Welcome to Backyard Magic, where we come into the backyard, sip a little tea, talk about some magic. Welcome everybody. Come on into the backyard. My name is Nicole Berrios. I am your host. How's everybody doing this week? Hopefully everybody's doing good. So, what's going on in your world? What is in your mug this week? Today, I've got something new in my mug today. I have been drinking her herbs tea for a while now. I said it was going to be for several months, and I just recently intuitively felt that my body was done with it, at least for the time being. And so I got a new blend from the local herb shop. It is called Balance and Restore. It's orange, cinnamon, Hawthorn, Passion Flower, Nettle, Skullcab, Motherwort, Chamomile, Oatstraw, Lavender, and Rose. I was really drawn to this particular blend because it well, balance and restore. I could use both of those things. And I really I really wanted something with rose and lavender in it. There's another blend that I drink sometimes called uplift me tea that I drink if I'm feeling like particularly low. But I felt like I didn't need uplift me specifically. I just needed something like it. And this had lavender and rose in it, which is part of uplift me tea, but it's got other things in it that are just very good for balance. Like in Chinese medicine, orange, orange peel is a qi regulator. Granted, this for this blend that I have, it's a tea blend. You know, you just you steep it for a while. I what I do is I put the herbs in a pot with water, I bring it to a boil, and then I turn the water off and I put a lid on and I just let it sit for 20 minutes. That's how I cook this. So this is this is like a Western herbal blend, but there is some overlap between Western herbs and Chinese medicine herbs. Orange is one of them. Orange peel in particular. In Chinese, it's called chenpi. It's a qi regulator. So it moves your body's energy. This is very good for when you're feeling stagnant. And I love chenpi. It's also good for like digestive issues and bloating, that sort of thing. So orange and then cinnamon, it doesn't say what part what part of the cinnamon plant it is. I'm going to assume that it's cinnamon bark that they put in here. So if it's cinnamon bark, that's called Rogue in Chinese medicine, and it is a kidney yong tonic. It's actually a warming herb. I'm sorry, it's not a kidney yong tonic. It's an interior warming herb, but it goes to the kidneys, I'm pretty sure is what it does. Um, so it's good for like stimulating your internal fire, basically, which I have to be mindful of taking herbs that are hot because I live in a hot climate. But I think just a little bit of it is actually very useful. And then the other herbs are just very like calming, soothing, nurturing, supportive. It's been fabulous. I really like it so far, and I'm drinking it obviously with my local orange blossom thick desert honey. And it's been really good. That's what's in my mug. Okay, so we are just coming up to the summer solstice here in the northern hemisphere. Sorry, southern hemisphere peeps. Your episode, like once I get to all of the seasons, you can go back and like review, review them for based on where you are. But for the northern hemisphere people, we're about to cross over officially into the summer solstice, which is the day where we have peak sunlight. The sun is up and out, and the sky is bright for more hours of the day than it will be at any other point in the year. And then after, like the few days after the summer solstice, then it gradually starts to wane as we head towards the winter solstice. Um, so it it always feels interesting to me that like June, I think it's the 21st this year, which is Father's Day also. Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. Uh I always find it interesting that the summer solstice is the brightest day of the year, which you know it's in June, because it just seems like July and August are also just so bright and hot that it's it's weird to think that we're actually starting, we're in the dark half of the month by that point. It's just it's interesting, all the celestial events. But I thought this would be a good episode to talk about some things that I do to celebrate the summer solstice or Litha, Letha. I've heard it pronounced both ways. I don't like Litha. That sounds weird to me. Letha. If you're celebrating like the more traditional wickend wheel of the year, I like to think of this as just summer solstice. It's a celestial event, it's the longest day of the year. And when we're celebrating sun, the peak of the sun, there's a lot of different ways that you can go about this. And I kind of shake it up every year, but I I also think how you celebrate this depends greatly on where in the world you live and what it's like where you live. I live in the desert. And as grateful as I am for the sun, at this time of year, the sun is kind of trying to kill us. And I have a I feel like all of us who live in the desert, we all have a mixed relationship with summer here because we're grateful for the sun and we're grateful for all of the light that we get. But it's also so hot, so hot and uncomfortable, and like summertime in the desert is kind of like everybody else's winter. So we have fabulous winters here. That's why we have snowbirds. This is one of the snowbird states. If you don't know, snowbirds are the term that we use for people who follow the nice weather. They in America, I feel like the snowbirds usually come from one of the M states. It's usually like Michigan or Minnesota, places that have terrible winters. Like they come here for half of the year because our weather is so nice in the wintertime and the early spring. And then as we head into summer here, when the weather becomes awful, they go back to Minnesota or Michigan or wherever they're from, and they live there for the rest of the year. Like they they chase the nice weather. There's something to that. I've considered being a snowbird myself, but I cannot figure out how to make that work logistically with a business and a family and commitments. And maybe one day. I think that's why retirees do it, because they don't have to worry about all the commitments. But I can see the appeal of being a snowbird. So this is definitely the time of year where we all kind of hunker down. You know, like you hear about hunkering down for the winter, like stock up on all of your canned goods. I mean, we don't have to do that as much anymore now, but historically, yes, we did. Um that's kind of how we roll in the summer here. It's like it's interesting. It's interesting because it feels a little bit backwards. Like this is peak sun energy, which is yang in Chinese medicine. You know, there's yin and there's yang. Summer solstice is the peak yang time of the year. This is where we should be expending energy and like going out and playing and you know, just living at the peak fullness of life. But when you live in a climate that's as hot as this is, you really have to slow down a little bit because you will injure yourself, you know, if if you exert too much because it's so hot, you can very easily get dehydrated. If you're not mindful, you can get heat stroke. It's it's just something that you have to learn how to how to manage. Um, going outside in the middle of the day, like if you wanted to play, you know, like to do a bike ride or something, uh, not the best idea. Usually you have if you're gonna be outside, not in the water, you um you need to be out really early, and I mean really early because the sun comes up early and it's already hot. So I'm talking like 4:35. I feel like five is pushing it because the sun's already up by that point, and then or you have to be out in the evening when the sun goes down, and even then it's still hot, you just won't have like the sun baking on you. Um, if you have access to water and can be in a pool or go to the river or a lake or something, you can be out in the middle of the day, but you still have to be very mindful uh to drink enough water and to stay, you know, make sure that your skin is either covered or in sunscreen so that the sun doesn't kill you. Like it's it's an interesting thing to have a relationship with the sun when you live in such a hot climate. So I I say all of that because I kind of celebrate the summer solstice a little bit differently because of where I live. I it's partly, yes, I want to celebrate the sun because it is the life giver, we wouldn't be here without it. But I also have to be mindful that the sun is extreme here. And I don't know, I feel like I just I have to be more balanced in my approach as to how I celebrate the summer solstice and the sun here. And I thought this would be a fun episode for me to just briefly bring in the concept of weather shamanism. Weather shamanism is a branch of shamanism where you work with the spirits of weather. Okay, so I talked a little bit about shamanism in previous episodes, but just to recap, if anybody's new here, shamanism is it follows the concept of animism. Animism is where you understand that everything has its own soul, its own spirit, its own life force. That could be literally anything, um, anything from your dog, your cat, the clouds, the rock, the tree, the sky, ever you obviously. Everything has its own spirit. That's the concept of animism. It's like everything is alive in the spirit world in its own way. And when you practice or study shamanism, you work with the spirits. You become like a bridge between this world that we live in, the one that I'm talking to you in, and the spirit world, which is less tangible, but it's still there nonetheless. And that's that's what shamanism is. It kind of like bridges the two, someone who works between the two levels of reality. And when you work with weather spirits in particular, that's something called weather shamanism. I am an unofficial weather shamanic practitioner. I don't have any formal training in this, it wasn't part of my my shamanic training. But because of where I live and because of the struggles that I've had with seasonal affective disorder in the summertime, which I have overcome, I will be talking more about that in the future. But because of the struggles that I've had with weather in particular and climate, I've become, it's kind of like this weather shamanism just became part of what I do. Think of it as like a wounded healer sort of thing. Like it was a big wound that I had, and I had to learn how to overcome it. And weather shamanism is a big part of how I did that. And I again, no formal training. I've read a little bit about it. There's not a ton of information about this particular branch of shamanism out there. So most of what I've learned, I've learned through spirit, which is how a lot of shamanic practitioners get their information, anyways. So I suppose that's it's a valid form of learning something, especially when it comes to working with spirit. And I think we all know the image like of like Native Americans doing rain dances. And like I'm sure we've all seen or heard rain sticks before. I have a rain stick, I think they're so cool. You know, it's like a hollowed-out stick where they put like beads and or uh beans and stuff inside of it, little rocks, and when you turn it, it it makes this sound, it kind of sounds like rain. Love rain sticks. Native Americans would use those to call rain, like to basically what they were doing from a shamanic perspective is they were communicating with the rain spirits, with the spirits of storm. And that's that's kind of what weather shamanism is. It's like having a relationship with spirits of weather, spirits of storm, spirits of clouds, and honoring them and trying to balance out the relationship between them and humans, because that relationship has gotten really, really jacked up over millennia with humans thinking that they own the earth, you know, and trying to control things like the weather. And it's gotten very, very out of balance, which is why we see so many crazy weather patterns nowadays. It's either like severe drought or severe flooding, like the weather is messed up, even though it's it's not actually messed up, it's doing exactly what it should be doing based on the imbalance of you know people and planet and all of that. Weather shamanism, I think, is really, really, really important because it helps humans to reconnect to the source of to the spirit of weather, which makes them feel more connected to place and more connected to the planet, but also more connected in understanding of their role in causing the imbalance in the first place. I don't I don't really know like how to make this message bigger or grander, other than just talking about it on the podcast, and maybe maybe one day I'll write about it or something. I don't know yet. But I do know that I think weather shamanism is really important, and that is how I'm going to be celebrating my summer solstice this year. I will be doing a little ritual to like celebrate the sun, you know, being at its peak. I will probably get up first thing in the morning so I can go outside and greet the sun as it's rising, and I'll probably do the same thing as it sets. That's a nice simple thing. Um, you guys know me if you've listened to the show before, I love sun tea. Summer solstice is like the best day of the year to make some sun tea, so I'll probably do that. So I will do some basic like celebrating summer solstice sort of things. And of course, the sun is all about like joy and happiness, and so I definitely want to include some elements of that in my ritual, whatever I wind up doing, where I just call in more joy, use the sun energy to just kind of fill my spirit with its qi, its vitality, its young energy, so that I can feel more joy and more just happy and more life and abundant. So that's that's what I'm going to be doing to celebrate the sun part of the solstice. And then, yeah, the other part is weather shamanism, specifically because where I live at this time of year, we have um monsoon season. I didn't know this before I moved here that we had monsoon season. I love monsoon season, so it's crazy hot outside, you know, and it's dry. But then it could start as early as June 15th and sometimes a little bit later. Monsoon season happens when the dew point hits a certain point. I can't remember the number, but it's basically like when there's a certain amount of humidity. And when you live in the desert, it's dry. We don't get humidity very often, so you can absolutely feel it when monsoon season arrives. Like, even people who just aren't that aware of anything, you know, walking around in what I call the fog of unenlightenment, I I don't mean that as harsh as it sounds. That was me for like the first 23 years of my life. So I know all about the fog of unenlightenment. Um, but even for people like that who just don't pay attention to things, you can tell when monsoon season has arrived, even if it isn't raining yet because of the humidity. It's like, whoa, whoa, I don't need lotion, I don't need a chapstick, this is actually kind of nice. And your hair gets a little frizzier, which I'm sure sucks for some people, but my hair is like kind of flat, so I don't mind a little extra humidity for my hair. But monsoon season, it's amazing. And some years we have really, really good monsoon seasons, and when we have monsoons, it like dumps rain. It just like buckets just pours and pours and pours, and we have the most amazing thunderstorms and lightning, and oh, I love monsoon season. Like the spirit of monsoon of the monsoon is so powerful. I just I love it whenever it arrives. But it it's like different every year, and some years we hardly have any monsoons at all, and others we have more, and it's been up or down over the last couple of years. I feel like COVID year 2020, it was we didn't have monsoons at all. It was so dry. I remember so many trees in the neighborhood died that year. And then I think last year it was dry most of the summer, and then like towards the very end, it was like September, we finally got some really good storms. So like it came late. This year is supposed to be an El Nino year, and usually when we have an El Nino year, we are more likely to have more monsoons and like stronger storms. I haven't seen any yet, at least where I live. This is an interesting thing about living in a big sprawled-out valley, which the Valley of the Sun, is that it could it could be pouring buckets in the town right over, like right next door, and it could be sunny where I am. It's bizarre. Um, so it might be raining elsewhere, but it is not raining where I am yet. So, anyways, what I like to do is I like to go outside with my drum and my rain stick and my rattle, and I just sing to the spirits of weather. I don't have, like I said, I don't have formal training in this. I don't know any actual songs. This is all very on the fly, very spirit-led, very heart-centered, and I will just drum and talk to this the sky and the spirits of the clouds and the spirits of the rain. Even if there's no clouds in the sky, I still talk to them and just say, thank you. I'm grateful for you. And same with the sky and the sun. Even though they're harsh at this time of year, I think it's important to honor them because they're so forgotten. I think that's a big part of why there's such a big imbalance, is we don't honor them anymore. We don't sing to them anymore. And I, gosh, I need to start like a drum circle or something where everybody just sings to the sky, like not for any particular benefit. I mean, it would be fabulous if it rained more, but it's really just to thank them, to honor them, to acknowledge them. That's one thing that I've noticed a lot when with doing shamanic work and uh working with spirit in particular, any any spirit, but especially like old forgotten spirits, is that they want to be remembered. And this is my way of remembering them. And I also bring my daughter out in the yard, and she will join me for this. She thinks it's fun, and I think it's really cool that I get to pass this down to her. So, like, there's two of us, little shamanic practitioners, in the yard, singing to the sky, singing to the clouds. That's how I'm going to be celebrating my solstice. I will be outside with my drum and my rattle and just honoring the weather. And I wanted to keep this episode short so that it was just that, like, just this little potent nugget of information for you. I will talk more about weather shamanism in future episodes. I just wanted to give you a little a little taste for this one and um to keep it simple, like because we're all busy at this time of year. I mean, we're all busy at most times of year, I think, but especially at the peak young time of year where we all have abundant energy, even when it's hot outside. You know, we still want to just be busy and playing and doing stuff. And I feel like summer solstice is one of the celestial events that doesn't get celebrated as much because we're so busy. So I wanted to keep this simple. Here's a simple little thing you can do to celebrate the summer solstice. Sing to the weather, sing to the sun, sing to the sky, sing to the clouds. And I also just I wanted to bring in the shamanic element too, because that's that's my training, that's my specialty, and that's what I do out in my backyard. Backyard magic. I almost wanted to call this show backyard shamanism because that's that's really what I'm doing out there. It's like backyard shamanic work. But I know the word shamanism and shaman is like off putting to some people, so I didn't I didn't include it in the title of the show. But that's that's what it is. That's what I'm doing out there. So that is what I got for you guys today. Thank you for listening. Happy Summer Solstice, happy winter solstice for the southern hemisphere, folks. And I will talk to you guys next week. Bye.