Unbar the Sleeping Heart is a love mirror spell for the person whose heart has quietly closed itself against love. It is not a charm to summon a particular lover, but a rite of reflection that dissolves the inner walls keeping love from entering. Of all the workings for love, this is the steepest, for it summons no lover, only yourself. By candlelight you meet your own gaze in the glass, name the fears you long ago built into walls, and open a window where each wall once stood, until the heart that slept so long is unbarred again.
Correspondences for This Spell
- Colours: pink and rose for romantic love, with green for lasting, enduring affection
- Herbs: rose, lavender and jasmine (the working itself leans on lemon balm and yarrow, for gentleness and quiet courage)
- Crystal: rose quartz, the stone of tender self-love, or emerald for deeper devotion
- Day: Friday, the day of love
- Planet: Venus
- Element: Water
- Moon: the waxing moon, to draw love toward you
For more on aligning these forces, see the correspondences guide.
What You Will Need
- A single candle, pink or rose for love, or a plain white one if that is what you have to hand
- A mirror large enough to hold your whole face, set upright so your reflection rises out of the shadow
- A little oil, to anoint the glass and your own brow, rose oil or a simple carrier oil
- A few leaves of lemon balm and yarrow, the herbs of the working (dried rose petals make a fine addition)
- A cloth, to veil the mirror overnight and let the work set in the dark
The Best Time to Cast
Cast at dusk, the grey hour when day gives itself over to dark, a threshold time that mirrors the threshold you are opening in the glass. Choose a Friday, sacred to Venus and to love, and work while the moon is waxing, so that as her light swells, so too does your own capacity to receive love. A dusk Friday beneath a growing moon gathers all three currents behind the working.
The Working
- With a little oil upon your fingertip, trace a slow circle at each of the mirror’s four corners, sealing it as a threshold rather than a mere glass.
- Crush a few leaves of lemon balm and yarrow between your palms, breathe their scent, then scatter a pinch along the mirror’s foot.
- Meet your own eyes in the glass and hold them, until the small urge to look away has passed.
- Name aloud, one by one, the walls you have built: each fear, each old wound, each vow once made against loving again.
- As you speak each one, breathe a fog upon the glass and wipe a clear circle through it with your thumb, opening a window where a wall once stood.
- Anoint your own brow with the oil and speak the incantation, watching your face soften in the wavering light.
- Pinch the candle out between wetted fingers and cover the mirror with a cloth until morning, letting the work set in the dark.
The Incantation
I know the hands that built these walls;
they were my own, in years of frost.
Eye to eye I speak them down,
and count no stone of them a loss.
Open the heart that slept so long,
unbarred, unguarded, and unafraid.
Variations & Substitutions
- If you cannot find lemon balm and yarrow, dried rose petals with a pinch of lavender carry the same tenderness and calm, both being herbs of Venus.
- No pink or rose candle? A plain white candle serves perfectly; it is your steady gaze, not the wax, that does the working.
- In place of rose oil, any clean carrier oil, olive or sweet almond, will anoint the glass and your brow just as well.
A Word on Intent
Honour the Wiccan Rede: an it harm none, do what ye will. This is love magic in its most rightful form, for it reaches toward no other person and bends no one’s will. It works only upon you, opening you to willing love wherever it may one day arrive. Never cast to compel a specific person to love you; invite love freely, and let it come freely in return.
Related Love Spells
When you lift the cloth at dawn, meet your reflection once more, and let it find you gentler than the night before. Explore more workings like this one in the Grimoire, and keep a record of your own castings in your Book of Shadows.