Well, that was very unexpected. I might have finally found my psychic ability metier. Levitation.
It’s not what I was planning to do today. I was going to cut open a pomegranate to predict what kind of winter weather is on the cards (a lady must always sort out her wardrobe in good time). But then when I went to find the divination key, I also found I was supposed to be using a persimmon. Not a pomegranate. My local greengrocer just laughed at me. Admittedly he thought I’d said parsnip, standing in front of the parsnips, but you try saying persimmon with a mask on. Upshot being they’re not yet in season.
So I went back to my books and found that it’s St Joseph of Cupertino’s Day, the patron saint of astronauts and students. Students, because he was so diligent, astronauts because it’s said he could levitate.
It’s been a rough week, and frankly the last thing I wanted to do on a Friday night was learn to levitate. But them’s the breaks. After wading through reams of online tutorials on how to wear flared trousers and stand at a certain angle and do things with your feet, I finally came across an exercise in how to actually levitate. Or at the very least, levitate a finger. Because that’s where you start. Your right index finger. You see levitation takes dedication. Levitation. Dedication. That’s what you need. Needless to say I spent the next five minutes tuning Roy Castle out of my brain.
The craic is you sit with your hands on a table, get into the zone, and concentrate all your breath and the air around you on your finger, which is then supposed to lift of its own accord. So I set my timer for 20 minutes as this seems to be the right amount of time for these things, lit some homemade incense, and sat at my desk. Somewhat counter-intuitively I grounded myself, but you never know, and I didn’t particularly want to find myself cheek by jowl with the ceiling. Not this time.
And then it all got a little weird. I did the tuning out, I got into the zone, I did the focusing, I breathed in manifesting air beneath my finger and breathed out pushing all the air down my arm, through my wrist, into my hand and then into my finger (figuratively, obviously). And then after a bit, the joints in my index finger kind of unlocked, and it began to cock like a hammer in a typewriter. This was then followed by my whole left hand loosening and raising, with my right shortly joining it. So then I concentrated on filling my wrists with air, and up they went too.
And then it got a bit ridiculous as I didn’t know what to do next. There was little point floating my arms above my head unless I was going to suddenly take off like Superman, which I felt was highly unlikely. Plus, you know, the ceiling. So I opened my eyes. I was just under 12 minutes into the experiment and my hands were raised over a foot off the desk. Just hovering there like old fashioned zombie arms, with no intention of lowering themselves. I literally had to come down.
Taking a punt at how to do this, I closed my eyes again and started to breath normally. After a while my body concertinaed and my arms, followed by my head rested on the desk, not unlike a sack of potatoes. And when I was ready, I sat up, with two minutes still left to go on the clock. Even now, having typed all this out, my hands still feel pumped full of air. And despite my reluctance to learn something new at such a late hour, I now find myself fantastically relaxed.
So maybe this is where my psychic abilities lie? After all my misfires, maybe I’m a levitation prodigy? If you need me, I’ll be making my X Woman costume. I just need to find my superhero name. Until then…
… you’re welcome.
Resources
Header: Yup, this is a recycled pic from when I made them. The ones I took today were rubbish.
Blackburn, B. and Holdford-Strevens, L. (2003) The Oxford Companion to the Year. An Exploration of Calendar Customs and Time-Reckoning, Oxford, Oxford University Press
Keep at it and you’ll be doing a Lionel Richie in no time!
Oooh what a feeling!