I'm Elizabeth! But you can call me Lizzi or Liz , the heart and hands behind Pluripotency :)

Growing up amidst the breathtaking landscapes of Tuolumne County, I've always felt a deep connection to the plant world and its remarkable healing abilities. But my path to herbalism wasn't a straight line, it wound through nearly a decade of science and healthcare before it led me here. I earned my CNA license in 2016 and worked at a local nursing home, then went on to study at my local community college, working toward my Allied Health and Biology degrees. Somewhere in those science and math classes, I fell in love with teaching, I tutored anatomy, physiology, microbiology, statistics, and chemistry, worked as a teacher's assistant, and spent time as a lab assistant in the science department. I also became a certified doula (DONA-certified since 2022, though I'd been drawn to birth work most of my life), got a provisional EMT certificate in 2020, and spent time at a local natural birth center supporting mothers alongside midwives I deeply admire. Along the way, I realized that the clinical side of medicine — CNA work, EMT work — wasn't quite my calling. What lit me up was something quieter: nurturing with nature and helping others find their own healing abilities.

In 2023, while working at a local foot detox and tea shop called Amala, I enrolled in herbal school at the California School of Herbal Studies, studying Herbal Medicine Making and an herbal approach to body systems. It was there that everything clicked, all those years studying anatomy, physiology, and microbiology suddenly had a new purpose: applying that scientific understanding of the body to the herbal, holistic side of healing. It's also where the name Pluripotency was born. "Pluripotent" was my favorite term from physiology class, cells (some even found in menstrual blood) that are pluri, meaning many, and potent, meaning powerful, capable of becoming many different tissue types and regenerating and healing damage in the body. It felt like the perfect name for what I do, because so many herbs work the same way, each one holding many actions, many powers, many ways of supporting the body at once.

Today, at Pluripotency, I carefully craft organic, small-batch herbal products and share herbal education with my community, hoping to empower others to discover the herbalist within themselves. Every tea, tincture, and oil I make carries that same thread running through my own path, science and plants, medicine and nature, woven together to help people nurture themselves in more ways than one.