Background photo by Mikhail Nilov via Pexels

Last time I posted on this blog was in July 2023, with the lofty goals of reviving said content while I was job searching months after my master’s degree graduation. It’s funny how I landed a job offer months later, neglected this blog (and the rest of my creative ambitions throughout 2024), only to be unceremoniously let go from said full-time job during my one-year anniversary.

I should’ve known something was up when nobody acknowledge my one-year work anniversary the day prior to my elimination. I was completely ambushed by the HR director at the time (turns out the HR director got the boot a month later) and my newly-appointed supervisor as I walked into the building, expecting a normal 9-to-5 work day—yet I was redirected into an empty conference room where I was delivered the awful news.

Despite this sudden event and the dreadful job hunting restart in a bad marketplace as of publication time, I’ve kept myself grounded and at-ease thanks to the past several years of tapping into practices like crystal meditations, astrology overviews and tarot/oracle card spreads in a serious manner.

In the spirit of this holistic journey, I wanted to share how I got to this point—starting as early as I can recall with my astrology obsession to my recent one-year anniversary of practicing tarot card reading.

Cosmic Explorer

I was always interested in astrology as soon as I became aware of it throughout my childhood. As a young girl growing up in Puerto Rico, the iconic Walter Mercado would grace his presence on television and deliver daily horoscopes after the evening news. Once I became aware of my birthday falling in the middle of Scorpio season, I made it a mission to flip through teen magazines and local newspapers for the obligatory “Horoscopes” section and find my corresponding messages.

After having internet access in the 2000s, I found out about moon signs and was curious about my own: Taurus moon, a balance to my Scorpio sun side as they’re both sister signs. Fast-forward to the 2010s and once I got a copy of my birth certificate, it was game over!

Little by little, things started to make sense after seeing the cosmic blueprint of my birth chart: how my Virgo rising manifests in people’s first impressions of me and paired up with my Scorpio placements, my obsession over details and getting things right on a first attempt, my Taurus moon reflects on how I have emotional hang-ups whenever things are outside of my comfort zone. Don’t get me started on how my Saturn return kicked my ass between 2015-2018(!!!), to the point where those 3 years blur in my memory and serve as one collective awful era.

I highly recommend finding your time and date of birth for accuracy, if you’re curious about your own astrology placements. Once you find your time and date, either consult with an astrology professional within your area or use mobile apps such as Sanctuary (not affiliated or sponsored, I genuinely love this app).

Crystal Clear

Adjusting myself back into society due to the global pandemic lockdowns, I started out slow by going to outdoor farmer’s market events after getting vaccinated but still practicing social distance and masking etiquette. Our local farmer’s market by the strip mall plaza featured a variety of small business owners, with some of the vendors being crystal shops.

My first purchases were from a matriarchal, BIPOC small business focusing on plants and crystals, with my initial haul consisting of clear quartz (a.k.a., the “master healer stone” as it covers all seven chakras), smokey quartz (a grounding and protective crystal) and fire quartz (an empowering crystal for action-oriented desires).

When it comes to crystals, two core memories shaped my point-of-view: the first time I accidentally shattered one, and the first time I felt a crystal vibration.

Weeks after my first crystal haul, the aforementioned smokey quartz heated up after I had a tense argument and was doing breathing practice to center myself. When I stood up to put the smokey quartz away, I tripped and the crystal slipped from my left hand and split in half when it hit the floor. It was a clean-cut shatter, too. No scattered small pieces or anything—straight line divided in the middle.

As for the crystal vibration, I was in the middle of my therapy session via remote Zoom call. In this session, I was expressing my desire to reconnect with my old 21-year-old self who was more bold and confident, yet carry the wisdom and compassion I’ve gained within my 30s. In the middle of this conversation, my labradorite palm stone shifted off my table and almost fell on the floor. I caught it off-screen, but ended up freaked out after my hour-long therapy session. Did the labradorite move as a sign from the universe to use it for this interpersonal desire? To this day, I’m not sure what the correct answer is, but labradorite solidified itself as one of my favorite crystals.

Since 2021, I’ve gradually built up a crystal collection in different forms such as statement jewelry pieces (rings, necklaces, etc.) and owning duplicate crystals in multiple shapes (towers, raw pieces, palm stones, etc.). Owning crystals has become my main source of connecting with the earth, as I’m far from having a “green thumb” while also appreciating the beauty of raw minerals.

Card-Carrying Tarot Enthusiast

Despite my early fascination with astrology and my recent deep dive into crystals, I had zero interest when it came to the subject of tarot. Equal parts religious trauma and overall skepticism, it wasn’t until my first tarot reading at a Halloween-style block party that I was bewitched back in October 2022. Why did I signed up in the first place? I figured “why not” since my husband and I were still waiting for our dinner table to be ready at a popular spot across the street.

I don’t recall much of it, but I remember the key points of achieving a huge milestone (basically I was one semester away from finishing grad school), how I was going to start a new career (at the time, I was on the fence about returning to the journalism industry) and how I would receive a job offer from an air sign (which ended up representing my ex-boss in the form of the King of Swords card).

After celebrating my so-called “dream job” and surviving the first 90 days of employment, I did another professional tarot reading during Lunar New Year in 2024—this time, with less cynicism and a more open mind. Spoiler alert: the Celtic cross spread the second tarot reader did was also accurate.

Two weeks later I signed up for a Tarot 101 course and later bought my first tarot deck, the Zodiac Tarot—combining my love of astrology and Rider-Waite style (RWS) imagery to understand the correlation between the cards and the cosmos. It’s now February 2025, a full calendar year since I began my tarot journey and both my collection of tarot and oracle cards have grown, as well as my intuitive capabilities.

Before tarot, I used to ignore my “gut feelings” and tried so hard to rationalize everything in a logical manner. It wasn’t until I started with the introductory classes nearby and online that I learned about tarot as a tool for self-reflection and tapping into your intuition, versus the pop culture media depictions of “fortune-telling, predicting your future” and whatnot. It’s wild how incorporating these practices benefit my mental health, from boosting my confidence after daily affirmation meditations to trusting my gut instincts when spotting a toxic job environment during an interview process.

In the future, I plan on sharing more of these aspects but in a dedicated forum, but let me know if you want a detailed outlook into my collections of crystals, tarot/oracle cards, etc. or how to get started as a newbie. Let me know in the comments below, and thanks for reading!