Welcome to Astrology, Alchemy, & Honest Recovery
Hello friend! I am Maria Luz, and my life’s work is to enable you to experience what it feels like to embody your authenticity and deepest values. In so doing, you will connect to the universe, to others who truly see you, and to your soul’s consciousness.
As I began doing this work personally, in the space of about a year, I got sober, left my corporate career of 29 years, began a healing practice (astrology, hypnosis, tarot, dreamwork, and psychic mediumship) using the tools which most helped me, and started writing here on Substack.
I alternate a weekly written and audio (really, an episode of my podcast) post on Fridays. Daily, look for a tarot card + haiku on your Notes feed.
To read more:
What I (mostly) write about:
Astrology.
“Nothing in astrology indicates ‘This is so as a fact’ or ‘This will occur.’ Astrology shows us the best - because natural - way of facing any situation in terms of our own individual nature.” - Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala: The Cycle of Transformations and its 360 Symbolic Phases
As I started to recover from alcohol, I realized I was also recovering my humanity, which had been covered up by years of the conditioning I had absorbed so well that I could not feel where it ended and I began.
Astrology helped me first to understand who I was, this ego self, naturally. What was I passionate about simply because I was?
Not because those passions were part of any external transaction.
Not because the passions existed in me based upon belief systems which had been given to me, and which I had internalized for survival.
Armed with knowledge of our natural blueprint, we can discern what is right for us. We reclaim some of the “inner vitality, character and mental acuity” that Rudhyar saw diminished by an over-materialized society.
And once we begin walking the path that is right for us, we begin to feel the presence of something larger than ourselves that will begin to inform our choices and aid not only the ego, but the soul’s evolution, as well.
Alchemy.
Carl Jung (1946) stated “Alchemy describes, not merely in general outline but often in the most astonishing detail, the same psychological phenomenology which can be observed in the analysis of unconscious processes”. Reference.
I am not a psychologist, yet my lived experience finds resonance in his use of the word to apply not only to the transformation of lead into gold, but the transformation we experience once we submit to a mysterious process which allows the unconscious to dialogue with the subconscious and conscious parts of ourselves.
Yes, I did work in a laboratory for several years, performing tasks which would yield pharmaceutical products, but somehow that did not feel alchemical to me. Now, when I am creating tinctures, salves, and other compounds from herbal components which lend me their wisdom as well as their physical materials, well, that feels alchemical.
I continue to alchemize myself, continuously working to overcome the fear of the unknown, or often, the fear of my own imagination and power.
Honest Recovery.
When I was first getting sober, I was so afraid I would get it wrong, too. I say “too”, because by that point in my life, I felt that I had messed up all the things that truly mattered to me.
I had spent decades being intentionally and unintentionally dishonest with myself. About what I wanted, what I could endure, what my options were, who I was inside, what I cared about, what I believed to be true. So, the first order of business was to the best of my ability to be ruthlessly honest with myself. I started journaling, for once not just parking ruminative thoughts, or remaining superficial.
I admitted to myself that I wanted to be a writer when I was four months sober. My Substack is one place I share as honestly as possible as I recover from traumas, trainings, and truths.
I would love to hear from you, and have you share my work!
You will also find me at the McAllister Academy for Psychic Mediumship & Spiritual Development, where I teach classes in various modalities.
And if you are in the Seattle area, join me at the marialuz.online pop-up at West Coast Willow Apothecary on Fridays and on the first and third Saturday of each month, 12-4.
To learn more about the services I offer:
Beautiful. Everything you shared and everything that you offer. 🥰