

That's not good.

That is not what's happening.

I'd never seen,

You know,

Just over there was just so much over production of commercial properties that,

You know,

Are the market wasn't sustaining.

There wasn't enough demand for the supply.

And now there's this empty storefront.

That's crazy.

And so when I talk about religion,

My family was then kind of indentured by a farmer in Ohio and they couldn't get out of out of debt.

Right.

They would they were doing the farming,

But then the farmer was charging them rent.

And so there was this constant debt that was being accrued.

So they were always going to be farmhands for the rest of their lives.

But my grandfather,

Probably where I get some of this kind of reverse engineering,

He's like,

I'm going to write a bunch of letters to a bunch of churches in America.

And so he wrote a letter to a Russian Orthodox church in on the East Coast.

And the church members gathered and and bought their freedom,

Bought my family's freedom.

Yes.

So this idea of war could happen at any moment,

Famine could happen in any moment.

And I'm getting goosebumps talking about it.

Oh,

Like I'm just because I I realized that one of the religions of our family was that community is powerful.

And you can you can change your entire life with the help of your community members.

And so a lot of my aunts and uncles came from different countries.

They were not blood related.

I think the one unifying factor that we had is that we were all Slavic of Slavic descent.

They all had really funny accents and they all spoke Russian.

Like some of them spoke other things to Ukrainian and but they all spoke Russian.

And so I was I thought for the longest time that I was Russian,

Not Belarusian.

I hadn't even heard of that because my aunt from Ukraine would just oh,

You know,

We're part of the Russian American club.

So that was one part of the of the religion in our family.

My grandfather then years later decided to go to the seminary.

Is that what it's called,

The seminary?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Thank you.

And he became a Russian Orthodox priest.

Now,

Russian Orthodox can marry.

So he was already married.

He had kids.

And so I was raised in that church.

However,

It was in Russian,

Like all the masses and I don't speak Russian.

I I've learned in my adulthood for sheer pleasure,

French and I can I'm functional in Spanish,

But I've never spoken Russian.

My mom and her side of the family speaks Russian.

My two siblings speak Russian,

But I did not.

And so I went to this church and I was constantly there hearing these hymns and looking at the icons and knowing that.

There was a presence that people were talking about,

But no one explained it to me.

And then the next part of my religious upbringing is I nearly drowned when I was about two,

Maybe one and a half to I got away from my mom.

I fell into a pool.

They didn't find me until I was unconscious and not breathing.

And she just kept,

You know,

Giving me CPR and,

You know,

My uncle screaming,

It's too late,

It's too late.

And she just would not give up.

And so after several minutes,

I finally started breathing again,

Spent several days in the hospital.

I don't remember any of that,

But I think that that experience.

Somehow brought me closer to the edge of the spirit world.

Because I and I've heard this a lot with near death experiences,

I have no near death experience memory,

I just know that growing up from as long as I remember,

I've always like,

You say that,

You know,

You believe in the spirit of all things,

I would talk to my animals,

I would talk to stuffed animals,

I would talk to plants,

It was just what I did,

I was always looking for God.

And I got a bit of that in the smell of the incense in the beautiful hymns that they were singing,

But I was so far removed from anyone explaining it to me.

So does that answer your question in terms of is it a religious family?

In some ways,

Very much so.

In another ways,

I wasn't I wasn't taught anything.

I just experienced it.

All right,

Everyone,

I hope you enjoyed this conversation,

And I hope you enjoyed meeting Elizabeth Bruckner.

Quite honestly,

You know,

I have interviewed so many people,

As you all know,

And sometimes you just find a person that you just wish you could live next door to so you could hang out,

Borrow eggs,

Maybe share cups of tea and just,

You know,

Get to know a whole lot better.

So she lives in California,

I live in New Mexico,

So that's not happening anytime soon.

But truly,

I felt like I found a really good friend,

A new friend.

And I think we could all use a new friend every once in a while.

I want to thank everyone who listens.

I just would love ratings and reviews,

Everyone.

So whoever listens to this pod,

If you could press pause right now,

Press pause and give me a rating or review,

I would be ever so grateful.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Elizabeth.

You know,

She just kind of didn't know what she was doing when she started.

Everything was a mystery.

And she was basically like,

I'm just going to figure this out.

Trial and error.

I'm going to make some mistakes.

I'm going to mess things up.

But eventually I'm going to learn how to do this.

She was brave.

She was intrepid.

Another guest who didn't take no for an answer or let her fears rule her.

She just went and she did it.

And so I'm just going to urge you to all be like Elizabeth and just go out there and do something that scares you.

We need more people like that in the world.

Go out,

Be brave and change the world by doing things that maybe make you uncomfortable.

All right.

I'll see you next week for the very next episode.

And until then,

I hope your weekend is full of laughing uncontrollably,

Dancing while no one's watching and conversations with strangers like Elizabeth,

Who so very soon ultimately become dear friends.