Leap into Leap Day Magic

February 29th is the Brigadoon or Avalon of days. It appears once every 4 years except when the year is divisible by 100 except when they are divisible by 400. Liminal Days are almost as old as human civilization and serve an essential purpose. This is all about Leap Day and why it is such a magical day.

Get Ready to Science! And History

The rotation of the Earth around the sun is not a perfect 365 days. It is closer to 365 and ¼ days or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and a few seconds to be semi-exact. What difference does a quarter of a day make in the cosmos? A lot if you are an agrarian society that like to do your planting by the calendar. Your calendar would be short 24 days over the course of 100 years and that’s a lot of days to be short. The Ancient Egyptians we the first to write about how the calendar did not line up with the seasons. The first person to come up with an idea of how to handle this was Julius Ceaser in approximately 45 BCE. Ceaser prosposed the idea of a Leap Day, but it took mankind hundreds of years to settle on the way to do that.

The purpose of a Leap Day is to bring the calendar back into alignment with the seasons. Different cultures handled, and still handle, the re-allignment in different ways. The Julian Calendar stated adding a day every 4 years, but ended up with an extra 3 days after 400 years, whereas the Gregorian sought to remedy those extra days by by excluding the possible leap days that are multiples of 100 but not multiples of 400. Those skipped years are called Century years. The Gregorian calendar was designed to keep the Vernal Equinox as close to March 21 as possible so that Easter would always fall on the Sunday after the first Full Moon that falls on or after the Vernal Equinox.

Leap day is called an Intercalary Day. It is considered a liminal date that exixts but isn’t truly part of the calendar. For a long time the day was noted as a second February 24, but during the 15th Century the Church and rulers in Europe created February 29 to be Leap Day.

Time to Be Witchy

A liminal day is a day that exists, but also doesn’t. Leap Day is a real day and in the modern world is just an extra day to do things. Historically, Leap Day was considered to exist outside the calendar and year. It is also believed to be when the Veil Between the Worlds is thinnest. Modern witches consider it the perfect time to do a little magic.

What magic is best for the day:

· Begin a Grimoire, Book of Shadows, journal.

· Bury a bad habit, especially one that is having a negative effect on your dream life.

· Set your long term intentions for manifestations (these are big things that may take 4 or more years to manifest.)

· Commit yourself to a new course of study (mundanely or magically), sign up for a class you have been wanting to take, or start to learn something new.

· If you want children, now is the time to do fertility magic

· Start a business venture, a blog, online store, or start your website.

· Set your health and wellness goals.

· Do some lucid dreaming or astral projections

· Do courage spells to give you the courage to do something you really want to do but are afraid to do.

· Divinations, especially long term readings

· Spells to find lost objects

· Renew your wards and do protection magic and cleansings

· Seek your guides or reconnect to ones you haven’t communicated with recently

· Take a leap of faith and take the next step towards manifesting your dream life

· Faery work

· Intent to commit magic

· Positivity magics.

· Inspiration Magics

· Banishments

· Curse and Hex Breaking

According to Irish legend, today is the day women have permission to propose to men and men cannot refuse. It is believed that sometime in the 5th Century CE, St. Brighid convinced St. Patrick to allow women to propose to men during Leap Day. Over time as the tradition spread, laws came into being that required the men to either consent to the marriage or pay a fine. Please note: it may be the perfect day to propose, many curltures consider it bad luck to marry on Leap Day, with some curltures going as far as to consider the entire month of February when it contains a Leap Day as bad luck.

Numerology wise, the day is considered an 11. 11 Days are considered high vibration days with the energy of enlightenment and growth, as well as healing energies and life balancing energies. 11’s are also considered portal days between stages of your life or decisions. It is the perfect day to balance your root chakra, meditate, do yoga, eat your root vegetables, and wear red or orange.

If you are or know someone born on this auspicious day you are a Leapling. Leaplings are considered luck and touched with the otherworld. If you are a leapling you are in good company, the following people are some of the millions of leaplings from history:

· Gioachino Rossini- 1792 , Italian composer

· Emmaline B. Wells-1828 American journalist, poet, and activist

· Augusta Savage- 1892-American Sculpter

· Jimmy Dorsey- 1904- American mucisian, bandleader, composer

· Leonard Shoen- 1916- Founder of U-Haul

· Tempest Storm (Annie Banks)- 1928- American Burlesque dancer

· Antonio Sabato Jr.- 1972- Italian-American actor and model

· Dave Williams- 1972- American singer (Drowning Pool)

· Ja Rule- 1976- American rapper and actor

· Mark Foster- 1984 – American singer, songwriter, musician (Foster for the People)

People who have died on Leap Day

- Gil Elvgren -1980- American painter/illustrator

Davy Jones-2012- British actor, muscision, singer, songwriter (the