The isolation of quarantine helped us build new patterns and remember old ones. The spaciousness allowed us the room to unlearn some of the ways we were performing. That’s part of why now coming back together can feel so challenging: there’s an awkwardness to dynamic when you’ve shed a skin, or grown into a new shape. 

In this new normal, this liminal place between that deep isolation and a kind of tenuous and careful form of connection and community, we have an opportunity to show up more fully, to unlearn the ways we have cloaked our habits and behaviors to appear more normal. 

This whole moment is quite liminal: in the macro long term we are ending huge astrological cycles, moving into a new era, confronting climate collapse and the idea of a future that might look different than we imagined. In the micro short term we’ve just moved through the end of October, a time around the globe known for the thinness between realms. It’s a perfect time to call more of ourselves to the conversation.

 
 

In this spell we are going to use the layered liminal of this present moment to lean into our own expansion, and to reveal the parts of ourselves that we have hidden, both from ourselves, and from our community.

The end of halloween speaks to taking off our masks — putting the costumes away. And this spell invites that energy too.  Sometimes a mask or a costume is a way of seeing the self more clearly, a way of engaging — like drag or performance art. But in neurodivergent rhetoric we speak of masking as a learned survival technique that comes at a great cost — the energy and upkeep invested in appearing normal weighs on the body, and the mind.

To be neurodivergent or neuroqueer means to think or process outside of the paradigm of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  This includes Synesthesia, ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder, Autism, or being a Highly Sensitive Person -- most of which we are only beginning to fully understand as a kind of sensitivity to environmental factors. This could present as a sensitivity to light, or sound; it could present as forgetting what you’re doing when you move rooms; it could present as feeling other people’s emotions; or being unaware of subtext. The “symptoms” are varied, and contain an enormous amount of overlap.

Our society has repeatedly asked us to appear normal. To appear typical. To hide our big emotions, or the way sound moves through our bodies, to complain less about the light, to disengage from the truth of our experience.  True regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of sensitivity, it’s time we made space for more.  

 
 

The language of neurotypicality assumes there is a normal, and that normal looks like the founders of the American Psychiatric Association who collectively wrote the DSM in 1952 (and whose followers revise it today). It is time to embrace the self that exists outside of that psychotherapy framework, and in many ways the colonial, patriarchal framework of capitalism.

The structures of patriarchy and capitalism, the very gendered way we allow for expression, the  foundations of our American system — they have told us only certain behaviors and responses are normal and productive. This is a spell to push against normal and productive, and to lean into the rhythm of your very unique form of physical expression. To remember our own patterns. This can look like laying down the burden of performance, or releasing the myth of productivity to lean into the flow of your own energy and responsiveness. It can also look like the five step process outlined below.

 
 
 

INGREDIENTS:

For this ritual, you will need:

~ Writing implement + paper

~ Small mirror or bowl of water

 
 

Prefer an auditory experience?

Listen to a guided version of the spell below:

 

THE RITUAL

Invocation

This step should be prepared in advance if you would like. To invite in the quarters and the corners, the watch towers and the ancestors with the language and metaphors that feel connected to you the most. Think about the relationship you have to East (Air, Spirit, Spaciousness), West (Water, Emotion, Inuition), North (Earth, Grounding, Practical Energy), and South (Fire, Life-force, Momentum) — and invite them to dance with you. 

If you’d like more guidance on this step, here is an invocation I created that harnesses my specific queer and neuroqueer relationship to these ideas:

Hail to the guardians of the watchtowers of the EAST, power of air

Welcome energy of spaciousness, breath, expansive time, and clear vision.

Hail to the guardians of the watchtowers of the SOUTH, power of fire

Welcome lifeforce, truth at the core, seed of the self, and true rhythm.

Hail to the guardians of the watchtowers of the WEST, power of water

Welcome flow, nourishment, the saltwater of sea, sweat, tears, and container of potential.

Hail to the guardians of the watchtowers of the NORTH, power of earth

Welcome grounding, support, holding,  fertile soil and solid ground. 

 
 

Step 1: Calming The Nervous System

Our sense of safety is deeply linked to the state of our nervous systems. When we mask our experience every day our nervous system spends a lot of its time activated. So to begin this spell we are going to calm that system down. 

An inhale and exhale for each chakra, using the color of light.

Inhale Red,  Exhale Red.

Inhale Orange,  Exhale Orange.

Inhale Yellow,  Exhale Yellow.

Inhale Green, Exhale Green.

Inhale Blue,  Exhale Blue.

Inhale Purple,  Exhale Purple.

Inhale White, Exhale White.

Now, placing your left hand on your stomach, use your right hand to make circles around your heart chakra. The circles should move in circular motion to your left (if you imagine a clock face on your chest, go clockwise).

Take your time with this. Maybe one or two minutes. Really be present with your heart, your body, yourself. You may begin feeling a gentle buzzing or warmth, and if you don’t that is also okay.

 
 

Step 2: Space For Sound

Now, closing your eyes, imagine the golden light of your solar plexus, the seat of your will, and the deep dark blue of your throat chakra. Let those lights glow out of your body, radiant and separate. 

Imagine the feeling of those lights and begin to make a humming sound — any sound that feels right, with your mouth closed and your energy open. Begin to hum. 

Keep humming, and slowly tap your fingers on your chest, letting the note you hum move through your body to different energy centers. We’ll do this for three more breaths. 

Now settle back into your seat, quieting your energy. Open your eyes.

 
 

Step 3: Mask and Mirror

Place the small mirror or bowl of water in front of you. Find your reflection. 

For some people with neurodivergence it can be difficult to remember what you look like  — so take in your face, the you-ness of it.  

Prepare to say these words and mean them — repeat after me:

I am safe.

I am cared for.

I can show up to this practice as all the layered pieces of me. 

I love myself completely and unconditionally.

I welcome the hidden pieces of me to return.

I welcome the behaviors and movements and energies that go with those pieces.

I invite my body to move freely and naturally how it chooses.

I invite my mind to move freely and naturally how it chooses

Everything I am doing in this magical container is correct and I trust my intuition. 

Take a deep breath, sitting with the feelings that arise. 

Close your eyes. Inhale. Exhale.

Now, open your eyes, look at your face in the bowl again. What feels new? What parts of you have shown up?

Say outloud:

Hello you. Welcome home.

Be with whatever feelings come up.

Consider if there is anything else you would like to add. 

If there is, speak it, if there isn’t trust that also.

 
 

Step 4: Movement

Now pick a song, and dance yourself into the future.

Let your body move in all the ways it wants to, make strange faces, engage with the light. 

Dance with your pets or your plants or your person. Dance with yourself.

Fully express whatever needs to move through you.

 
 

Step 5: Breath and Desire

Now, settle into your seat once again. Slowly inhale.  Hold.  Exhale. 

Relax into your body. Once you are nice and relaxed, place both of your hands at your heart center.

Internally, ask your heart what it needs from you, ask your heart to show or tell you what it desires. 

You might see images or hear words, you might hear images or see words, a knowing may move through you, a color, a shape. Trust whatever comes up. 

Let it be simple or complex. Let it be small or large. 

Write down what you discover. If it calls you infuse the feeling into a small crystal, or totem.

 
 

Exvocation and Ending

Now we will close the spell. 

Again, think about the relationship you have to East (Air, Spirit, Spaciousness), West (Water, Emotion, Intuition), North (Earth, Grounding, Practical Energy), and South (Fire, Life-force, Momentum) — and invite them to dance with you, thank them for their energy.

If you’d like more guidance a simple thank you will suffice:

Thank you air

Thank you fire

Thank you water

Thank you earth

Spell by Sarah Sellman