Hey there, lovely listeners. Welcome to Backyard Magic. I'm your host, Nicole Berrios. Grab a cup of tea. I've got mine here. And join me in the backyard. We're gonna talk about house clearing and protecting today, which should be fun. So before we get started, what is in my mug today? Well I'm chilling in the backyard. I know for if anybody's been listening to the show since I started it back in March, you've heard me talk about this particular herbal blend before. I was using it for a while and then I just felt like I didn't need it, and then this weekend I felt like I needed it again. So I have added it back into my repertoire. I am drinking an herbal blend called Herbs. This is another one of the western blends that I like to get from my local herb shop. It is red raspberry leaf, nettles, oatstraw, hibiscus, spearmint, licorice, vitex, linden, wild yam, red clover blossom, ginger, and star anise. I think that's how you say that word. I've never known how you say how you say it. A-N-I-S-E. I just say anise. Otherwise, it sounds like um a body part that shouldn't be in an herbal blend, you know. So I do know that it's a really cool-looking herb because it does look like a star. Yeah, so I've been drinking her herbs. I have just been feeling particularly wiped out lately, and I really like this blend because it's very nutritive. It feels restorative, like a tonic kind of, but it's also like balancing to women's hormones, hence why they call it her herbs. I have actually been blending this mix with some of my Chinese herbs to make it like a super tonic. And I I just work with what I have in my cupboard. I wish I had a full, like fully stocked Chinese herbal pharmacy. But I don't, and honestly, that would be a lot of work. A lot of work, a lot of space, a lot of money, a lot of time to maintain a fully stocked Chinese herbal pharmacy. Not to mention, I feel like the majority of the herbs wouldn't even get used. So this is why I've never actually created one before. But dang, it would be cool if I had one. But I don't, so I I just get like some basic things to kind of keep on hand. And when I'm when I'm using Chinese herbs, I'm usually using granules. There's different ways you can take herbs. The granules are great because they they stay good for longer, like they can they're preserved a little bit longer than like fresh raw herbs would be. They also don't smell so much. If you have ever been to an herbal shop or like in Chinatown or something, like there's they usually have raw Chinese herbs in in Chinatown. And if you've ever like stepped into a store like that, it it's overpowering. This is how it felt when I went to my first acupuncture school. I went to two acupuncture schools. Um, the one that I went to in Los Angeles, Yosan. Freaking loved Yosan. I wish I could have graduated from there, but I had had to move to Phoenix and graduate from the school out here, which was fine. It's closed now. That's a topic for a different day. We're not going to talk about what's happening in the acupuncture profession. And all the schools shutting down. But one like my favorite thing about going to acupuncture school was the smell. I just I loved walking in, especially at Yosan, because they had an herbal pharmacy, like in the student clinic. They did have an herbal pharmacy at the school that I went to in Phoenix. It was just like in a completely separate part of the building. Like you had to walk outside and like walk down a walkway to get to the herb pharmacy. So it was and it was in the library, which I thought was kind of weird, but separate part of the building. So you didn't walk in and smell herbs, but at Yosan, you walked in, you smelled herbs, and moxa. That's like the warming, smoky herb that you burn. Freaking loved it. I went on a tangent. Waxing lyrical about the magic of acupuncture school. But there's yeah, different ways you can you can take herbs. And I I like to use granules because I think it's easy to one, have them on hand and to mix them into other blends. And I I use a brand called TCM Zone. TCM stands for traditional Chinese medicine. If you've ever heard me talk about studying abroad in China, it was through TCM Zone. It was a cool trip. We got to intern or do an externship at a hospital there. It was very cool. But we also got to tour the TCM Zone factory where they process the herbs there. I'm so glad that I got to do this tour because I was blown away by like the quality and the measures that they took to make sure that you were getting really good quality herbs and like how they processed them to like get them down into granule form so that you had like they maintained the integrity of the plant. So so cool. Anyways, I'm off on a tangent again. Using TCM's own herbal granules, because they're easy to just like scoop in. Honestly, you can just drink them on their own. You can just put them in water, drink them on their own. I like to mix them in with my Western herbal blends because I I don't know, I just do. That's that's my thing. I don't know if any other acupuncturist or Chinese herbalists do that, but I do. Because I feel like it gives you more oomph. That and it tastes better. If there's one thing about the majority of Chinese herbal uh formulas, it's that they don't taste very good. And I feel like that's fine for a little while, but after after a while, you just you just can't. You just can't drink gross things anymore. This is also partly why I do not have a fully stocked Chinese herbal pharmacy because Americans, I mean, come on, we're kind of babies. Like we don't like things that don't taste good. We just don't. I'm one of them, so I get it. I feel like I'm a little bit more tolerant of taking herbs, but yeah, even I hit the point where I'm like, ugh, I don't want to drink this anymore. Which is why we have granules. Just mix them into better formulas. And I add a little bit of my local honey, which some Chinese herbalists will be like, no, you can't do that. It messes with the integrity of the formula. I say, if you're not going to drink the herbs because they taste gross, that messes with the integrity of the formula more. So you're gonna drink it or not? If honey makes it more palatable, then put honey in it. The formula that I mixed with my Western formula, it's called Zhao Chae Hutong. I'm pretty sure I've talked about this one before too. It translates to minor buplurum decoction. It is a formula that is historically used for treating something called Xiaoyang syndrome in Chinese medicine. It's a formula. I I like to think of the herbs a little bit more esoterically because Xiaoyang syndrome is something that's like an in-between sort of phase. When somebody gets sick, like with a cold or the flu or something, you know how you get chills and fever? Like first you feel like wind averse, like you just don't want to be around wind, you don't want to be under a fan, you just kind of want to be wrapped up in a blanket, like you don't want skin, like your skin touching air, basically. That's like when a pathogen is at the very exterior of the body, and it's trying to get further in. And as it starts to like penetrate the skin and get further in, that's when you have the chills and the fever, especially the the alternating part where you're cold one moment, you're hot the next. That's kind of like what Xiaoyang syndrome is. It's like an in-between phase, like it's going from the outside to the inside of the body, but it's not quite all the way in yet. The the chills and the fever is like your body's response trying to fight it off and push the pathogen out, which is why we break out in a sweat when you break a fever, because that's your body's way of like release, we call it releasing the exterior. Oh, by the way, last last episode I was talking about Shengma, which is um black kohosh, and how it's a Chinese herb, but it in Western the Western world it's used for hot flashes. Well, there's a helicopter. I don't know if this will pick up. I hate helicopters. Let's give it a moment. They're so loud. Anyways, I was wondering like, why do they use Shang Ma in uh as for like hot flashes when it's in the warming category? That's because I got it backwards. It's not in the warming category, it's in the cooling category of herbs. So I'm like, oh, that makes sense why it would be used for hot flashes. User error. That was a correction from last my last episode. So, anyways, Zhao Chai Hutong. Yes, put it in my tea because it's for the in-between phase when you are the pathogen is not fully into the body yet, and your body's still fighting it off. I like to use it more esoterically for in-between things. So you could use it for, but and it's also for things that kind of like come and go, like allergies. Allergies are something that come and go, like they're there sometimes and then they're not other times, or it can be like emotions that come and go. This is just the way I use I use the herbs. This is not like actual traditional Chinese medicine, this is my spin on it. I just like to think of the function of the formula, what it does, and how you can apply it to everyday life. And I feel like October is a pretty decent in-between month, you know, like the everybody talks about the veil getting thin at this time of year. If you're tuned in, you can pick up on it, like you can feel it. It does feel like an in-between time of the year. So I'm drinking Zhao Chai Hutang. That and if you ever just feel like you're in between something, like you know, like liminal space. If you're in a liminal space, zhao chai hutang is the herb for you. Formula for you. It's six different herbs blended into a lovely formula. It's one of my favorites. I love it because it's got six herbs and it's balanced. Maybe it's seven herbs. I'm pretty sure it's six. The TCM zone bottle that I was using has seven herbs in it, but I'm pretty sure one of those herbs is a bonus. I think it was the ginger. Is ginger actually in this formula? I'll have to look it up. We'll do that another time. Six or seven herbs. I can't remember because herbs herb class was a while ago. I just know that I love this formula. I also added a kidney yong tonic called Tutsitsa, which is couskuda seed, and I added Renshen, which is ginseng. And man, if you get real ginseng, it's expensive. It's expensive. For one bottle, one TCM zone bottle of granules of Renshen ginseng was 50 bucks at the wholesale price. If that were marked up at like consumer price, that'd be easily a hundred dollars for this bottle. So I do not use a lot of Ren Shen, I use it uh gingerly every once in a while when I feel like I need a boost because that's what it's famous for. That's why when you get real ginseng, it's so expensive. Partly because it just takes it's it takes a long time to grow. It's more of a rare herb, and well, it's a root, but it takes a long time to grow and mature and be ready for harvesting, and also because it strongly tonifies the source chi. This is your body's well, the source. It's it's like the source of your energy in your body. So it packs a lot of punch, therefore, it is expensive, and I don't use it very much unless I feel like I really need it. So I'm grateful that I get to have a little ginseng in my herbs today. Because I need the extra boost because we are going to be house clearing today, and we're gonna be doing it shamanic style. And as I was thinking about this episode and thinking that I wanted to call it shamanic style, I kept getting gongam style stuck in my head, which just makes me laugh. So, house clearing, shamanic style. I used to do house clearings as part of my repertoire as a shamanic practitioner. I stopped doing them because I found them to be incredibly taxing and I wasn't charging nearly enough for it. I would have to take like several days off of doing anything after doing a house clearing, especially if it was a bigger house, and especially if there was a lot of trauma that the habitants of said house were living in. Or just with the geographical location, there's a lot that goes into house clearing. I just know that it's taxing for one person, and it it's a lot easier to do it when you've got more than one person. So, uh, anyways, I stopped doing house clearings. I might pick them up again at some point later when when my daughter is older, but at this point in my life, I just I don't think the any energy expenditure is worth it for me as a solo practitioner. However, it is an extremely useful and necessary skill and important for everybody to do. So I'm gonna teach you guys a little bit about how to clear and protect your house so that you can do it on your own to an extent. I feel like you kind of do need a professional for specific things, and that's fine. There are people who will do house clearings, and like I said, maybe one day in the future I will pick up house clearings again, just not at this point in my in my life. First of all, why what what am I even talking about here when I say house clearing? So your your house or your home, your apartment, wherever you live, your home, the place where you go to sleep every night, it's your sanctuary, it's your safe space, it is where you process things, it's where you can let your guard down. And if you are in an emotional family like I am, we are just an emotional bunch here. There's always like emotions that are being processed in the home. And if you're not being mindful of like taking time to clear the home of everything that you are like off-gassing basically while you are at home, it can linger and it sticks around in the walls, in the floor, in the furniture. To just fresh start, clear it out, get rid of it. And there's a lot of different ways that you can do it, but I'm a shamanic practitioner, so I do mine shamanic style. And what do I mean by that? Okay, I'm gonna give you like a little walk down or run through of how I do um how I do shamanic work on a person, on like a human, because the same setup applies to inanimate objects like a house. Although I personally don't, I mean, I don't really think of my house as an inanimate object. You know, everything has a spirit in um shamanism or animism. And I feel like homes all have their own personalities, right? Especially when they are the safe space where you are processing everything. I feel like homes take on their own, their own vibe, their own energy. But I clear them and protect them the same way that I do with a person. So I'm gonna give you a little rundown. When I do a shamanic session, when somebody comes into my office, they lay on my table. You know, I do my health history, my questionnaire, all of that. Because I'm also doing acupuncture on them too. I feel like there's only been like three or four people who have wanted only shamanic work, they don't want acupuncture, which is fine. I prefer to do acupuncture with it because it grounds it grounds the person very nicely so that they are more open and susceptible or receptive, open and receptive to whatever comes through with the shamanic piece. But I'll do I'll do the acupuncture first, and then I jump in, like I put on a different hat and I go into the the shamanic healing part of it. And what it looks like is this is the kind of the general formula that I follow, but all of these sessions are very spontaneous. This is part of the magic of shamanic work, is that you never know what it's going to look like until you're in it. So I can like try to predict it all I want, but I never actually know what's going to happen. But I have noticed that out of the however many hundreds of sessions that I've done, they do seem to follow kind of a formula for the most part. That formula is first I scan the person, like an energy scan, to check in and see what I'm noticing. What is happening in the energetic body of this person? Are there things in the body that don't belong there? The answer to that is almost always yes. Sometimes no. I feel like that's more rare, but most of the time people have attachments we um that don't belong there and need to go. So in shamanic terms, we call that extractions. We pull things out of the body that don't belong there. So we we clear, we clear the body of things that don't belong there that are causing some sort of strife or discomfort or ailment. And then I reassess, check in again. I basically clear until we're done clearing. And sometimes there are still things that need to be cleared, but you can only do so much in one session. It kind of comes up in layers. And if you do too much at once, you you will exhaust the person, it's too much. Like shamanic work can be intense as it is, anyways. And if you clear too much, especially for someone if you're working on someone who's never really done that sort of work before, it can backfire on you. That's like that's practitioner discretion there. Like the practitioner kind of has to assess just how much needs to be cleared. Like my when when I do shamanic work, you're working with your spirit guides, basically. And my intuition is in there, also, but it's like the spirit guides are telling you what to do. But the way that I learned shamanism and how to work on clients is that you're like the veto power. So if the if the spirit team says like you should do this, but you strongly feel like that's not the right call for this particular person, like, yeah, you've got veto power to be like, no, we're not we are not doing that today. We will save that for the next session. Anyways, we clear the body, and then I reassess again, and when everything is clear or as clear as it can be for that particular day, you're left with a void. So, or like a vacuum, basically, and all vacuums want to be filled with something. And in shamanic work, you fill that void intentionally with some sort of power. If you leave it open, then the void will be filled with something, and it is usually like something not good. It's like something that can just easily flow in, like another, another entity or thought form or something. And when I say entity, that that could be anything. It could just be like some some energetic attachment that comes in and wants to lodge inside of a body, like they find weak points. None of this, none of these things that I'm talking about are malicious for the most part. Um, they just they are what they are, and they want to attach to things so that they can get energy. Sometimes humans are like a food source for things like this. Partly why I love shamanic work is because it It gives an answer to things that like Western medicine can't really explain, especially with like fatigue or I don't know, just you know, if you're not feeling well physically and you go to the doctor and you have like all of the tests around and everything shows that you're perfectly healthy, but you don't feel right, then there's usually a like a spiritual ailment causing your problems. And shamanic work can address that, which is very cool. But I don't I don't mean to alarm anybody. Like, don't don't worry. We all have energetic attachments and things that don't belong there and need to get removed, but it's all it's kind of like all in due time, you know. Like they you get them worked on when you're ready to get them worked on. And if you have the attachments, then they're usually theirs so that you can learn something from them. And like, don't don't worry, don't freak out. I probably should have said that first, but I'm in the zone and I didn't think about it. So we clear the body and then we're left with the void, and we intentionally fill the void with power. If it's a person's first time, like their first session, they always get a power animal. Always, always, always. That is filling a person with power. And it's it's neutral power. Like when I say neutral, I mean like there's no ego attached to a power animal or a spirit animal, as most people think of them. I like to think of them as power animals because they are spirit helpers in animal form that are bringing a specific type of power to you when you need it. And with power animals, you never know which one is going to come through. It could be literally anything, it could be more of a mythical animal, it could be an ant, it can be literally anything. You never know what it's going to be. I always tell people you have to be really open-minded when it comes to receiving a power animal. Because bigger doesn't mean better. It's what is the essence of this animal spirit, and it is here to help support you and provide something that is missing in your life. So sometimes, well, if it's a person's first time, they get a power animal. For follow-up visits, sometimes that power comes in the form of a soul retrieval. This is like when a piece of the soul breaks off in times of need or strife or trauma and they hide somewhere. And this when people have soul pieces missing, which again, this happens to all of us, you can feel like something's wrong, like something is missing, especially if it was a large, a large trauma, like a large piece of soul broke off, or if you have many pieces that have broken off. When we start to bring, we find them, this is what a shamanic practitioner does. When you find them and you bring them back, you're it's almost like you're helping a person to feel more complete again. And this is this is powering you up. So if you've ever heard me mention why I started shamanic training in the first place, it's because I felt like I needed to be better protected for doing community acupuncture because I felt like I was an open, just so open and like a sponge, I just absorbed everybody's energy, and I felt like I need to learn really good shielding techniques and so that I can protect my energy. And I did, I got exactly what I wanted to out of the training, it just did not come about at all in the way that I thought it was going to. But that's life, right? Because what shamanic work does is it it's I think it's kind of aggressive. It can be, anyways, depending on the situation. Because remember, I have I have the final say in what happens, but I feel like if people are coming to see me for this particular work, they are ready, like they're ready to have stuff ripped out. So we we rip out the bad stuff and then we put something new in, and it can feel discombobulating. It can totally feel discombobulating because like stuff that was there isn't there, but something new is there instead. I imagine it kind of feels like phantom limb syndrome or something like that, you know, like just foreign. Or maybe maybe that's how people who get like organ transplants feel, you know, like they have an old, like an old kidney removed and a new one put in. I that must feel very discombobulating. Honestly, this is how I felt. I had a blood transfusion when I was in um after I had my daughter had to have a blood transfusion, and that it felt similarly. That being said, I was so grateful for whoever donated that blood. But, anyways, it can just it can feel weird. But once everything has time to integrate, then you start to realize, like, oh, I feel more solid, I feel more grounded, I feel like less shakeable, and that's the shield. It's almost like the shield comes from inside, it's not something that you put up around yourself, although you absolutely can, and I still do that as kind of like an added layer of protection, but really like the shield comes from inside. If you guys have ever read the Harry Potter books or seen the movies, the Patronus Charm, I feel like it's kind of like the Patronus charm. It's like magic that comes from inside of you that is like a force field to prevent, you know, the dementers from sucking your soul out. Kind of it's kind of like that. That's the gist of a shamanic session on a person in my office. When it comes to house clearing and protection, it's the same sort of structure, the same formula applies. When I do a house clearing, I'm just and I do this for pretty much any time I clear a house, but I'm gonna just use mine, mine is an example. This is so timely because my house really needs a clearing. So uh that's actually what I'm gonna be doing today. So this episode is timely, but it's the same sort of thing. First, you assess the energy in the house, you do a scan on it, and this I feel like this is where I might I might need to host classes where I teach people how to do this like specific thing. And there's a lot of different ways that you can do this, like sussing out the energy of your house. If you're already sensitive, you probably already know where the tricky or sticky areas in your house are. If you're if you're not that sensitive, you can you can learn. Like this is all stuff that you can you can totally learn. It just takes practice. One way that you can do it is you can just sit in like the most central area of your home, wherever that is, like in a living room or something, like on the middle of the floor, and close your eyes and ground, you know, breathe, meditate a little bit, like get settled into your body. And then what you do is you kind of expand your energy outward, and you it's almost like you're mapping out the house in your mind's eye, or your home, your apartment in your mind's eye. And you're feeling or seeing, depending on which of you know the Claire, the Claire senses are most dominant for you. But you're sensing areas of your home that don't feel quite right, or maybe if you're more clairvoyant, maybe you see things in your home that don't belong there. But you can you can do this just by sitting and meditating and seeing the inside of your home in your mind's eye. That's one way you can do it. You can also physically walk around your entire home, like you can use your hands. Like some people are more um they feel more sensitive with their hands, like you can use your hands to kind of just see if areas feel like stickier than others. When I say sticky, that's just the best way I can use to describe it. If there's things in your home like energy and attachments and thought forms that don't belong there, you they they have their own energetic signature, and if you're paying attention, you can feel them. And some people feel it in their hands or just in their body. Maybe you feel it tingling in your body, like, ooh, something is happening here. And be use your discernment because usually people can also tell, like, is this icky? Like, is this malicious or not malicious, but is this something that's causing problems in my home, or is this energy okay to be here? Because not all energy is bad. In fact, I would I would actually say no energy is bad. It just it is what it is. All energy is energy, it does what it's supposed to do. And there's a whole range, the whole spectrum of sensations, neither I think good or bad, but that's just my my hot take. So you walk around your home, just feel, intuit anything that might not be good, and or just something that feels off or amiss in a particular area of your home. So that's that's one way you can do it. Um, if any of you use pendulums or like any sort of divination, tarot, um ta if you guys talk to spirit guides, you can use those all as fabulous tools to help you with um sussing out like what's happening in your house. You can, you know, pendulums are great for the yes or no questions, so you could ask, like, is there something in my kitchen? Is there whatever? Is there something in my bedroom? You can do the same thing with tarot to kind of, I mean, tarot is not the best for yes or no questions, but it can kind of give you a sense as to what might be happening in your home. So lots of different ways you can go about it. If you do work with any sort of a spirit team, you can ask them to kind of diagnose your home and then have them report back the information to you. So many different ways that you can go about this, but you find the sticky areas in your home and then you're going to clear them. And there's also lots of different ways to go about doing this. My favorite tools are smoke and sound. Those are my two favorite tools for clearing, and or just using my spirit team to help clear it for me. But I always, always, always like to start with smoke. So, smoke cleansing, you can use any herb really, or incense, or what whatever you have on hand, so long as it's not toxic. Use whatever you've got. And what I do, if I'm gonna be really thorough about this, I will, before I get started, I will go around and I will open up every single drawer, every single cupboard door. I'll open up all the windows, open everything, all the closet doors, every little nook and cranny. It will look like a poltergeist is in your house messing with everything. It looks weird when you do this. It's also it makes it a little more time consuming. But if you're gonna do, if you're gonna do it, you might as well be thorough about it. Open everything up. And then after you've kind of sat in the center of your house and meditated for a little bit and just kind of gotten a sense as to what's going on with your house, then you light whatever herbs you are going to be burning or incense, and I go around the entire house, the entire perimeter of the inside of the house. And the way I do it clockwise, I know some people like to clear counterclockwise, and then when they bring energy in, they do it clockwise. I just do the whole thing clockwise. I don't know why. I that's just what my feet do. Like as soon as I start going, my feet take me clockwise. I don't think there's any right or wrong way to do it, it's just whatever is attractive to you. So I go clockwise and I will wave my smoke into every area, every single area. And while I'm doing that, I will chant or say a prayer. And because this is this comes in steps, kind of like with my shamanic work on a person, it comes in steps and layers. So this is step number one. We're clearing, and we're doing it with smoke. And so I will usually say some sort of a prayer, like, may the energy be cleared, may the space be free and clear something. I usually come up with what I'm going to say before I start doing it. I've got um feathers. I know some of you might have like feather dusters. You can use this to waft the smoke into the areas that you want, and you don't need to linger either unless there's a really like icky area that you are needing to thoroughly clear. But for for the first this first stage, I just do a quick walk around the whole house with my. I usually have a shell, an abalone shell with whatever I'm burning in there, and you know, take fire safety precautions, obviously. I felt like I should probably say that, even though it's also kind of a given. Be safe with your fire, and then use my feather duster to waft the smoke everywhere. And then I go around the entire house, and then I come back into the center and I meditate again, and I kind of see, like, okay, how does it feel? Has the energy shifted? By the way, if you are a person who doesn't like smoke or you know has asthma sensitivities, allergies, or you live in a place where you are not allowed to burn things like this, that's okay. You don't have to use smoke. I still recommend opening everything up and you know, airing it out. You can use sprays, essential oils. You can just use a feather duster. Like you don't have to use smoke. I just like smoke because I I like smoke. As soon as it starts burning and I smell it, it like gets me into a different state of mind. It it's almost like, okay, it's it's time to work now. I don't know. It's it's like cla I'm classically conditioned, like Pavl Pavlov's dogs. Like when I smell, when I smell like ritual smoke of whatever herbs I'm burning, then I know like okay, it's shamanic time. So that's why I like to do it. But if you cannot burn herbs in your home, that is okay. You don't need to. You can just use a feather duster and dust, you will accomplish the same thing. So once I'm done with phase one of walking the perimeter of the house and doing my basic clearing while I'm saying my prayer out loud or chanting or whatever, whatever's coming out of my mouth, then I sit in the center of the home and I meditate again and I kind of see what shifted. Sometimes, if it's extra, like if we were all having a real rough go, like for the first couple years after I had my daughter, we were all having a hard time, so I would have to do this step multiple times. Like I'd have to go around and clear the house like three or four times. At this point, we don't need to do that anymore. We're usually good with just one go-around, but you decide how it feels. Does it need another, another clear? And also, you can, if you work with the spirit team, you can have your spirit team help you with the clearing part too. They can use whatever energy they're bringing to the table to clear. So you can you can use anything. But again, this is this is shamanic style, so we're we're seeing the home and anything in it as like all beings, and anything, any being that doesn't need to be there, that isn't helping to serve the higher good of the home and the people that live in it, it needs to be released. And that's why opening the windows is good because it gives those gives anything a place to go. Like just go go out the window. If it's anything particularly icky or negative, I send it into water. I've got a pool outside. I usually send things into the pool because water is a neutralizer, and it tr it transforms the energy. If there's anything negative, it transforms it into something of the you know highest good of all. Or I just will send my spirit team to take care of it for me, and then they can decide what to do with the energy. Sometimes it's nice to just outsource this a little bit. So once the once that that phase, the clearing phase, is complete or as complete as it feels like it can be, then I go around the house again clockwise, except this time I am going to be intentionally drawing in energy that I want my house to be infused with. And I feel like this is pretty standard for most people. So most of us in our home, we want to feel safe, we want to feel grounded, we want to feel happy, we want to experience love and laughter and joy. So, what I will do for this go-around, this is kind of like the protection phase. This is where we're prote uh protecting and we we created a void by clearing the the home, and now we need to fill it with power, and we're we're doing it intentionally by filling it with power that we want to be there. So this part can be fun because you can use all kinds of tools for this. I usually keep it simple, and I I will use like an essential oil spray, like one that I think is positive and uplifting to me, and I will I'll spritz it around the house. Sometimes I will um continuing with my smoke theme, I will use sweetgrass. I really like sweetgrass for drawing in positive energy, and so that is something that I will sometimes do when I'm doing that next phase of the protecting the house. But it's the same process. You go around the house, if you're using smoke, you waft it into all of the places that you want it to go, all of the nooks and the crannies while you are reciting your words. Whatever you choose to say, may our home be filled with light and love, positivity, and yeah, then I just say that over and over as I'm going about the house. Again, you don't have to use smoke. You can you can use essential oils, um, you can sprinkle salt everywhere. Like you can put salt in a water bottle and just spritz it in places. So many different ways you can do it. You can also, if you're able to light a candle, you can go around with a candle and like use the light from the candle to just kind of shine into all of the places. So many different ways you can do it. And then when you're done with the perimeter of the house, go back to the center, sit in the middle, meditate again, and see how does it feel? Does it feel more uplifted? Does it feel lighter? Does it feel freer? If it does, then usually that's enough. And um if you lit a candle, you can just let it let it burn. I I kind of like to do this as like the final piece. I'll light a candle and kind of keep it lit in the center of my home, so long as it's safe, and you know, the candle will be attended, attended to. Somebody will be around to make sure it doesn't set anything on fire. Because it's kind of like the the principle. I feel like the light of the flame will like fire is another sort of diffusing element, or you know, like it can diffuse negative energy. So I like to keep the candle lit because it partly diffuses the negative energy, but it also like fills the home with warmth and light. And also Brigid is one of the most prominent deities that I work with in my practice, and she is the goddess of like the hearth and the flame. So I like to call in her energy to fill my home with wonderful, lovely energy. And then I do a final a final phase after this, and this is I actually set up a protective barrier around the house. And you know, like first you have to clear things from the inside of it, then you have to fill it with power. We did that, it's just like working on a person, and then I because it's your home, I give I do an extra step and I put a protective barrier on the outside of it. So with this, this part is also kind of fun. You can I like to use power animals to guard one direction of the house. So if you imagine that your home is loosely like a square. Although it doesn't have to be square shaped, but you know, like your your home has a shape, right? And you are surrounded by all the directions, like there's the east and the south and the west and the north, and then the sky above, and then the ground below. And what I like to do is like the final ceiling of the home, is I will face each direction. So this is we call this calling in the directions in shamanic work, and I will have a power animal like guard each section of each area. So I will ask one particular power animal if they can guard the east, and then one for the south, one for the west, and one for the north. And then if it feels like I need it, I'll do one for above and one for below. I have a lot of power animals, um, so I can do this. If you guys don't have power animals, that's okay. You don't need to use power animals, I just like to because they're I think one of the most important parts of my practice, and I just think they're utterly magical and awesome. So you can you don't need to use power animals if you don't have any. Um, some sometimes what I will do for clients when we're doing house clearings is I will bring an animal oracle deck, and we will pull oracle cards specifically for all of the directions for for um house protection. That is something that you can do if you're going to do that, just be respectful, you know, of whatever animals are coming through. Thank them. But like let's say you you pull four oracle cards from an animal deck, and you get like a gazelle, a hummingbird, uh a deer, and I don't know, a badger. And I what you do is you know, you face each direction. So what did I say, gazelle? Okay, so for the east, you face the east, and you in your mind's eye draw up a picture of a gazelle, or you can look at the picture on the card, and then you imagine the gazelle's energy just protecting that side of your home, and then you you feel its energy there, you send it love, appreciation, gratitude, and then you turn to the south and you do the same thing with the hummingbird. You imagine the hummingbird and its energy, like just protecting the south of your home, and then you do that with the other directions and the other animals that you pulled from your oracle deck. And if you're going to do this, I highly recommend getting a um getting totems to represent each of these animals so that you kind of have like anchor points for them, and also because it is it is not just anchor points, but it's like a way to thank them and show them gratitude by doing something to physically represent them. Okay, you can just use rocks for this, like rocks are perfectly fine. So you get like a rock that represents the gazelle and you place it somewhere, preferably on the outside of your home. But if you live in an apartment, that might be tricky. So you can do it like as far to the edge of the inside of your home as you can, and then you do the same thing with the other the other points, and then every so often, you know, every couple of weeks, couple of months, like you're going to freshen this up, like you're going to clear, you know, use some smoke or whatever to clear. We got cars going by. Sorry, guys. You're going to use whatever whatever you need to kind of like clear the rocks, call the animals up again to thank them for their their help for protecting your home. So yeah, you can you can have like a whole power animal spirit team protecting your home. And I love, love, love doing this. You can also just now that your home has been cleansed and um filled with lovely power, you can then imagine that there's just like a bubble around your home, uh, like above your home, around it, and underneath it as well. And this can just be like in your mind's eye, like an energetic barrier. I do this all the time. When I do this, for some reason, I always imagine that mine is purple, so like the aura of our home is purple. And it's like a force field, basically. And then when I put it up, I say, you know, nothing nothing that I don't want to come in can get in. But if anything negative needs to leave, it can leave. And that's pretty much it. That's the I feel like the sh I was gonna say the short and sweet of it, but this is not been short and sweet. But we can get way more into detail about this. So this is yeah, as succinct as I could make doing a house clearing. Remember, I said house clearings are a lot of work, which is why I stopped doing them. But you can do them on your own, just using these simple techniques. What's important is that you are grounded and centered when you get started, and that you try to stay that way while you're doing it. Um, sometimes I find it helpful to ask my family members to do this with me because it's like a power in numbers sort of thing, and it just it makes it less taxing for any one person. So we can do this where like we each take a room and we clear and raise the energy in that particular room, and then we like do the protection part together. So you can do it that way. Um, you can just do it on your own, whatever works for you. I would I would probably try it out on your own first because it is a process with you know like a formula to follow. Clear first, put like bring in the powerful positive energy that you want, and then put up a barrier, protect it. So, there you go. House protection, shamanic style. Hooray! Let me know if you guys found this episode helpful. I really think I need to just teach class about this because we can go way more into depth about it, and also like you really you do need to be know how to like work with your intuition and spirit guides. And I'm like, whoa, this is a whole this is a whole thing. This is a whole thing. There's so much more to it than I can talk about in one podcast episode. But it's like I said, it's October, the veil is thin. Whether you're in the fall or you're in the spring in the southern hemisphere, the veil is a little bit thinner at this time of year because it's a liminal space. It's I feel like the fall and the spring seasons are like they're the in-between seasons where things can just be a little the lines are a little blurrier, things are a little bit, I don't know, things are murkier, and I think it's just a good time to freshen things up, whether you're doing actual cleaning, which is also great, or you're doing energy clearing and protection. And your home is your safe space where you gotta be able to process and do so safely. So there you go. Home clearing, shamanic style. That's all I got for you guys for today, and that's enough. I hope you guys have a great week. I will be back in a couple weeks. We are going to be talking about ancestral magic. I think. I think we're talking about ancestral magic or Solen should be a good one. So stay tuned. And yeah, have a great week. I will catch you guys in the next episode. Thank you for listening. Bye.