I’ve lived in Australia since 2012, and Christmas still brings a particular kind of ache. It’s not only the traditions I miss; it’s the way the whole world back home seemed to be doing it together. Here, the season feels quieter and more scattered, and I feel the absence more keenly than at any other time of the year.
In Miami, Christmas arrived as a shared momentum. It gathered people in, filled the calendar, and made togetherness feel automatic. It wasn’t just a date on a calendar; it was a whole month of rituals. We watched Christmas movies, went to friends’ and office parties, and did the slow drive through the neighbourhood to admire lit-up houses. We made pilgrimages to Santa’s Enchanted Forest and Disney’s Very Merry Christmas Party, took the obligatory photos with Santa Claus (or Mickey Mouse), and leaned hard into the joy of it all. On Nochebuena, there was lechón and boozy eggnog; on Christmas Day, leftovers and the Disney Christmas Day Parade. Threaded through everything were the smaller traditions: the special outfits, the gift-giving, the sense that the season belonged to everyone at once. And it all continues — just without me in the room.
Melbourne tries. The city decorates, and families find their magic, but for me, the energy just isn’t there. The weather didn’t help: summer arrived wearing a grey coat. Plus, school is out, many people travel, and my Melbourne family tends not to do Christmas as a unit. Everyone scatters.
The emotional weather has been heavy, too. US politics is exhausting even from afar. Australia had its own heartbreak with the Bondi shooting, which left many of us rattled and grieving in that particular way strangers grieve together. Then there are the quieter, more personal aches: people I love dealing with illness and decline, the long aftershocks of recent years. I’ve been okay—more than okay, in many ways—but I didn’t have it in me this Christmas to decorate or orchestrate or even mark solstice in my usual ways.
Which brings me to the part of the season I do love: the New Year.
I love the clean, sharp energy of turning the page. I love looking back, and I love the moment when you can see your own patterns on paper and decide what you’re going to do with them. I love starting a new Bullet Journal. I love making a new reading list.
So this is me doing what I love: looking back at 2025, seeing the patterns, deciding what comes next. Here’s what the year held.
Deepening roots
2025 was a year of deepening roots and stepping into new territory. After 17 years as a High Priestess, I finally began teaching Georgian Wicca. In January, two students dedicated themselves to learning this tradition of the Craft—a significant milestone that asked me to clarify and articulate what I’ve been practising for nearly two decades.
In February, I rededicated myself to Beachfyre Coven at our annual Imbolc ritual in the Northern Hemisphere. My Miami-based coven has been, for many years, a deep well of friendship and spiritual nourishment.
May brought an unexpected connection when a Cuban-Australian friend invited me to celebrate the anniversary of her initiation as a priest of Oshun. The gathering put me in contact with other Cubans and members of the local Lukumi and Ifa communities, and sparked something I’d been resisting for years.
According to divinatory readings I’ve received over the years, working in the tradition of Espiritismo Cruzado is essential to my spiritual development. Espiritismo Cruzado is a Cuban spiritual tradition that blends Kardecist Spiritism with Indigenous and African practices, centred on communication with spirits and ancestors. I’ve been resistant to this work for years because the heavy Roman Catholic influence is deeply uncomfortable, but this year I finally got underway. I translated and adapted some of Allan Kardec’s prayers for my own use, spent more time at my bóveda attending to my spirits, and hosted misas espirituales: ritual gatherings where practitioners sit together to communicate with the dead, receive spiritual messages, and honour the ancestors.
Although I wasn’t active this year, I remain a Skydancer Priestess of the Mt Shasta Goddess Temple. I took Bloodstone & Lime: Training in Deathwork, Legacy, & Ancestor Reverence, the first year of the two-year Priestess of Souls program. In previous years, I’ve completed Woman Shaman Practice, which revolutionised my practice, and Via Carmen Pythia, which shaped my divinatory and oracular work. The Temple community continues to be a source of deep learning and friendship, and I can’t recommend their programs enough.
Threshold work
My spiritual care work takes many forms—clinical pastoral care, end-of-life doula support, tarot consultation, Pagan teaching—and while each has its own context, they’re all expressions of the same calling: attending to the sacred in times of transition, uncertainty, and transformation.
In February, I completed my second unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at Royal Melbourne Hospital, a special focus unit exploring spiritual care for patients who don’t identify with formal religious traditions. I worked with people experiencing eating disorders, receiving palliative care, in addiction recovery, and other life-altering conditions, exploring how spirituality emerges through culture, creativity, embodied practice, and relationship rather than doctrine. I finished in June, and in October, joined the Pastoral Care team at St Vincent’s Hospital. Yes, a Pagan on the pastoral care team of a Catholic hospital, but spiritual care isn’t about the practitioner’s beliefs. It’s about the patient and how they make meaning of what’s happening to them.
August brought Dying to Know Day, a national day encouraging open conversation about death, dying, and grief. I joined the Melbourne Inner North End-of-Life Doula Hub in Abbotsford for a fantastic event featuring guest speakers, including Professor Mark Boughey, Director of Palliative Care at St Vincent’s. In October, a fellow doula and I staffed a table at the Seniors Festival at Preston Market, introducing people to the role of end-of-life doulas.
Also in August, I began facilitating the Life and Death Café at the Melbourne Theosophical Society—a free monthly gathering where people meet to discuss mortality and what matters most. It’s currently on hiatus for the holidays and returns in February.
September took me to Parliament House for Dying with Dignity Victoria’s campaign launch, advocating for improvements to the state’s Voluntary Assisted Dying laws. The amendments were passed in November.
Alongside this public-facing work, I maintained my private spiritual care practice: tarot consultations, support for individuals navigating illness and grief, digital consulting for doulas, and the quiet, ongoing work of showing up for people in threshold moments. I love working in this space, and professional development—particularly in aged care, dementia, homelessness, and addiction—is already shaping up as a significant focus for 2026.
Home
I became an Australian citizen this year. I’ve lived here since 2012, but the decision took time. Every time I return to Miami, I recognise it a little less. It feels a little less like home. The Miami I hold in my heart is the one I left in 2012, not the Miami of today. I miss so much about it—the Latin culture everywhere, the food and music and warm weather, and most of all the people: my family, friends, and community. But it’s no longer home in the way it once was. That makes me sad, but it also made the decision clearer.
Though dual citizenship faces uncertainty in the U.S., for now, I hold citizenship in both countries. In May, I voted in Australia for the first time—and I loved it. I researched all the parties, made my list, and went to the polling place at a local primary school, complete with cake stalls and fundraisers. After I voted, I got my sausage sizzle, because what’s an election without a sausage sizzle?
Home also arrived in a different form this year. In June, we began fostering a white Siberian Husky named Casper. After our previous dog, Sam, a Kelpie-cross, died in 2021, I didn’t feel ready for another dog. By the time we were ready, we wanted to travel, then we couldn’t find a puppy, and it just didn’t happen. This year, I suggested fostering—a lot of dogs need good temporary homes, and if we travelled, he could return to the sanctuary or go to another foster carer. I found Casper on Pet Rescue. He needed a foster home immediately, and we brought him home within days.
At six years old, traumatised and anxious, he’s been challenging. But it’s been a joy watching him unfold: more relaxed, more confident, more playful, even vocal. When a couple expressed serious interest in adopting him, my husband realised he couldn’t let him go. We adopted Casper in November. We’re very grateful to his previous carers and the volunteers at Forever Friends Animal Rescue who have shown Casper so much love and have supported us through our first foster fail.
Showing up
In November, I returned to reading tarot at the Mind Body Spirit Festival in Melbourne after a year away. While I continued my tarot studies, practice, and private client work throughout the year, the festival was my main public appearance in this area. My focus continues to be on deepening and expanding my understanding of tarot—for myself and my clients—not just as divination, but as a tool for healing, dreamwork, past-life work, and more. I continue to explore its origins, both mundane and esoteric, and its relationships to astrology and other systems.
My website continued to grow as both a reflection tool and a way to make my work visible. Compared to this time last year, traffic increased by 81%, with Organic Search up 65%; I don’t advertise, run ads, or do sponsored posts. I published 40 blog entries—short of my goal of 52 (one per week), but significantly better than the 26 I managed in 2024.
My most-read posts this year were:
- Honouring the goddess Isis: myth, magic, acts of service
- What is spiritual care? A Pagan perspective
- Honouring the goddess Hekate: thresholds, torches, and magic
- Using tarot to set goals in the New Year
- On Charlie Kirk and the wounded heart of resistance
The website also got a visual overhaul as I continue working to integrate the various parts of who I am and what I do under one umbrella. I’m still considering my 2026 goals around my business and this site.
Renewal revisited
My 2025 word was “Renewal”—transformation, reconnection, shedding what no longer served. Looking back, it held true, though not always in the ways I expected. Here’s how the goals I set at the beginning of the year actually unfolded.
Reconnect with foundations. I aimed to return to the basics of my Craft, embracing simplicity and deepening my connection to the natural world. Starting in January, I took a six-week Reclaiming class, Honouring the Land: Elements of Magic. The Elements of Magic is a core Reclaiming class, though instructors teach it through different lenses. What drew me to this particular course was its focus on acknowledging traditional owners, ancestors, and spirits of place, as well as exploring ways to decolonise spiritual practices and form genuine connections with the land. This lens resonated strongly with my goals and felt like the right way to begin the year. I followed the class with reading, examining my practices, and making meaningful changes. This goal felt like a success.
Explore and honour cultural roots. I wanted to immerse myself in Cuban folklore and folkloric practices, strengthen my spiritual connection, and develop a consistent mediumship practice through Espiritismo Cruzado. I did some of this. I read Lydia Cabrera’s El Monte, a foundational ethnographic work on Afro-Cuban religion and the sacred relationship between plants, spirits, and ritual practice. I connected with local practitioners, held misas espiritualies at my home, and had important conversations with my godfather and close practitioner friends. I learned a lot, but it doesn’t feel like enough. It never feels like enough.
Bring more practical magic to devotional practice. I wanted to expand my perspective by exploring esoteric traditions and integrating new tools and techniques. I went down a rabbit hole with this one. I began with a book on the historical development of the Western Mystery Tradition, but after just a few chapters, I put it down to explore the ancient sources themselves. I spent months reading Pythagoras, Empedocles, Plato, Ptolemy, the Corpus Hermeticum, and others. More than reading, I analysed how ideas in these bodies of work appear in my practice and how I could refine them further. This work continues into 2026.
Georgian Wicca. I wanted to revisit my Georgian Wicca materials as I prepared to teach my own students for the first time. I also aimed to type and organise my handwritten Book of Shadows, research the origins of its ideas and practices, and interview Elders to capture their stories. I prepared Pre-Initiate lessons for my students and typed my First Degree materials, which took months as I tracked down sources and annotated the Book. I interviewed one Elder twice, which established a first draft of a historical timeline. I haven’t finished this because, in reality, it’s a lifelong commitment as a Georgian Wiccan. First and Second Degree materials are next.
What's emerging
In 2025, my word was “Renewal.” This year, I’m still listening. The word will come when it’s ready. In the meantime, these are the threads I’m following.
Professional development in clinical spiritual care is a clear priority, particularly in aged care, dementia, homelessness, and addiction. This work calls to something deep in me, and I want to show up for it with greater skill and understanding.
My tarot practice continues to deepen—not just as divination, but as a tool for healing, dreamwork, and past-life work. I’m excited about the possibilities.
I’m also thinking about Pagan teaching and ritual hosting: what I want to offer, how I want to show up in community, and where I can grow and improve. The shape of this isn’t apparent yet, but the pull is there.
Some threads are clear. Others are still revealing themselves. That feels right for where I am—turning the page without having the whole story written yet.
I’m writing this from that liminal space between Christmas and New Year, between the ache of what I’m missing and the clarity of what I’m choosing. This year didn’t give me the festive magic I grew up with, but it gave me something else: depth, challenge, growth, and the reminder that renewal isn’t about having it all sorted. It’s about turning the page anyway, trusting that what needs to come will make itself known.
Here’s to 2026—still forming, still becoming, still full of possibility.