Magic for Visibility – Letting Myself Be Seen in Leo Season

If you already read my post from the other day you already know: all my life I’ve been hiding. Maybe it’s a 12th house sun thing. Maybe it’s an ancestral thing. Maybe it’s a growing up queer and neurodivergent in a small town in the early 2000s. But whatever the reason, it’s time to stop hiding. Because hiding perpetuates is a protection that perpetuates its necessity. When you hide yourself within the norms of a colonial, patriarchal, white supremacist, heteronormative society you perpetuate that society. When you hide within society’s norms you ensure that more people will have to face that awful choice. You ensure that that harmful society will continue. So I’m done.

The realization that I was hiding and that it needed to stop hit me on the eve of Leo season. And it makes perfect sense. The Sun – paragon of shining out, visibility, and being seen as your authentic self – is Leo’s ruling planet. As a result, I’ve decided to dedicate my Leo season to this work of find the trust, courage, and confidence to visible, to be seen as MYSELF.

Of course, being a witch, I’m gonna be incorporating magic and spell work into this process! So I thought I’d share some of the things I’m doing to help me with this solar remediation.

Most of these are what I like to call “small spells” – small moments of ritual that I can regularly integrate into my day. Some days I might do all of these. Some days I might only do one, or even none. I find this kind of flexible ritual work to be really well suited for thorny issues with my personal life and actions that I’m consciously grappling with. They are easy, gentle, and accessible. They offer an approachable opening into contemplation that allows me grow and shift in a supported way.

Without further ado, here’s my list of small spells for finding the courage to be visible:

• Working with solar herbs.
  I’ve been using an oil infused with St. John’s Wort to run myself from toe to head to draw in the confidence, trust, and courage to show up every day as myself.
  St. John’s Wort is a sunny yellow flower that blooms around this time of year and is ruled by the sun. St. John’s Wort can fuck with medication when taken internally, but as an infused oil it doesn’t have any of those interaction, so it’s a wonderful way to work with this powerful solar herb.
  Why toe to head? This is a folk magical custom that I often use to turn mundane actions into spells: work from foot to head to draw in, head to foot to expel.
  Calendula is another wonderful, sunny herb you could work with!
• Getting a little bit of sunshine everyday.
  This one’s simple! Get some sunshine. Weed the garden. Go for a walk. Just sit in. Greet the sun. Thank it as its rays touch your skin. Basking in the sun gets you into the presence of this entity that is always, unapologetically beaming out, serving as a great example in being visible. But there’s another subtler layer to it: being outside in the sun makes YOU visible. It’s easy to hide inside. But much like The Sun in tarot, the actual sun illuminates it all. When you’re out in the sun you’ll see, and you’ll also be seen.
• Taking LOTS of selfies!
  Selfies are amazing! Selfies are you defining how you want to be seen, capturing it in a photograph and sending it out into the world. So solar! So visibility!
• Dressing up!
  Relatedly, having fun getting dressed as outrageously as I like (lately I’ve been feeling extra awesome in outfits that give off a “queer bro” vibe). Selfies and our wardrobe are both expressions of who we are and how we want to be seen. Dressing in a way that makes you feel good is essential to being seen as your authentic self.
• Investing in myself expression
  You can’t dress to be seen as yourself, if your wardrobe doesn’t express that self! So i’ve been investing in my self-expression. Which is hard, cuz I’m quite honestly bad at spending money on myself. But I’m doing my best! I’m getting a tattoo this month. I bought myself some new glasses. AND some new jewelry for my septum piercing because somehow I’m only now realizing that I am self-employed so I can dress however the fuck I want. For the first time in my life I don’t have to have the most unobtrusive jewelry in my face holes!!!!
• Donating an extra percentage of money from my biz to causes this month.
  This one might seem weird, but here’s my reasoning: my lack of visibility harms my business. Showing up as myself builds the trust of my customers and it respects the services that I am offering because, well, they’re an expression of who I am. Being myself, showing up as myself on social media and in my business is a part of my business’ success. And my business’ success means that I can share more of my money with people who need it. By building my business, I help to support my community. And I build my business by showing up!
• Working with my ancestors
  This one might be unique to me, but like I mentioned in my first post on this, my ancestors are deeply intertwined with the ways I hide and my choice to stop hiding. My ancestors hid – they hid their histories and traditions and truths in order to assimilate. And it was this hiding that I taught me to hide. I learned to hide so well it took me nearly a year of working with my hidden ancestors to even be able to see the ways I was hiding. Also, my sun is in my 12th house – the underworld gonna is a part of me shining out!

I hope these small spells inspire you in your own visibility work!

Interested in learning more about small spells, folk magic, and connecting to your authentic magic? Finding Your Folk Magic is a workbook and starting point for your own journey into folk magic so that you can craft healing, change, and connection – for yourself and for the collective!