About Me

The Full Story

DIFFERENT TOOLS. SAME MAGICK.

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I’m Mi-Ri Yvonne — a witch, Second Degree Priestess, Tarot reader, Holy Fire® Reiki Level II practitioner, wedding officiant, chef, bellydance artist, mother, teacher, and lifelong student of energy.

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On paper, those paths look wildly different. To me, they’re all expressions of the same thing: alchemy.

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I love looking at the pieces in front of me and figuring out what they can become. Ingredients become a meal. Stories become a ceremony. Cards become a conversation. Energy becomes something I can listen to and work with.

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THE FIRST DOORWAYS

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I was drawn to mystical things long before I had language for any of it. I grew up without a formal religious practice, but I was fascinated by dreams, astrology, symbolism, magick, and especially cards.

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My dad had fancy ways of shuffling when we played Crazy Eights, and I loved practicing them. I checked Tarot books out from the library and studied astrology, dreams, symbols, and patterns wherever I could.

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I didn’t get my first oracle deck until my late twenties. Once I did, it felt ridiculously natural. People started asking me to pull cards for them, and it felt like I had picked back up a language I already knew.

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After major personal losses, my spiritual search deepened through Buddhism, Christianity, prayer, metaphysical teachings, witchcraft, energy work, and Divine traditions from different paths.

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Eventually I stopped trying to choose one doorway. My spirituality became a tapestry, and I love it that way.

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THE WORK THAT TAUGHT ME ALCHEMY

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I became a professional chef in 2003 after earning my two-year Culinary Arts degree from Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, training under Michael D’Orazio (The Palm DTLA), Chef Felix (Gozar WeHo), Denise DeCarlo and Top Chef Season 2 alum Betty Fraser (Grub Hollywood).

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For more than twenty years, I’ve cooked in professional kitchens and private homes for retreats, events, high-profile clients, dance communities, and fr-amilies of all kinds.

Dance became another big part of my life. I spent seven years performing and touring with Mandala DanceWorks, and in 2007 our group won the Bellydancer of the Universe title in the Tribal Fusion Group category.

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In 2010, I became a wedding officiant and discovered how much I loved turning a couple’s stories and personalities into ceremonies that actually sounded like them. In 2018, I received WeddingWire’s Best Officiant of the Year award.

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These felt like completely separate careers at the time. Looking back, they were teaching me the same thing: create something whole from what is already there.

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TRAINING THE GIFTS

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Reiki found me before formal witchcraft did. My first session happened while I was performing in Las Vegas, and I had never even heard of Reiki. A cat climbed onto my back and started purring during the session, which remains an extremely on-brand introduction to energy work. 

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Years later, while hosting a Self-Love Retreat, I looked up a fellow dancer’s Reiki teacher and noticed a Witchcraft 101 year-and-a-day training underneath his Reiki classes.

I was geeked. So naturally, witchcraft took precedence. 🔮

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That path led me to The Temple of Witchcraft, where I became a Second Degree Priestess under High Priest Scott Smith. Tarot and Reiki stood out as my most natural spiritual arts.

I’ve used Tarot for guidance for more than a decade and work with clairsentience, clairvoyance, clairaudience, and clairgustance alongside the imagery and symbolism of the cards.

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I also trained in Usui Reiki Level I with Scott and later continued my Reiki studies with Reiki Master Kimberlie Eddy, becoming certified in Holy Fire® Reiki Levels I & II.

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Both practices helped me recognize that I’m fundamentally a channel. Some of my best work happens when I stop trying to force an answer, sit still — truly the hardest part 😂 — and listen.

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MOTHERHOOD, REBUILDING + WHERE I AM NOW

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I became a mother in 2019 and welcomed my second child fifteen months later. Two very small children changed the shape of my professional life completely, and some of my businesses went quiet.

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The gifts didn’t.

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Cooking became about keeping nourishing food available without making the same dinner every night. Tarot helped me hear myself more clearly. Reiki, prayer, ritual, movement, intuition, and spiritual study helped carry me through motherhood, divorce, rebuilding, and rediscovering myself.

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There have been successes, flops, times I overgave, things I outgrew, and lessons I apparently needed to learn more than once. That counts as training too.

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Now, the things I offer don’t feel like random pieces of a weirdly varied résumé. They feel integrated.

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When I teach Tarot, I’m sharing a language that helped me trust my inner knowing. When I offer Reiki, I’m sharing a practice that has been part of my life for more than a decade. When I cook in someone’s home, I’m bringing more than twenty years of professional experience into one of the most practical forms of care I know.

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I enjoy being of service and helping people recognize what is already available to them — ingredients, intuition, energy, skills, or parts of themselves they forgot were there.

And I’m still learning, training, changing, and unfolding.

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I’m not here because I figured everything out. This is lifelong work for me too.

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I’m here because I’ve learned a lot about gathering the pieces, listening to what’s there, and creating something meaningful from it — and I’m happy to share the things that have helped me with my community as I continue learning right alongside it.

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Different tools. Same magick.