Integration
And alchemy in general...
In the summer of 2025, I stumbled onto alchemy (← this specific linked text).
A vague concept of pursuing fools gold is all I knew beforehand.
Something about it pulled me in.
Beyond the dense, meandering, stubborn aphorisms, there was truth, glinting through the murky texts.
Like sunlight on rippling water. Not quite permanent. Unforgettable.
I felt it in my body, long before I ever understood. It came as a heavy calmness, like gravity. A spell broken once my eyes met the page.
These lines in particular, I returned to again and again.
This realization changed me: Everything is in their own cycle of transformation, from a lower form to a higher form.
Everything, from the tiniest grain of sand, to the solar system itself.
Like a seed ripening into a bud, that flowers, and produces more seeds, for the cycle to begin again and anew.
And what followed was undeniably clear: I must stop begging unopened flowers to bloom for me.
I had spent so much of my life seeing the flowers before they bloomed, wanting desperately for the seeds to see it, too.
I could finally see how the world worked, and my place in it.
I had this sinking feeling that my job was simply to be the butterfly that I had already transformed into, and stop trying to convince caterpillars that we were from the same lineage.
For instance, at this last job I had. The one where I kept getting sick.
There were many moments when I wanted to explain myself. “You don’t understand, I’m normally very good.”
But what good would it do? They’d need me to be more like them, and I needed very badly to be more like me.
If we were meant to match, then we’d already match. They’d see me for who I was, and I would not be getting so sick trying to contain the dissonance I already knew was stewing inside.
Right after I left the job, I wanted to immediately apply for new jobs. Secure my next paycheck.
But I knew that wasn’t the state of my transition. The right thing for me at this point in my growth, was to put myself first.
I didn’t know much, baby steps. I did things that felt true and good, like go to the groceries, cook some nutritious meals. Walk around my neighborhood, just because I could.
I went to the gym, and only did exercises I liked, not worrying about whether it hit all the muscle groups.
I watched Forest Gump on repeat. (It just spoke to me, I have no idea…).
My husband and I went to the MoMA, dressed up, just because.
Two lovely weeks breezed by, felt like days.
“We’d love to speak with you at your earliest,” some friends I made through my last job texted me.
I was not ready for it.
My astrologer had said I needed to learn to integrate myself: Ora the psychic and the tech leader. No more keeping them separate.
But how?
I’d literally have to tell my next job that I’m psychic.
It felt impossible.
Plus, at this point, I had journaled enough to know what I wanted to do next: Write, research projects, travel, keep being psychic, and do my readings.
And there were no such jobs like that in this industry, or economy.
But I was wrong. 👀
It turns out there was one job out there exactly this-shaped for me.
And it was coming for me urgently.
“What do we need to tell you to get you to decide?” they asked on one of our last calls before I joined.
I hesitated for a long time.
Was I really about to say it?
“What are your astrology signs?” I didn’t have the guts to actually tell them I was psychic, but this felt like a reasonable compromise.
If they were stunned, they didn’t show it.
“I’m a Capricorn… and he’s a Virgo.”
Two earth signs for partners. Interesting.
“I need you to know I’m a Libra. And I’m good at what I do, but I don’t think I’ll ever be as consistent as two earth signs.”
Without hesitation the Virgo cut in, “We wanna work with you badly.”
“Yeah. I don’t know anything about astrology. But I think my wife might be a Libra, too.”
The way they both were willing to play ball, and that little bit of synchronicity (my husband happens to be the third earth sign, Taurus), were enough breadcrumbs—glints of sunlight on rippling water—to nudge me along.
Funny how the river works, huh?
I begged for my new path to begin and now I’m scared to jump in.
But if you know anything about me by now, you know I jumped anyway.
Within the first week, they flew me to LA, which meant my husband and I could also spend time in our home in Palm Springs. Something we loved doing, and had nearly halted altogether for the past 5 months.
When I was there in person, I ended up first telling 2 people, then 1 in greater detail, and when they all seemed fine with my psychic journey, I told all of the rest of them by our end of week team dinner (celebrating someone’s birthday).
“Now we all want readings!!!”
“You seem to fit right in.”
It was the warmest most humbling welcome I could have asked for. They had no idea what it took for me to get here. I cried tears of gratitude in my morning meditations that week.
Shipping a study report was also the easiest it’s ever felt.
My husband joined me on the weekend in LA. We went to the LACMA, hoping to see an exhibit that had left, and stumbled onto an exhibit on Buddhist sculptures and art through the ages.
“Omg! I had just talked about Buddhism and how it’s spread and integrated so far and wide” I squeezed my husband’s hand as we were greeted by our favorites (Guanyin ofc) as well as learned about new ones.
Walking through all the rooms, it felt like our angels and guides were welcoming us back to the west coast.
At the museum shop, I stumbled on a book (a forthcoming exhibit) to an answer from a January wish. I wanted to be inspired by women from my own heritage in fashion. Tell me this isn’t a perfect book:
On the drive back to Palm Springs, we stumbled into some shops and found some other treats for us, too, longstanding wishlist items suddenly, shockingly, right in front of us.
To think 3 weeks ago I was crashing out, sobbing in my bed.
Now, it feels as though we’re back in the flow of the river, drenched in abundance and opportunity.
My new job is literally to be bicoastal, write, do fun studies I think up, and now I also get to continue being psychic out in the open.
Where I’m really struggling is the lesson.
What did I let go of, and what did I learn?
I mostly just breathed and stayed with myself.
Is that really all it’s about?
