The Imaginarium (Complete, final revision: 9/20/25))

The sky erupts in a vaporous vision;

(Aqua Vitae,

the Water of Life,

the Living Water.)

•

Welcome to the Imaginarium

where a vacant space

in a timeless place

becomes a gateway

to the extraordinary.

•

We live in an aviary,

an aerial aquarium,

beneath gliding apparitions,

made of ice-coated pearls.

Phantom leviathans

encircle our perimeters,

(Continued below the jump...)

anonymous as the trees

bending slightly to touch

their air.

Oblivious to us

as we are to them.

•

(But, all things dream beneath

the same dusty blanket.

All things drink from a watery bed.

All things share a degree of sentience,*

rocking in the same vibrant web.)

•

A billion silent narratives

pass above us every day.

Oblique illuminations unfold...

frissons and fugues,

amazing animations...

Welcome to the Imaginarium

of the World.

- Photos and text, 2025, DS.

***

"The term imaginarium symbolizes not just a physical space but also a mental landscape filled with the potential for creativity and exploration. It serves as a bridge between literal and abstract interpretations of our capacity to imagine and create, making it a versatile word in various contexts."

- Sourced from Goong.com, the New Generation Dictionary. Many of us might remember the term from the 2009 film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Heath Ledger's last film. However, I rediscovered the term in the comment section of an article by (the extraordinary) L.C. Douglas: Night Tensions on the Island.

"The Gaia hypothesis... proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form... a self-regulating complex system involving the biosphere, the atmosphere, the hydrospheres and the pedosphere, tightly coupled as an evolving system. The hypothesis contends that this system as a whole, called Gaia, seeks a physical and chemical environment optimal for contemporary life."

- Via Wiki's entry for the Gaia hypothesis, a theory proposed by British chemist and Earth scientist, James Lovelock in the 1970's.

"Moreover, the salt of metals is the philosophers' stone, for our stone is water frozen into gold and silver, and it resists fire and resolves into its water, of which its nature is composed. Therefore the reduction of bodies into prime matter or quicksilver is nothing other than the dissolution of frozen matter, by which the lock is opened by the entry of one form into another."

- Words of wisdom from Arnauld de Villeneuve, Catalan Hermetic philosopher (1238-1313), in reference to The Philosophers' Rosary (Rosarium Philosophorum) and what may be the Hermetic equivalent of the Philosopher's Water - Aqua Vitae - which is said to flow from a fountain. (Source links lead to translatable pages from the comprehensive French alchemy site, Oraedes.)

"In the first of the sequence, the fountain pours forth the three substances that supposedly flow from the centre of the soul. These are 'Lac Virginis' (the Virgin's milk), 'Acetum fontis' (the spring of vinegar) and 'Aqua Vitae' (the water of life). The latter represents the force within man, that which originally exists."

- Via the University of Glasgow Library in reference to their manuscript of the Philosopher's Rosarium. Inset left, is an illumination of the fountain found here. Note the unusual spiraling clouds flanking the fountain. I've never encountered such clouds in alchemical diagrams in the past.

***

The Last Cloud of August, Albuquerque parking lot - cellphone photo - August 31, DS.

"Rows and floes of angel hair,

and ice cream castles in the air,

with feathered canyons everywhere.

I've looked at clouds that way."

- From Both Sides Now by Canadian songbird, poet and painter, Joni Mitchell, 1970. 

A poem is a conundrum in the same way a cloud is a conundrum. Which is why they work together so well. I am not the first writer to attempt this marriage, however. I'd like to think I am carrying on a tradition created by Canadian-American poet, Mark Strand, who, with artist, Wendy Mark, wrote the first illuminated book of poetry devoted solely to clouds: 89 Clouds. The poem is a series of 89 lines. One of my favorites:

13. Clouds are drawn by invisible birds

A writer barely remembers what event launched a poem at times; what brought them to the table. The memory is a mirror image and not quite accurate. However, the intention - that initial spark - does not shift. The writer may follow this tiny spark down many uneven corridors but, the end, they lead to same colonnade, where it is written: To thy subject be true.

Well, I did the best I could.

The Imaginarium began as a single thought which became its underlying theme. I publish it here merely for the record:

Wherever the sky has an empty space, there are forces which vie to fill it. While most displays go unnoticed - removed or replaced numerous times per day - these dream-like endeavors widen the world.

July 21, 2025, DS.

The addition of Aqua Vitae was an epiphany as was the inclusion of the French word frisson, which, because it has no English equivalent was eventually absorbed into the English lexicon. It is also a perfect word to describe our enigmatic relationship with clouds... with its element of wonder:

"Defined as... aesthetic chills or psychogenic shivers... known for being evoked by experiences with music, the phenomenon can additionally be triggered with poetry, videos, beauty in nature or art, eloquent speeches, the practice of science (mainly physics and mathematics), and can also be triggered on command by some people without any external stimuli."

The alchemical term Aqua Vitae is generally applied to distilled ethanol alcohol, but my impression is that, in Hermetic alchemy, this same clear fluid was a metaphor for the purest of life-giving waters... not the kind that we, of a later age, erroneously assume can be bought in a bottle.

My personal understanding is that clouds are at that strange nexus on a (circular) consciousness spectrum closest to "unconsciousness", that is, if we possessed an actual measure.** In any case, clouds are not dead matter.*** We have only to remember the substance of which they're composed. Aqua Vitae, the Vital Water.

And, lastly but not leastly, I present to you a little cloud music brought to us by the Glass Duo, Anna and Arkadiusz Szafraniec from Poland. 

Their music is performed on a glass harp, an instrument played by brushing against inverted glass domes (frosted wine glasses) while manipulating the sound waves with ones hands. Try the glass harp version of Eric Satie's Gnossienne 1.  Magical.

___________________________________________

* This poem is a piece of work. It is also a work in progress. While publishing it, I realized there were several words I wasn't satisfied with, but, couldn't stall this post any longer.

The first word to change is the word which is presently "communion." It was "perception." It may change again, because neither word supports the cognitive state I'm trying to convey and/or describe.

More changes may be made.

Updated (9/20/2025): I have reverted the word in question back to the original first word I wrote, sentience. In my final analysis, it is the only true word. Sentience refers to various elements, aspects, or degrees of consciousness. The sentience I am referring  to is something I call aesthetic sentience. I thought I was being original, but, no, apparently not. I just found an article today which states: "Consciousness is the self-elaborating aesthetic-participatory foundation from which all possible phenomena are derived."

Epiphany of the day: Without aesthetic sentience, art could not be perceived, and the golden meme could not proliferate in the phenomenal world.

** There is some measure provided by the Sentience Quotient. See Wiki's entry for Sentience, where you will also find 3 key takeaways:

"According to Thomas Nagel in his paper "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?", consciousness can refer to the ability of any entity to havel subjective perceptual experiences, or as some philosophers refer to them, "qualia"—in other words, the ability to have states that it feels like something to be in.,"

"The first vow of a Bodhisattva states, "Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to free them." In traditional Tibetan Buddhism, plants, stones and other inanimate objects are described as possessing spiritual vitality or a form of 'sentience'."

"In Jainism, many things are endowed with a soul, jīva, which is sometimes translated as 'sentience'... Water, for example, is a sentient being of the first order, as it is considered to possess only one sense, that of touch."

*** Then again, clouds may be similar to dead matter, if one takes into account recent developments in neurobiology.

Shortly, after writing those words "clouds are not dead matter" I came upon this article: Death May Not Be the End of Consciousness, Scientists Say. The Implications Are Terrifying.

Well, I wouldn't get too worked up about it, but, it's interesting because it brings up states of Twilight Consciousness, a term which is new to me, and, apparently covers a lot of ground... from sleep states and mental disorders (note the title of the linked article) to hypnagogic states, our wild card.

For more adventures with clouds, see Wiki articles for Ice nucleus and Bioaerosol.