Category Archives: Path of the Witch

Blue Moon

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Hey y’all. If you haven’t heard yet, we’re in for a rare lunar treat this month 🌕 May is closing out with not one, but two full moons. The first arrived on May 1 with the full Flower Moon, and on May 31, the rare Blue Moon will rise.

This phenomenon only happens every two to three years, according to NASA. Additionally, this Blue Moon happens to be a micromoon, meaning the moon will be at its farthest point from Earth and may appear slightly smaller in the night sky.

Blue moons occur because the moon’s lunar cycle lasts about 29.5 days, while our calendar months stretch 30 to 31 days. Every two to three years, the timing aligns just right, giving us a full moon at both the beginning and end of a single month. Pretty magical, right?

And get this: bars across California, from LA to San Diego, are celebrating the occasion by serving blue-colored beer from Blue Moon Brewing Company in honor of this special moon. Right here in my own backyard, Panama Joe’s seems to be the hive for grabbing a pint of blue beer.

Spiritually, the Blue Moon is seen as a rare cosmic gift, a lunar moment believed to amplify our intentions and inner calling. According to Tea and Rosemary, this Blue Moon rises in Sagittarius opposite the Gemini Sun, illuminating our beliefs, personal truths, and deep hunger for freedom. Right on!

Sagittarius energy invites us to expand, explore, and aim higher. As they describe it, this may be one of the most adventurous and truth-revealing moons of the year. Here’s an invitation to turn inward and listen closely to what this rare Blue Moon may be bringing forth in you:

This moon will bring:

  • A surge of optimism and big picture vision
  • Revelation of deeply buried truths
  • A burning desire for authenticity (always)
  • Opportunities for travel, learning, or spiritual growth (I’m visiting MA & CO next month)

This moon asks:

  • What uncomfortable truths are becoming clear?
  • What outdated beliefs are you ready to release?
  • What adventure is calling you forward?

Great journal prompts for self-reflection!

Here are some Blue Moon activities:

  • Go for a night walk under the moonlight
  • Dance freely to upbeat music as an offering to the moon (Count me in!)
  • Burn a list of limiting beliefs in a sacred fire (or candlelight)
  • Bury a written wish at the base of a tree
  • Embark on a spontaneous adventure

So, people, take aim and point your arrow toward whatever sets your soul ablaze! But above all, take a moment to soak in the wonder of this rare Blue Moon. Cheers!

Almost There!

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Now that I’m stepping away from the profession of psychotherapy, it feels okay to reveal my identity. Hey, I’m Mj, aka Moongirl! Before becoming a therapist, I shared photos regularly, but once I entered the field professionally, I felt the need to protect my privacy in case a client happened upon my site. It served its purpose for a long time, though I must admit it feels good to have a little more freedom now, and I hope to write more often again.

Just three more days until my resignation is official! I saw my final client today, and the rest of my time will be spent writing termination notes. Our clinical team is attending a “retreat” on Wednesday, my last day, and apparently we’re going to an escape room. I’ve never done one before, so that should be interesting. There’s something quite poetic about ending my career in mental health by trying to escape a locked room!

Despite the grief of saying goodbye to my colleagues and students, I’m beginning to accept that it’s time for me to move on. It has taken four years to fully realize that this work caused more than burnout. It unearthed pain by triggering and retriggering wounds of my own. To sit with that kind of suffering day after day eventually takes its toll. Yes, I spent years doing my own trauma work in therapy. I still don’t entirely understand why this profession affected me the way it did while other therapists with similar histories seemed less impacted. Perhaps I’m simply too sensitive — I sure as hell can’t figure it out.

In all honesty, the path of the witch, otherwise known as modern witchcraft, and spirituality have helped me heal more deeply than anything else, and for that, I’m profoundly grateful 🌙 It’s a deeply personal, lifelong spiritual and magikal journey, far removed from the way it’s often portrayed in movies. This path has guided me back to what feels most meaningful: nature, writing, music, spirituality, connection to self and others, and learning to trust myself. In many ways, it’s been a return to who I truly am.

To honor the closing of one chapter and the beginning of another, I’ll be celebrating with a new tattoo. Photos to come ✨

And I’m excited about starting a sound therapy practice, though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t also a little scared. I’m not sure it’s the kind of work that generates a substantial income, but to me that isn’t the only measure of a meaningful life. For now, I suppose I’ll simply see what becomes of it. Life is too short — I don’t want to waste precious time! I hope to wake up on Thursday, drink my cup of coffee slowly, and lounge in bed all morning long. That is the life.

Crossroads

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I did it. Yesterday, April 17, under the New Moon, I resigned from my job. The New Moon symbolizes fresh beginnings, intention-setting, planting seeds, and quiet reflection. My last day will be May 20, the end of my contract and the close of the semester. A chapter is ending.

I began this role as a university psychotherapist in June 2023, just three days after leaving my ex-husband and moving into a small apartment of my own. In many ways, that job marked the beginning of a new life. But the work proved far more demanding than I had anticipated.

During my time at the university, I came to a quiet but persistent truth: I’ve never really enjoyed being a therapist. I kept waiting for it to get better, but it never did. Instead, the work grew heavier, increasingly draining. And I’m afraid not even the summer, winter, and spring breaks could prevent burnout.

What did light me up was my role as the Asian & Pacific Islander (API) Cultural Center Liaison, work rooted in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of API students. That space felt different — lighter — and the students were an absolute joy to work with.

I believe I’m a good trauma therapist. The starry heavens know I’ve poured years and more money than I care to recount on trainings, books, and a lifetime’s worth of lived experience. It just rings hollow. That may sound harsh. I wish I’d known then what I know now. I can’t reclaim that time, but I can choose what comes next: a slower, simpler, more artful life.

I’m hoping to grow my sound therapy practice, Om Sacred Sound Journeys, and leave room for whatever else wants to emerge. I know music will be part of this next chapter and writing, too. I’m planning on beginning a new book.

My last book never found commercial success. I’ve only just started reading it for the first time since it was published in 2017. I mean, how many times did I reread, reshape, and edit the draft? The story of my first trip to Taiwan to meet my birth family marks one of the most significant chapters of my life. Publishing it wasn’t for nothing. A younger version of me wrote those pages from a very different place. And still, the emotions are just as vivid, from the search to the moment we found our way back to one another.

Earlier this week, the oracle card “to the stars and beyond” surfaced in my (tarot) reading from Rose Bae Tarot’s These Blue Bones, a deck having a moment right now. It felt like both a spark and an affirmation for my decision to resign. Lately, I find myself thinking about mortality, not out of gloom, but clarity. Time shifts as we mature. There’s less time to do what makes you happy. In this season, I get to choose how I live it. Autonomy. Personal sovereignty. Independence. Let me embody this new path, to the stars and beyond.

This song brings me back to my younger self. I’ve been especially nostalgic of late. It may not quite fit this post, but it fits my mood perfectly.

A Spring Break Reflection

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Hi ya’ll. Haven’t visited WP in quite some time. I’m reveling in the quiet meanderings of spring break. Yes, it finally arrived, and not a minute too soon. My pup, Poppie, is visiting till Friday. She is the best-est companion, happy little sassy soul. To savor slow living is truly the greatest gift of all.

During my morning meditation and reading, Opulence came forward (Magick of You oracle cards). There are times when I draw a card that simply doesn’t resonate as much as the others in a reading, appears the opposite of what I’m thinking and feeling, and likely for good reason! Here is the insight offered in the guidebook:

There is great wisdom in going with life’s flow and choosing battles, conflicts and accepting change wisely and peacefully. There is also a time to assert your authority and trust your wisdom and leadership skills. People and situations are now looking to you for guidance. Wear your success and assets proudly – they are well earned. It’s time to be a light so that others may follow.

The girl of Opulence wears the lavish golden crown of leadership. It emits a radiant glow and signifies spiritual enlightenment as well as earthly accomplishment. Being in an exalted position gives you the opportunity to be a wise leader and help others, much like happiness is only real when shared, and being exalted only meaningful when it helps others.

I’m not a leader of anything, except that of my own life. Wear your success and assets proudly – they were well earned, now that resounds. I think leaving an unhealthy relationship is a huge success, lol. “Being in an exalted position” speaks to me of privilege. Using my position of privilege means helping others. Since childhood, I’ve felt a deep call to help others.

There is a ritual included with each oracle card in the deck. The ritual associated with Opulence is: The Light of Leadership. It calls you to write a list of your personally perceived best assets and accomplishments, then ask someone who knows you well what they think their best assets and accomplishements are. Finally, you’re called to ask a stranger what they perceive might be useful and advantageous to them. So, I ask, dear reader, if you might be so inclined to send what you perceive might be useful and advantageous to me. This is the initial part of the ritual.

Here is what I came up with regarding my list of personally perceived assets and accomplishments:

  • Wisdom
  • Kindness
  • Compassion
  • Musical ability
  • Resilience
  • Intuitive
  • Wrote a book
  • Divorce
  • Independence-freedom
  • Confidence
  • Mom

The purpose of the ritual is to shine your light into dark places where needed. Subsequently, an opportunity to allow yourself to shine may appear in which you can be of help to others. Whether you believe in magic or not, it’s a fun little ritual that can only bring more light into the world.

Perhaps the call to assert your leadership skills as indicated in the meaning of this card symbolizes the need to be the leader of my own life, to claim my personal soverignty and power. After all, I am finally free, well mostly free. It took forever to get here, and there will be no going back!

Cheers!

Held by Sound

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Have you ever been so moved by a piece of music that it brought you to tears? I have. I still am.

For days, I’ve felt drawn to listen to On the Nature of Daylight by Max Richter. Are you familiar with it? It’s easily one of my favorite contemporary classical works. I love all of Richter’s music, but this piece feels especially transcendent.

I wanted to give it my full attention, and the quiet of this morning felt like the perfect time. I sat with headphones on, hands crossed over my heart, and let the music hold space. I literally shed tears, so completely was I captured by it.

So many thoughts and emotions moved through me that I began listing them in my journal: ecstasy, sorrow, despair, sadness, transcendence, love, intimacy, desire, longing, yearning, hope, bliss, magick, forgiveness, tenderness, tolerance, caress, breath, movement, darkness, light, expression, expansion, transformation, warmth, belief, faith, embrace, connection, grief, loss, truth…

And yet words still feel insufficient to describe this kind of magick.

I kept the piece on repeat as I moved through my morning tarot reading. The first card I drew was Art — Temperance in the Rider–Waite–Smith system — a card of integration and alchemy: making whatever you do a work of art; friendship between mind and heart; rest and activity; light and dark; self and others; approaching life creatively, with an artist’s eye.

It felt deeply aligned with the experience itself — as though the music and the card were speaking the same language.

Music saves and meets me exactly where I am. My first love — and likely my last.

I remember spending hours alone in a tiny practice room at Centenary College (of Louisiana), just me and Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Mozart…There was no fear or judgment there. No pressure to please an audience or play perfectly. Only connection — to the keyboard, to sound, to frequency and vibration. It felt sublime.

In today’s heavy world, music still holds the power to uplift, to ground, and to offer a kind of safe communion unlike anything else.

I recently discovered an artist who was new to me: Yannic Lowack, a German composer. The piece featured below, Leuer, is another composition I’ve completely fallen in love with. He also shared a short preview of an orchestral version — without piano — on Instagram. You can find him on both YouTube and Instagram.

I miss those days of studying music and practicing piano every day. They remind me of who I was — and still am, despite the years away — a musician, drawn to the expressive arts. May the days ahead bring new opportunities to return to the keyboard and reconnect with that musical inheritance!

things inspiring me at the turn of a new year

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The turning of a new year feels like a threshold. A liminal space where the old hasn’t fully released and the new is still forming. I’m approaching this year with reverence and a willingness to listen.

I’m inspired by emptiness and pause, by moving slowly enough to feel my breath, my body, and the subtle ways intuition speaks. This season is teaching me that becoming is a spiritual process, not something to force, but something to tend. I often feel like I’m learning things I wish I’d practiced years ago.

Music, art, and tarot are my spiritual anchors. Music is one thing I don’t think I could live without. It connects me to places within that no one else sees, to innocence, curiosity, adventure, and fearlessness. There is a kind of purity in music, something unspoiled by the world. Music brings me back into rhythm when I feel scattered. Art is like a devotional practice, a way of communing with the divine through color, texture, and movement. It allows emotion to alchemize into meaning without needing explanation.

Tarot is my sacred mirror, a language of images and symbols that invite dialogue with my soul. Each card is an invitation to slow down, to notice what is stirring beneath the surface, and to trust my inner wisdom over all the external noise. I’m in love with it.

The rituals I practice tend to be simple yet intentional. Making my morning cup of coffee. Lighting a candle before I begin. Playing music with awareness. Creating without an outcome in mind. Pulling a card and sitting with its message as a form of prayer. These practices ground me in the present moment and remind me that spirituality lives in attention, not performance, and for one who has struggled with crippling performance anxiety, it is an invitation to let go.

This year, I’m choosing devotion over productivity, alignment over striving. I’m honoring rest as sacred and simplicity as a form of truth. I’m learning to recognize the divine in ordinary moments: A familiar melody, light through my window, the quiet companionship of my beloved dachshund, Poppie.

As I step into this new year, I am trying my best to do so with soft faith. Trusting timing, the unseen, and allowing life to unfold as it will. Let me be guided by sound, symbol, and creative spirit, for they are truly the languages through which my soul remembers what it already knows.

Down memory lane. Oh, how I loved classic rock growing up. This playlist stirs up cherished memories, a sense of innocence and curiosity, and the wild, adventurous spirit of those years.

Honor Rest & Renewal on Samhain

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Today, I pause. I breathe. I rest and honor my ancestors on this blessed Samhain.

I’m grateful to have the day off – to simply be. To sit in stillness and solitude without the weight of expectation feels like a blessing in itself. The veil is thin today, and I lean into the presence of those who came before me – my birth mother and father, and the lineage of ancestors whose names I may never know. I honor them, and I honor the mystery that connects us across time and space.

Lately, life has felt full and demanding. I’m working full-time again, and though I hoped summer break would bring the restoration I so deeply needed, fatigue seems to have returned too soon. Halfway through the fall semester, I find myself wondering how to sustain balance – how to counsel others, meet the demands of my current job while not forgetting myself.

My dream remains clear: To eventually transition into full-time sound therapy work. Supporting my adult daughter these past two years has delayed that shift, yet I hold faith that in time, things will align. When she finds her footing, I’ll be able to step more fully into the work my heart longs for, creating healing spaces through resonance, stillness, and sound.

Despite the challenges, I’m proud of the small steps forward. I’ve completed my website, OM Sacred Sound Journeys, a milestone that feels like planting a tiny seed. Beginning next February, I’ll offer bi-weekly sound therapy sessions, a sacred rhythm I hope will grow into something sustainable and nourishing. 

I’m reconnecting with my musical roots, singing and playing for a herd I once worked with in equine-assisted psychotherapy and slowly returning to my guitar after years away. These small acts of reconnection remind me that healing unfolds gradually, as does starting a private practice.

Self-employment feels both thrilling and terrifying. The freedom to follow my calling is overshadowed by the very real worries of bills, rent, health insurance, and all the practicalities of life. Yet amidst uncertainty, I sense that this path is where I’m meant to go.

So today, under the quiet light of Samhain, I choose rest. I choose reflection. I choose to listen deeply to the whispers of my ancestors, to the call of my own heart, and to stillness. May this season bring renewal, remembrance, and faith in what is yet to come.

Photo by Catherine Crawford on Unsplash

Lotus Summer

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Greetings! I’m enjoying the last few days of summer before I head back to work. Tomorrow. I must say, I look forward to Fall and the change of season. Mabon falls on September 22nd, which gives me something to look forward to. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, summer has been immensely restorative; I’ll refer to it as Lotus Summer. Lotus flowers are deeply symbolic in many cultures. Lotuses grow in murky, shallow waters. They rise from the mud without stain, and are therefore viewed as a symbol of purity. Because they return to the water in the evening and open their blooms at the break of day, lotuses represent strength, resilience, and rebirth, as well as transcendence: The lotus symbolizes the human spirit transcending over worldly matter since it blooms from the underworld into the light. I feel, in many ways, like the Lotus.

It’s been a summer of exploring themes around death and rebirth, cycles, beginnings and endings, blooming, rising up from the mud. When last semester ended, I was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. It dawned on me recently how little I accounted for the impact of divorce on my wellbeing. I was functioning on adrenaline those first several months of the divorce proceedings. And when it wore off, I plummeted. I’ve discovered that there’s much literature on the impact of divorce on individuals, how it affects their work lives, relationships, and emotional and physical health. I grossly underestimated my ability to manage work, the loss of my dog and support of my daughter, financial instability, three moves, starting over. I thought I was stronger, better, more capable, more confident. But I sank, and I’m usually a stronger swimmer than that.

It’s now late summer – Rebirth. I am standing, not sinking. The divorce no longer feels like a black hole. There are moments of deep sadness and grief. I’m not sure one ever gets over it completely. That’s just me. A friend of mine, a psychotherapist who divorced years ago, told me to expect a three-year-mucking-through-shit; my sound healing mentor, also divorced, said give it five. I rolled my eyes. How little did I know. It’s year two.

I read recently,

The lessons we learn along our journey and the pains that come along with them are but stages on the wheel of regeneration.

Death Doula Oracle – author & photographer – Theodore Saint & Chris Williams

Indeed. So much gratitude for the time off to recover, to regenerate. Solitude and rest were the medicine, and making the request to change my 12-month contract to academic year may have saved my life. I have spent everyday this summer writing and recently took to collaging my journals. Can’t wait to collage my next. Also into drawing dragons of late. Interestingly, I barely listened to any music; much more preferred silence. The only other time I could not bear to listen to music was after the death of my first dachshund, Peppermint. I’m slowly weaving my way back to some favorite artists and bands from the 80s – that era holds a certain nostalgia in my heart that’s quite comforting. And, I miss my younger self. I’ve shared a few moments of summer inspiration here.

And, on I go. Wishing you all a beautiful day. Stop and marvel at the tiny things that bring you joy and pleasure. May you tend to the soil of YOU!

-Photos above were taken at Laguna Beach, CA, by moi on a venture with a friend.

-Yummy matcha coffee & garden pics taken at Anima Mundi Apothecary in Venice, CA.

-My collaged journal-Summer theme: Death/rebirth/exploring the shadows within.

-Little dragon ouroboros drawing-not yet finished, but I’ll eventually get to it.

-Purchase the Death Doula Oracle cards here. They’re powerful cards for working with themes around transition, transformation, death, endings and are absolutely gorgeous.

Feature Photo by Kristijan Arsov on Unsplash