The Alchemy of Airships

Deep breath. I’d like to take you back to that time when you were a child jumping on a trampoline. You’re not wearing shoes. The sun has yet to consider going down. Bounce after bounce you feel the meat of your cheeks separate from your teeth. You’re a combination of enthusiastic, dizzy, exhausted, and energized from so much fun. You lie down on your back and look up at the clouds. You feel as if the earth could let go of you at any moment. There is a joy surging through you that reaches all the way through time to here and now as you read. This joy is a string you just plucked. Listen to the tone. Deep breath. Picture your ideal self. Daydream that person in an ideal location befitting of your ideal life. Take a deep breath as you would imagine that person would. Feel the warm gush of energy rise with a profound feeling of gratitude. Notice who you have become. The feeling overwhelms your mind and renders it speechless. This same feeling sends tingling pulses down your arms as an orange web of synaptic lightning plants you deeper in your throne. Your ideal self is who you are now. That song is already playing inside of you. You can turn up the volume if you’d like. You can bring that person to the front on your stage like a solo. Gratitude amplifies the signal. When we resonate ourself, we pluck our sacred bloodline’s note. It stretches all the way back to that time on the trampoline when you closed your eyes and wondered who you would be when you grew up. The answer is you.

I can’t help but wonder now if we grow up naturally. Compulsory education could change us in ways we currently blame on puberty. When I was ten I was losing my ability to pretend. I would sulk at the feet of three tulip poplar trees I had planted in the backyard. I never saw them grow if they did. I spoke to them anyways. They seemed bored with me as I grew taller. We are insane wizards as children. We summon dragons by rolling their names off our tongues. We vanquish them in valiant pursuits in the sky and underwater. I would turn a glass upside down in the tub for hours as tiny divers swim in and out of a diving bell for air. Pretend is an alchemical trance induced by the art of visualization.

The magic of sticks was lost when I was eleven. Parents were bribing me with money to call them twigs and rake them away into bags. I could still pretend with the help of certain magic items. A diecast jet seemed to yield the longest trance. I run maneuvers through a tall forest with my mind never leaving the cockpit. But one day I noticed my Legos fell apart too easily. We all go outside one day and forget how to play. This is a kind of death society won’t acknowledge and a loss we never mourn.

Visualization is a form of magic that entrains our will like a metronome. The longer you hold the vision, the deeper you entrain the body. Time builds rapport. Repetition installs vibration. There are four distinct phases of learning that start and end with the unconscious mind. Knowledge is mimicked when we reach level three. Knowledge is ingrained when we reach level four. Alchemical visualization is a level four skill.