When I wrote my first book on Aphrodite, I created an altar. I wanted a space of reverence, where I might return for inspiration and guidance. It included several statues, plenty of offerings, and some Greek wine.

If I was going to write about a goddess, she would be celebrated.

Perhaps I wanted her approval.

Perhaps I wanted divine permission.

Perhaps I hoped an altar might show her (and me) that I was devoted enough.

Perhaps it wasn’t necessary at all.

I am not separate from the divine. Even when I turn away. Even when I forget. Even when I misspeak.

I granted myself an audience with my inherent wisdom.

I stopped reading self-help books. I scrolled past all the tarot readers on TikTok.

I stopped looking for the cracks and rough edges.

I stopped trying to fix.

I started to live, to laugh, to play, to create.

I spoke up for myself and let things be uncomfortable.

I asked for what I wanted and honored the answers I received.

I put my attention toward people and places that nourished me.

I turned my heart to the life before me.

My practice is showing up.

My offering is my breath.

My devotion is a prayer/spell that heals.

I see my healing in small ways, the smaller reactions, the shorter depressive moments, the easier laughter.

I let things go.

I detach from expectations.

I nap.

Maybe you don’t need to call on the divine, maybe you just need to trust their presence. Not as a dismissal of responsibility, but as a reclaiming of power.

in love and magick — Irisanya

PS - Thanks to the new paid subscribers — woo hoo. Now that my brain is released from school for a little bit, I’m going to get some things in place for the rest of the year for you (and all of my community). We’re growing every week, and I thank you for listening and reading. My hope is to support you, just as you are.

PPS - I have a new book on Hecate coming out in the UK and US at the end of June, early July. And don’t forget about my other recent books: The Muses and Pantheon: The Greeks.

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Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Find my books on Bookshop or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

Hecate calls out from the darkness. Her steps follow the sound of hounds, daughter of Titans, child of justice and destruction. She is a frequent ally of witches and magick makers, a being whose depth and dark resounds and requests something more. Hecate asks you to arrive clear and steady; she asks you to consider your power and its impact.

Unlike other deities in Greek mythology, Hecate is first mentioned by name in Hesiod’s Theogony. She’s not in the Iliad or the Linear B texts like other godds. She seems to come from the underworld of history, which may seem strange given that she is a goddess so widely celebrated, cherished, and feared. One would think she would be easy to trace, for her name appears in movies, plays, and books.

Scholars repeatedly note how challenging it is to pinpoint her beginning; however, perhaps that is the point.

A deity of the liminal spaces cannot arrive with clear answers. Perhaps it is better, after all, to remember that crossroads offer multiple ways to explore and travel. They offer choices and decision points. This goddess is not easily contained, explained, or controlled. Hecate arrives exactly, to paraphrase Tolkien, as she means to. And as she likes.

Hecate is one of the first deities I wanted to fall on my knees for. And I have. Again and again. I carry stones for her in my purse. I have an altar to her in the middle of my apartment.

She has heard my longing, my rage, and my grief.

She held them gently, as gifts and torches to guide my next steps.

She shakes weak foundations and illuminates dark skies.

I am honored to share some of the magick we’ve done together in this book, "Hecate: Goddess of Magick & Witchcraft.”

(And by the time this post comes out, I should be done with school for a bit. There’s so much more I have coming for you and me and love…)

in love and magick — Irisanya

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Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

Dear reader,

I write to you from the past, a rainy day where the lighting is perfect for writing, but the delivery truck outside has been idling for at least twenty minutes.

I write to you from a place of seeing an end in sight to projects and papers and academic task lists.

I write to you from a place of combing through notes and finding ‘earned catharsis’ as an idea to track down, to explore in the future.

I write to you from that future, where a phrase meets lived experience. Where I was planning out my catharsis in the grocery store as soon as it opened.

Where I granted myself permission to release, not from tragedy, but from necessity.

Catharsis is often interwoven with tragedy. As though enough of the right kind of pain permits release, allows liberation.

Between student sessions, I update a friend on the end of the semester. He tells me that he’s stayed up multiple nights to finish his thesis. The day after turning it in, he slept all day. I congratulate him and witness the relief wash across his face.

When he looks to me for my own story of academic self-flagellation, I say, “There’s nothing worth staying up all night for.”

It’s not entirely true, and I know this when I finish the sentence.

Maybe I’ve read too many myths to believe the story of earned catharsis anymore. Though I will suffer for something I deem worthy of physical and psychic bruising, it does not always come with a fresh start.

I often feel…relief. I earn the knowledge of my ability to, once again, hurt myself and continue. I learn that I can breathe through anything (so far).

This is not catharsis.

This is a stepping stone in the middle of a vast river of ‘what next.’

What if you could offer yourself something kinder?

What if you could grant yourself permission to let go before you’ve ‘earned’ it?

What if you could stop the rumination and flagellation?

Discomfort is one thing, pain is another. You can choose to see how far you can go, and you can choose to go no further than that.

No one should measure your healing by the amount of your struggle, especially you.

I will not be doing an all-nighter nor will I spend every moment obsessing over a rubric or a piece of feedback.

Instead, I will look out the window to notice the rain.

Instead, I will spend an hour learning about the hibiscus.

Instead, I will write something that will not be graded.

I will turn toward what wanted to be released from my notes app, from my brain, from my heart.

Maybe it will mean nothing. Maybe it will heal something

In love and magick —

Irisanya

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Classes & Events

Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

Thanks for being a part of this growing community.

Thanks for reading and responding and sharing and subscribing.

Thanks for those who can send a few bucks my way each month or each year.

I’m wrapping up the majority of my end-of-semester projects this week, so I’m not going to write anything new for this Monday.

(Of course, I may write something anyway, because I’m who I am.)

Take care of you, take care of your heart, and know you are loved.

in love and magick,

Irisanya

We’re just 48 hours away from Awaken Your Psychic Gifts (May 20–22), and I wanted to make sure you didn’t miss it.

If you’ve been feeling the pull to trust your intuition more, understand your gifts, or stop second-guessing what you sense… this is exactly what we’ll be exploring.

This is a free 3-day event focused on:

• Intuition and psychic development

• Divination and working with tools

• Spirit communication and deepening your connection

I’ll be teaching:

Cultivating Heart-Led Intuition in a Heartbreaking World

And I’ll be joined by an incredible group of speakers sharing their approaches, experiences, and practices.

You can still register here:

Register Here

Once we begin, each session will only be available for a limited time, so if this is something you’ve been curious about, now is the time to join us.

Hope to see you there,

Irisanya

In one of my classes this week, I was reminded how Ernest Hemingway edited the last page of Farewell to Arms 39 times. In a 1958 interview with the Paris Review, when asked why, the author said, “Getting the words right.”

Inwardly, I cringed at the thought. Not because I don’t like editing. But more because I cringed at the many ways that could go wrong.

When I look at something, turn it over and turn it over again, I might look at something that never needed to be noticed by me.

But I looked at it. Again.

Much of my writing is a first draft, or a nearly-first draft. I edit as I go along. I edit as I record my substack audios, as I hear the words aloud.

A part of me believes my process to be one of trust.

And yet, I can also see it might also be a process of avoidance.

Maybe something could be better.

If I turned it over. If I looked at it again.

Frequent writing advice reminds us to ‘kill our darlings,’ a reference to removing words we’re overly attached to in a piece.

After all, my humor is not your humor. To include inside jokes that are only funny to me and a few other people is to exclude those not in on the joke.

The ‘darling’ will feel out of place to them, even if it is BRILLIANT to me.

So, they must be removed, perhaps carried to the ever-growing file with ‘ideas that need a home someday.’

This week, a friend and I got to see RF Kuang at Brisbane Powerhouse in a series put on by the Brisbane Writers Festival. We read her book Yellowface as part of a class, and we were excited to hear her speak about her writing.

Outside the venue, we stopped and laughed at the Stop/Go sign, seen in the picture above. I didn’t even notice it the first time I walked around the building. Maybe I’d already written it off as an oddly placed Stop sign because it was red and octagon shaped but it has Go written on it.

I didn’t notice it until someone else pointed it out.

There are stories I tell of myself. Sometimes, I whisper them as I walk around my apartment, as though rehearsing for an interview.

I did this because of this, and that makes sense because I have always been…

The more I look at my writing, the more I look at myself. What darlings do I keep around? What stories do I repeat? How do I want my life to sound in my ears? Where could I let go of old interpretations?

How can I rewrite the story I’ve retold 39 times to anyone who would hear?

The neurodivergent me wants to be truthful and complete in each story I offer to the world and to myself. But no one really cares about some of those pages besides me.

(If I ever need to make a case for my life, I can remember EVERYTHING.)

Many myths, many stories are not complete. They are filled in by translations and context clues. They are interpreted for the modern day, for the storyteller, for the audience.

Maybe killing some darlings is a precise gift, editing one’s life is less about removing and more about clarifying.

Because the more I look at things, the more I understand what I’m trying to say.

The more I understand the life I’m trying to live.

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Classes & Events

20 - 22 May - Awaken Your Psychic Gifts Summit - free & online - I’m presenting and participating in a live panel…

Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

Leave a comment

Classes & Events

20 - 22 May - Awaken Your Psychic Gifts Summit - free & online - I’m presenting and participating in a live panel…

Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

The other day, I had a meeting that cancelled before I left my apartment. That meant time off. I had hours to do whatever I wanted. And I was dressed. And medicated.

And usually that would lead to a most impressive scrolling adventure.

I’d like to tell you that postgrad life has changed me into a person who is productive all the time. But no.

No. No.

However, I wanted to get some things done so I could crash early after a rough night of insomnia.

So I thought I’d share how I SUCCESSFULLY got things done. Including this post.

Welcome to Writer Tips, a semi-regular series, and inspired by a social media post I made to keep myself accountable.

Here’s what I do:

1. Make a To Do list (if I don’t already have one). I use a small paper notepad so I can’t put too many things down.

2. Get my things organized, e.g., clear my desk, get a drink (okay, more than one — water, caffeine), eat a small snack (check the crumb on my lip), and get my supplies (glasses, pen, laptop, noise-canceling headphones).

3. Turn on music that’s not going to distract me. Today, it’s Noah Kahan because it lines up with the mood I want to be in for a particular piece that’s due tomorrow. 😊

4. Start on the ‘easiest’ or most fun project. It makes me feel successful and energized. Thankfully the piece I want/need to write is the fun one.

5. Start.

Bonus tip: When I don’t wanna, I give myself a time container and promise to stop if things aren’t flowing by the end. They usually are.

TL;DR — Unexpected free time often becomes doom scrolling if I don’t follow steps I know work for me.

And yeah, sometimes free time stays free time. And that’s good too.

(For you folks who already saw this on social media, thanks for the follow.)

If you’ve arrived here, was this helpful?

Do you want to see more writing stuff?

I’ll still do my personal essays and witchy stuff, but if you want more insight into my writing process, I’d love to share that too.

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Classes & Events

20 - 22 May - Awaken Your Psychic Gifts Summit - free & online - I’m presenting and participating in a live panel…

Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

I’ll be teaching at Awaken Your Psychic Gifts, a free 3-day event happening May 20–22, 2026.

My session is:

Cultivating Heart-led Intuition in a Heartbreaking World

If you’ve ever questioned your intuition, ignored a gut feeling, or wondered if you’re “making it up”… you’re not alone.

So many of us were never taught how to trust what we feel, sense, or just *know*.

That’s exactly what we’re exploring

This isn’t about becoming someone new.

It’s about understanding how your intuition already works, and learning how to trust it. AND…learning to trust it when the rest of the world is loud, loud, loud

I’ll be joined by an incredible lineup of speakers sharing on intuition, divination, and spirit communication.

AND, I’ll be a part of a live panel, so come see me there too.

You can register for free here:

www.bruja.us/summit

I’d love to have you there.

Irisanya

As I stirred my chai on a cool morning in Brisbane, the sky looked funny. I didn’t have my glasses on, so I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. But my brain put together patterns: light and clouds. The tops of the trees looked golden…

Rainbow.

And then I found it. When I put my glasses on, I saw a bright arc over the nearby shopping centre.

The weekend before, I’d seen rainbows each day. People in my life sent me pictures of rainbows across the city and from an island I’ve met. I stopped in the middle of teaching a class because the brilliance of a rainbow outside my window was too distracting.

I had to stop everything.

I had to stop to watch the colours as they bent across the sky, brightened and faded.

And one birthed itself to life and light again.

I know that move.

All it takes is a few drops of water, some sunlight and the right perspective to create a rainbow.

But you also have to look out, look up.

You have to know the signs, remember the recipe, forget the screen.

When I’m not looking, I can miss miracles.

The colours of grief, joy, creativity, depression, longing, willingness, confusion, they bend over backwards for me, holding each other to create a life like mine.

Aligning to create something that’s hard to miss.

Something marvellous. Something that could catch my breath if I stopped holding it in a habitual state of waiting for it to make sense.

Waiting for it to be predictable. Waiting for it to be a clear map. Waiting for it to be easy and comfortable and not-at-all scary.

But I have also left rooms, lines, and lives to chase something worth chasing.

I have run into the street where it rained harder than I expected, but it was warm and the sky lit up. The rainbow was waiting each time.

It’s not going to stay forever, but it will last as long as the moment I meet it.

I am a co-conspirator in these realms of rainbows and dreams and love spells. They exist because I do. They come alive because I am.

The colours are brilliant.

And harder and harder to miss.

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Classes & Events

Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

I know my way around UQ’s campus now. I don’t have to look at the app or a map.

The St Lucia campus is large with so many buildings and hidden pathways and shortcuts and stairways that look the same at night, even with the twinkle lights.

But I’ve been around a bit. I’ve figured out the ways.

The ways for me, anyway.

I’ve gotten lost, double backed, and found my way again.

When I stopped worrying about finding places, I became present.

Aware.

There are signs everywhere, signs I never noticed until I didn’t need them.

I’m over halfway done with the first of three semesters, and my brain wants to plan out the rest of my life.

No surprise, I didn’t sleep last night. On the bus home, I talked to a friend about what I think I want to do, and got some good feedback and direction.

I need to figure out a few things, what my dissertation will be on, who I want to work with, what I want to study, and what I want to get obsessed about and hopefully turn into a PhD research plan.

My life.

I had some ideas bubble up when I first got accepted to this program, and while those are still there, I also know I want to get to the heart (pun intended) of my work in the world.

Beyond writing is the work of love, relationships, storytelling, healing, and grief.

With writing, all of these things exist and grow and morph and whisper their not-so-secrets.

They are universal and unique.

They are everyone and only me.

They are the turning of stars and skies.

I am meant to take on, surrender to, and immerse myself in something bigger than I think I can handle.

And that will become the memory, the epitaph.

It will become the mirror I must gaze into to truly see what asks to be known.

To name my life’s work is to name something that cringes to be called important.

Numinous comes to mind.

When people of the 1600s were ruminating on an adjective to reflect their awe of the mystical and supernatural elements of their experiences, they gave the nod to numinous, and quite aptly so. Numinous comes from the Latin word numen, which can mean both “a nod of the head” and “divine will,” the latter sense suggesting a figurative divine nod indicating approval or command. (English users were already using the noun numen, a direct borrowing from Latin, to refer to a spiritual force or influence associated with a particular place or phenomenon.) Numinous is not a common or everyday word, which seems fitting for one used to describe what is far from quotidian, and instead part of the realm of the spiritual, the holy, or the transcendent. — Merriam-Webster Online

Perhaps if I am opening to something mysterious, I must allow my knees to bend.

Perhaps if I am opening to wonder, I need to clasp my hands in curiosity.

Perhaps this journey asks me to be more reverent.

Perhaps I could do with some silence so the awe might echo loudly.

Perhaps I do not need to know what to carve in the stone, but rather I need to pick up the tools and learn how to hold them.

How to make space in stone.

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Classes & Events

Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

As I’m writing this, the sky is filled with intense astrology. Seven planets in Aries as of April 17.

Aries is the beginning, the ram.

Impatient. Direct. Decisive.

Time to take action.

By the time you read this, the planets will be moving out of that sign, so let this be a point of reflection. Even if you didn’t notice anything between around April 15th and the 20th, it’s wise to stop.

Look around.

Look to the sides of yourself.

Look beneath.

Look up.

Look to the stars or the sun or the night sky or the clouded morning.

Look.

The heavens rearrange themselves again and again. Between their movement and our perspective and the spinning of this great rock; we are always moving.

We are always changing position and placement.

We are becoming and unbecoming with each breath.

We don’t have to ‘do’ anything.

No matter how we show up, we will become something different than the year before. And when we do show up, we might invite something to come a little closer, to be noticed, to be more intimately known.

Perhaps, recognized.

Look around. Look up. Look down.

Notice the small revolutions, the minuscule efforts, the watered down action steps, and the whispered almost-truths.

Notice how you have already left behind who you thought you would always be, how you have already left behind what you thought was good enough—or even more than enough for the past you.

If you like, write a letter to the past selves you have been. Allow them to be remembered, loved, and even adored.

There is wisdom in the rearview.

But stay there for only a moment.

The world keeps spinning, and you have so many more selves to become.

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Classes & Events

Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

I visited the Dearly Departed exhibit at the State Library of Queensland over break.

I met up with uni friends and we got to ‘meet’ death through history, performance, and art, documentation of rituals and practices, and recordings of stories that challenge society’s relationship to dying.

It was dark. It was deep. It was celebratory.

Per the exhibition’s description, this was meant to explore: “what it means to live well, die well and honour those who came before us.”

Unsurprisingly, I turn to the memory of my mom’s death, its impending anniversary.

I’ve learned a lot about grief in the last nine years.

I’ve learned how many shapes it can take, how many places it can hide—and still I am surprised by its stubbornness, its tenacity often matching my own want for a break from the feelings.

Grief finds its way into the everyday. Grief about how the world has changed, how things are lost too easily, how safety is not assured, and how nothing feels as steady as it once did.

Here is what I think I know about grief. Today, anyway.

Sometimes, when I am sad, a friend will try to comfort me. They will remind me how I will get through ‘it’ and come out stronger on the other side.

(My history of loss has already taught me this, several times over.)

Nearly a decade after that shocking loss of my mom, instead of nodding and hoping the cheerleading session ends quickly, I turn toward the discomfort, hold its hand, and ask the well-intentioned consoler, “Can I be sad right now?”

I have learned how to hold grief, even in the moments where it washes over wounds I thought were closed up. I know how to speak for my grief, even when I know it is the uncomfortable topic, it’s also a necessary vantage point.

Stop here.

Stop where the loss has a shape that outlines the dead person or dream.

Trace your fingers around it.

You do not need a prayer for this moment.

You do not need offerings.

The one who grieves needs your humble willingness to step into the awkward, where longing is unmet. Where comfort is unrecognizable. Where each day offers reminders that the last time was the last time.

To my mom, I wish you were here.

And you are.

Because I am here, remembering you.

Loving you beyond the beyond.

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Classes & Events

Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

At the time of writing this week’s essay, I’m about to go on break. The first half of my first semester of postgrad studies is nearly done, and it’s hard to believe how much has already happened.

I know so much more than I did when I arrived.

I have so many more questions about what is coming next.

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I woke up in the middle of the night, last night, coughing. There’s some flora that irritates my throat right now, so I got up for water.

The nearly full moon was so bright, I thought I’d left the porch light on.

I didn’t.

But the moon took on the role.

Full moons often keep me awake, so it’s no surprise that once I saw her, I was up for the rest of the night.

These lunar insomnia moments are often gentle, offering hours of unrushed contemplation. I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t ecstatic. Perhaps I don’t need to know what I was.

Instead, I watched the light fall onto the rainbow IKEA duvet cover, the one I brought from California so the cats would recognise something. So I could recognise something if I ever woke up and couldn’t remember where I was.

Or who I decided to become.

That’s the thing with light. It doesn’t try to do anything, but it does. Spreading out from source to subject, the moon does not shine on its own; the sun gives over its brilliance. I like to think the sun is willing, even grateful for the chance.

The moon phases look different here. While the crescent ‘C’ used to remind me of waning, it now announces growth. But, to be honest, I forget to look at the in-between moments sometimes, too wrapped up in my own measurement of whether I’m growing or not.

But last night, I didn’t measure myself against any sky or conversation.

I didn’t worry about a grade or a title or an account balance.

I stared into the light, watched it fall across my skin and showcase the black eyeliner that still clung to my undereye skin.

I let the night be the night, the light be the light.

I will meet the day, streaked with fatigue, makeup, and this memory.

As Dillard says, the blood could have been something else, but she explains it is the blood of an unseen fight from the paws of a feral cat.

Sometimes, what we see is the story we tell, the only story we can tell.

Until something moves, and the shape changes.

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Classes & Events

Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

(Author note: I had to turn in several writing pieces for uni last week, and this was one that didn’t make the cut. I thought I’d share it here.)

When Jim died at 22, I thought I’d met grief.

At the very least, I thought grief had met me when the cop pulled me over after the memorial service. I was speeding, but my friend died, I explained.

He arched an eyebrow and made direct eye contact. I looked right into his eyes.

Go ahead, ask. Go ahead, ask if this is true. I had proof.

I could pull out the funeral home flyer. Or maybe the history of frantic SOS pages (it was 1999) my best friend had sent in those first few days. Or I could tell the cop about the way I begged my boss to let me see Jim at the hospital, and when no one would answer my calls, a co-worker who was studying at the shop put his books away and took over for me.

I didn’t flinch. And he believed me.

I cried for weeks. I broke up with my boyfriend. I moved in with the guy who covered my shift during the dying days. I visited Jim’s grave every week, even before the headstone was delivered.

But grief has a funny shape, as though it shifts in color and texture if you notice it for too long. It doesn’t want to blend into the background, but grief wants you to stare in horror, melt to the ground, forget and remember everything.

It used to be the date that caught my attention. Or the scent of Jim’s cigarettes. Or the tributes on Facebook. Or the time I drove around and a song from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack came on. I didn’t have the convertible we drove around town in (it rusted within months).

But I could feel myself back in that car, with the ragtop down and the summer breeze carrying our Marlboro drags along for the ride.

Grief is sticky like that. Arriving uninvited by me, but love RSVP’d for these moments the moment I met his blue eyes.

To Jim. To the Jims you know and miss.

xo

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Classes & Events

Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.

—Isabel Allende—

Note: This is an excerpt from my most recent Pagan Portals book: “The Muses: Calling to Creativity and Inspiration” that was published in the UK and US in February 2026. You can find it HERE or HERE.

Thus thereafter the whole day long until the sun went under

they [the godds on Olympus] feasted, nor was anyone’s hunger denied a fair portion,

nor denied the beautifully wrought lyre in the hands of Apollo

nor the antiphonal sweet sound of the Muses singing.

The Iliad, Homer, Book One, lines 60-64, translated by Richmond Lattimore

At the start of many stories of the Greek godds is a reference to the Muses. The narrator asks the Muses to tell the stories of the godds, to regale the audience with the details of love and adventure. These beings are celebrated for their wisdom and their memories of what happened. I appreciate the idea of calling to inspiration itself to tell the stories, as they are likely more reliable narrators, more so than the participants and the inconsistent humans or deities.

In a world where creativity is celebrated and consumed, the Muses show their faces to us daily. And with every click of a button and every note in an app, we bring forth what the Muses might have to tell and show us. While the Muses may not be introducing all we see in our lives, their influence is difficult to ignore.

While you may not consider yourself to be an artistic being or someone who can draw or sculpt or write, you are inspired to bring forth something into this world. And I believe this inspiration fosters hope in the most challenging times. When I can see the world as a place filled with inspiration, I can also believe in the possibility that moments of frustration and confusion are contractions of creation.

Every day, we create something new. It might not be a blockbuster or measurable by capitalism, but something new arrives each day, whether it is how you see a person or a problem, or both. Maybe it is in how you look at your partner differently or take a breath before responding to a bot online. Each day offers the possibility of showing up for what the Muses desperately want us to hear and know.

Today is a short one because I was feeling under the weather at the time. But I decided to show up anyway.

May you show up for yourself today.

in love and magick — Irisanya

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Classes & Events

Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

Share Heart Magick

I know just enough about astrology to understand when I should adjust my perspective. Right now, as I’m writing, we’re still in a Mercury retrograde, where the little planet appears to be moving backward in the sky.

It’s said this time (which happens three to four times each year) is time for communication issues, relationship fumbles, and missing data. And depending on where the stars are, the retrograde of it all can have a special spice to it.

I have an astrology chart that bends toward confusion and nervous system ugh during these times.

This one was no different.

What is different is realizing it ahead of time. And while I wouldn’t say I prepared, I would say that I am quicker to pause. To reflect. To ponder.

To keep my mouth from telling stories it doesn’t know.

The astrology app* sent me a notification to watch for symbols and to trust my hunches.

This is a time of year when I feel more lost than usual. I don’t know if it’s the change of seasons, historical events, or because of the stars. What I do know is that every end of February to early April, I feel like something is missing from my life.

My work feels strange. My relationships feel off. My energy is up and down.

I want some sort of sign to help me navigate this time with a little more direction. I want a compass. I want a strong push in the direction of whatever I’m supposed to do next.

But I also know that a Mercury retrograde says stop. Wait. Not yet.

I couldn’t stop crying the other night. I was overwhelmed, in a mostly good way. But it doesn’t feel good. My writing is being well-received, I got hired for a part-time job at the university, and I’ve been held so softly in this transition.

As the tears traveled from my eyes to my hand to the toilet paper, I noticed the drop in my stomach, the one that comes when my trauma takes the wheel. She is dressed like shame, and she scolds me for not being healed yet.

Everyone will leave you. Get it together.

This time, I let her say what she needed to say. I let her stay longer than I would have before. She is trying to tell me something.

When it was enough, I looked around the room. I landed on today’s light, on the sound of the ceiling fan, on the softness of the pillow.

I am here. I am here. I am here.

While none of this is earth-shattering, and it rarely is, it passed me.

Sometimes, there is nothing more to do when the planets look like they’re running in the opposite direction.

Sometimes, the only healing is waking up the next day.

And knowing the heart on the wall is today’s compass.

And witnessing your own heart hang itself to be cleansed in the fierceness of sunlight.

And healing, again and again.

xo

*Chani Nicholas (www.chani.com)

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Share Heart Magick

Classes & Events

Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

Another eclipse, another point of reflection. The blood moon rose into the sky as I walked home from stop 7 at Auchenflower and Coronation. My app always tells me to get off at the next stop, but I’ve learned to ignore it.

If I even turn on my app anymore for directions.

This is a liminal space, the space between school and home.

Between doing and what I should or could be doing.

Thoughts that linger as the bus empties, the voices quieter.

The further away we are from classrooms, the closer we are to figuring out what it all means.

And what might happen next.

I want food, but the moon is louder than my stomach. I walk up and down Park Road, trying to find the right angle.

The kookaburras are already quiet for the night. The buses come less frequently. It’s a Tuesday, and the streets offer only a random conversation. The upstairs neighbors seem to be moving furniture. Again.

The moon.

Red from some scientific rationale that I google and forget every time.

But I can see it, and that’s all I will remember.

I adjust the aperture of my phone to capture the moment, as though to remember what I might learn in the reddish glow before I fall asleep.

My sleep score is awful these days, and I won’t close my eyes for hours. And full moons tend to keep me awake, even if I don’t raise the shades all the way to the top of the tall window.

I can tell when something is growing.

I think a part of me is jealous and wants to stay up to learn all the moon’s secrets.

I want to learn how to shrink into a crescent and bulge into an oval.

I want to know how to offer the perfect surface for light to reflect or hide.

I want to understand how to wait patiently for the changes that always come.

But I am not the moon.

I am not the universe.

I am just the story that tells itself, tells on itself.

Continues to be the unreliable narrator who forgets every internet search.

Even the important ones.

Especially those.

I promise the moon something about listening more, releasing my un-admitted need to be perfect, to know something, anything, everything.

I tell the moon about the way I am bloodied by my own resilience. How I could make things easier on myself, but I still don’t trust the reality of change. Even if I see it.

Everywhere.

Today is a day when I want to believe in the impermanence of my doubt and fear. I want to leave it in the shadow that will fall as soon as the moon becomes full. Because even fullness moves on.

Even terror, leaves.

Even doubt, trembles.

Even the sky changes from doomsday to dawn.

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Classes & Events

March 13 & 14 (USA): Cauldron of Wisdom - Tarot Edition - online

Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

Share Heart Magick

Soon, the Water Priestess Confluence begins, and I cannot wait to share this sacred space with you.

This is where our waters meet, flowing together in service to the Earth and all her beings. During our time together, you’ll:
💧 Reconnect with the magic and depth of water rituals
💧 Explore your role as a guardian of the waters
💧 Be inspired by practices that nurture transformation and healing

There’s still time to join us. Free Ritual and Full Confluence, tickets are available to suit your needs.

REGISTER HERE

(Register with the code IRISANYA10 and get 10% off your ticket)

Let’s gather in sacred service, where healing begins and purpose deepens.

With gratitude,
Irisanya

I didn’t want to go back to school. Specifically, I didn’t want to go beyond my undergrad.

My professors tried to talk me into applying to Brown, to Goddard, etc. But I was tired of being in a classroom. I was tired of talking about the smallest bit of life I was able to live between assignments.

I wanted to live. Loudly. More boldly than the smoke breaks between lectures.

I wanted to experience life, to have something ‘better’ to write about.

And I didn’t think I could find that by moving away from what I knew. I was in a long-term relationship. I was tethered. I couldn’t leave the Midwest.

So I finished my degree. And then life would really begin.

Right?

But all I did was show up to a barista gig, get high, drink coffee, pull another double shift, and sit out in the parking lot smoking cigarettes until nearly dawn.

I wrote poetry about the banality of it all. I wrote long essays about the unfairness of the world, why god was a chauvinist, and just how badly the last boy broke my heart. Looking back, I wrote what I heard from songwriters, with my own words placed delicately on top of their breathing patterns because I felt something there.

You don’t know you are stuck when you’re stuck.

Sameness feels like safety. Feels like a home where nothing bad will ever happen to you. But when you think you know everything, you stop looking for anything else.

My world was closing in on me. I got married and moved to a new apartment. We left for California. I wrote. I wrote words for other people’s ideas. I carried their stories and bolstered their SEO. I moved their stagnancy from concept to audience.

I learned HTML. I tagged things. I watched adult video content and summarized it for blogs. I wrote about buying airplanes. I made websites about home improvement. Words fed me. Words paid my credit card balances. Writing got rid of that last student loan.

I became a writer anyway.

The more I accomplished, the more I left myself, eventually burning out and saying ‘yes’ to all things that would pay bills. People were impressed with me. And that fed a part of me that was still hungry.

But the hunger grew.

That part of me that promised not to expand, not to unfold beyond began to keep me up at night. Insomnia arrives with ghosts and memories. Even the small screen of my phone couldn’t hold back what was already on its way:

I can’t. I had to go back on my promise.

I had to leave what was safe. Again. But this time, I actually had to do it. I had to follow through. I had to betray the past me who wanted safety over something bigger. Something my skin was shaped to do.

Yes, there is a betrayal here. Whenever I think of core values, security arrives alongside freedom. And I still think they can coexist.

Maybe security is a handmaiden of liberation. If I never give myself the choice to free myself, there is no safety. There is no security when I am bound to promises that don’t fit anymore.

This geography is wide and uncharted by my breath. But I breathe easier, even if I do not know where I am, if this is possible, or what I want to happen next.

What I do know is that I am freer than I was a moment ago.

This unknown requires a sort of betrayal of all of my best intentions.

Safety is not always solace.

Promises can be broken.

Getting lost is always an option.

Oh what I will find when everything else falls away, this poet says.

Oh what I might know when I admit to not knowing.

Oh what I could become if I throw out those old maps.

In just the last few days, I stopped looking at my phone for the bus schedule because the one I need comes every five to ten minutes after a ten-minute walk from my apartment.

So I leave when I am ready.

There is a way for me to get where I’m going.

I show up.

The bus is there.

I get on. I go.

I leave.

I arrive.

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Classes & Events

March 6-8 (USA): Water Priestess Confluence - IRISANYA10 gets 10% off

March 6 (USA): Return to the Water: Love Spells for the Tired Heart - online

March 13 & 14 (USA): Cauldron of Wisdom - Tarot Edition - online

March 14 & 15 (Australia): Elements of Magick w Nathan — Brisbane, QLD

Pantheon: Stories of Love, Power & Magick from Greek Mythology - online - TBD

HEARTists Way: Connecting to Creativity & Inspiration - online - TBD

How to Connect & Support

Website: www.irisanyamoon.com

Biosite: https://bio.site/irisanyamoon

Buy my books at my Bookshop storefront or at online booksellers. Or ask a local shop!

Classes, presentations, and workshops here.

Podcast interviews and chats are here.

Social media accounts are Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Wanna support me with a donation? Ko-fi

Dear reader,

Do you feel it?

The gentle pull of water calling you to its depths, whispering mysteries of transformation, connection, and healing. The Water Priestess Confluence, happening March 6-8, 2026, is your opportunity to dive into these sacred waters alongside a global community of women in service to the world.

Here’s what you’ll experience at the Confluence:
🌊 Rituals and Practices to honor the waters within and around you
🌊 Workshops with Water Keepers sharing their wisdom and tools for healing
🌊 Deep Connection with women who feel the same pull toward sacred service

Whether you’re new to water magic or deeply immersed in its practice, this gathering is a space to align with your purpose and expand your role in supporting the waters of Earth.

Join us for free, or enhance your experience with Full tickets.

Sign up here and use my discount code IRISANYA10 to get 10% off.

Let us gather where the waters meet.

In service (and downpours),
Irisanya

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