Guided Visualization
Tym Greene

"Hello, and welcome. My name is Ge Sar." The man addressing the crowd of students in the converted Quonset hut looked exotic, with wide features and snow-tanned skin. His voice was low and soft like the rumble of a singing bowl, but carried easily around the room, the precise syllables accentless and clear. "If you don't already have a mat, please feel free to use one of ours." He gestured a long-fingered hand at the corner of the studio, where several yoga mats were sticking out of a sizeable basket.

"If, for medical reasons, you aren't able to lie on the floor, you re welcome to take one of the chairs instead." The instructor smiled broadly, revealing large white teeth. "I want you all to be comfortable."

Ge Sar waited while his students got themselves settled. Striding over to the entrance, he rested a finger on the light switch. "I'm going to turn out the lights now. Please take a moment to remember where you are in the room, where your neighbors are, where the exit is. Once I turn out the lights, I ask that you close your eyes, remain silent and motionless, and focus only on my voice. Everybody ready? Good." With a click, the space was bathed in darkness. Only a hint of light snuck past the rich fabrics hanging in the high-set windows, picking up their jeweltone colors in the process.

The instructor looked at the room around him: yes, every one of the men and women now in his charge had their eyes dutifully shut. He held up his right hand, palm facing the room, using the Abhaya Mudra to bestow reassurance and protection on the students. A slight wiggle of his fingers turned on the sound system and dispelled the glamour he had placed upon himself.

Ge Sar the Trickster rolled his shoulders and flexed his tail as the sounds of ocean waves began to creep from the speakers mounted to the ceiling. No longer did he look—as his passport said—like a man born in Lhasa. Instead, he now stood before the unseeing class in his true form: a Tibetan sand fox, tall and rangy. His wide-set almond eyes scanned the room, their heavy lids giving him a haughty air that was belied by the warmth of his smile.

Velvet pads stepping silently among the yoga mats, he began to speak. "I want you to listen to my voice. You are in a safe space here, a place for healing and relaxation. As I speak, I want you to focus your whole being on what I say." He held his hand to his chest in another symbolic posture, the Jnana Mudra, the claws of his forefinger and thumb touching to encourage his pupils to learn. "I also want you to pay attention to your breathing. If you find yourself straying from the path I set, simply guide your focus back to your breath, let it be the anchor." A gull's cry sounded—distant and plaintive—through the speakers, while the recorded waves continued their susurration.

"Now," his hands shifting into the Rudra Mudra, his thumb touching his ring and index fingers, leaving his pinkie and middle fingers outstretched. The tips of the two extended digits began to glow. Blue sparks leapt from one to the other and back, unit they formed a pulsing strand of captured lightning. "I want you to turn your attention to your breathing."

The lightning bolt strung between his two fingers began to crackle like a Fourth of July sparkler, birthing blue starbursts that did not fade. They began to drift across the room, unaffected by the gusts from the softly-rattling air conditioning. "Leet your breathing slow until it is comfortable and relaxed. Feel your lungs filling with air and then pushing it out. Feel it flowing in through your nostrils and out through your mouth. Try to sense every molecule of air as it flows in, welcome each one with your body as you would welcome a friend into your home. As they leave, try and thank each one in sincere gratitude for the life and energy they have provided you."

Ge Sar watched as the blue sparks began to find their targets. He paused for a moment, giving them time. "Breathe in ... and out," the fox occasionally prompted, his voice soft and filled with warm tenderness. His eyes followed one of the sparks, drifting down in front of a seated man, past his forehead, his open mouth, his chest, until it hovered about two inches below his navel. With sudden propulsion, it arrowed straight through, finding its target: the Sacral Chakra. For the other students it was much the same: for some the starburst was attracted to their Throat Chakra, or to their foreheads or hearts. One man, seated in a chair, even had a spark attach to the top of his head, Ge Sar noticed with a smile. This would be an interesting class.

"Now," he said in the same soothing voice once he was certain that each person had received at least one spark of his energy, "focus on your feet. Feel their pressure against the ground. Are they touching other parts of you? Are they heavy or light? There is no right or wrong: I only want you to truly know yourself, to know how your feet feel, to accept them for how they are and what they are." A few students away, one woman was sitting on her mat with legs outstretched as her feet grew longer, flatter, legs merging like a zipper run from heel to hip. He watched as her skin shifted from freckled and pale to a uniform grey, glossier by the minute. The first one is always quickest, he thought, not breaking the rhythm of his speech.

"Move your attention slowly up your legs: are your ankles sore? Do they feel loose? Can you feel the bones pressing against the mat?" On the other side of the room, he noticed a man whose feet had started wasting away. The skin over the atrophying muscles vanished, and soon his feet were bare bones, held together by the force of his self-identity. Ge Sar wondered how far up the change would go for him. "Your knowledge of your body is truly vital; we cannot fix what we do not know is broken, and we cannot enjoy what is unless we know that it is. Know your shins, and your knees. With each breath probe your body with your mind, experience one part at a time, not judging, not naming pain or pleasure. Accept what is."

The man who had had a spark activate his Crown Chakra was sitting visibly straighter, Ge Sar noticed, his folded legs now a solid mass, rounding out around his lengthening torso. Already his skin was taking on a greenish hue. "How do your thighs feel? Are they solid with tension, or loose and relaxed? Can you feel the confidence of them, the fact that they carry you and move you throughout the day? Can you feel the warmth of them against the other parts of your body?" Another student, a young woman with her hair pulled back in a tight bun and her face taut with concentration, began to relax. Her thighs stretched the yoga pants she wore, the fabric beginning to sink into her flesh. The fox watched as her lower body lost much of its form, becoming translucent purple, as though she were becoming grape jello. Her pants were subsumed by the gelatinous thighs they encased, and sunk into her, dissolving; her shirt soon followed suit.

"Your hips are your focus now. Breathe in through your nose, feel the way your pelvis shifts to support your swelling lungs, the way it knows the correct posture for you as you breathe out. Feel the way it supports and grounds your spine, the way it connects us to the ground. You may notice a stirring of arousal, you may notice the calm quiet of loins at rest. You aren't acting on any of this, merely noticing the sensations, accepting them for how they are." Next to the man who seemed to be taking on the form of a potted plant, a woman in cow-print leggings moaned quietly as her muscles tensed up. Her legs thickened and pelvis widened, her feet hardening to dark points that tore through her socks. Her leggings split, revealing legs covered in the same holstein splotches—now grown out into a short-furred hide—and between them a suggestion that she was a she no more. A nose ring appeared from thin air, and as it locked into his broadening nostrils, Ge Sar could see the tension leaving the thickening muscles, a look of bovine contentment relaxing the expanded features.

On the other side of the room, a man seated in one of the chairs seemed to be having a similar—but opposite—reaction. His clothes had vanished, replaced by a loose and flowing chiton dress. His form had softened until he looked almost matronly, which was accented by the Greek key patterned hem picked out in opalescent pink threads. His feet ended in dainty white hooves, and a long, tufted tail stuck out of the chair back.

"Feel your belly, feel the way it shifts as you breathe in and out." He glanced at the man who had had the spark land atop his head: though his torso was now a wrist-thick stalk and didn't seem to be moving with his breaths, his outstretched arms swelled and fluttered like the leaves they were becoming. A woman in the back had chosen to lie down, and had been shrinking. Her clothing vanished, revealing a form that looked half-tabby, with an up-turned well-fed belly that was just begging to be scratched. Ge Sar's ears flicked: yes, she was purring. Good, that will help.

The thrumming vibration fit within the soft sea-spray roar of the speakers, deepening it. "Your lungs are important to breath, and are a source of interaction with the world around us. As you breathe in, imagine the air touching you, pressing against the insides of your lungs; welcome the air into you, let it—" he glanced over at a younger man with a scraggly beard and strands of black hair that obscured his face. Sure enough, with every breath his cutely-chubby body got thicker, and there was the sound of hissing, like air blown through a nozzle...just like the one that had grown out of his belly button and pushed up the bottom of his shirt. "Let it fill you." The man was getting filled, there was no question about that: his belly was now as round, smooth, and translucent as a beach ball.

"Feel your chest rise and fall with each slow breath, feel your shoulders rise and your back stretch—are you sitting straight or are you at an awkward angle?" Two sources of motion vied for his attention as the shoulders of two of his charges began to lift higher, revealing splotchily-patterned skin on necks and midriffs. For a moment, even Ge Sar was surprised: never before had he had two identical changes in a single class. Then he looked closer. The lady on one side was growing longer, yes, but her legs were dwindling, and the yellow splotches on her increasingly-scaley skin were framed by green; on the other hand, the man sitting half a dozen seats away from her was growing furry, with short clubbed horns sprouting from his head. A giraffe and a naga, he predicted. "Have you curled up to protect yourself from some fear or pain? Perhaps now is the time to unwind and accept reality as it unchangably is, so that you may welcome the un-shaped future that will be" At his words, the naga's legs vanished, and her yards-long tail unfurled itself into existence, wending its way between chairs and yoga mats, until it stretched halfway across the room.

"You are all doing so well, welcoming the air in with each breath, encouraging your body to right itself. Awakening to your true nature is the only way to truly heal." He glanced over at the inflating young man, whose black hair now draped over a draconic muzzle. His inflating belly and limbs had split his clothes, which had reformed into black plastic handles at his hips and shoulders. Eyes still closed, his long face now had a beatific smile as he swelled further with each breath.

A drawn-out hissing blast drew the Tibetan fox's attention back to the first person to change. Her grey skin was glossy and damp, with the almost-rubber look of a healthy dolphin. A mer-phin, he surmised, looking at the way the muscular tail blended with her still-human hips and torso, the webbed hands folded loosely across what now passed as her waist, her head already showing a distinct bottle nose. As he watched her take another breath, he realized that she was breathing out her blowhole, which had caused the hissing.

"Now," he continued, smiling proudly at his student's progress, "feel your neck, the way it draws strength from your shoulders to support your head, the way it protects your breath as you draw it down into your body." A gull's cry on the soundtrack interrupted him, and with a surprising suddenness a tall man sitting to Ge Sar's left—who had remained unchanged so far—sprouted a long beak. His legs grew spindly with knobby knees revealed by his vanishing pants, and broad webbed feet that split his shoes. The fox examined the new seagull, noticing that his glasses remained perched on the bill, and his reddish goatee had moved forward to the beak's tip. Always interesting to see what identity an individual retains, he mused as the gullman fluttered his tailfeathers and adopted a nesting pose on his yoga mat.

"Your face by now should be relaxed," the woman on the other side of the Quonset hut lost all features at this point, becoming just a sentient mound of faintly grape-scented goo. "Feel the tension leave your jaw, your brow, your temples." The skeletonizing man looked like he was going all the way, since lips and tongues and cheeks had vanished, and his still-shut eyes were looking less extant by the second. Meanwhile, the plant in his pot was beginning to bloom: his head had become a shut bud, which now opened to reveal the bright yellow petals of a sunflower, his eyes and mouth situated in the central disk.

Ge Sar moved back to the front of the room, looking around at his momentary charges, and grinned a trickster's grin, alloyed by a father's tenderness. "Finally, I want you to feel your breath expanding your consciousness, rising through your whole body from your toes to the crown of your head and out into the universe. You are the agent of your own destiny, and it all starts with a single breath." The student with the pointed hooves and tufted tail revealed her new identity as a long and spiraled horn grew from her forehead, pink pearlescence picking up the color of her chiton's hem and the dainty bows tying her unicorn beard and tail. There was a feeling throughout the room as though something were falling into place.

"I'm going to turn the light back on in a few moments," he said as he backed towards the switch. "I want you to take this time to focus once more on your breath, and only your breath. Feel the way it flows through you, the way it enters and the way it leaves. Greet it with joy and then send it out with gratitude." He glanced at the clock: once again, he'd timed it perfectly. There were five minutes until the class was officially over, and his students would have five minutes of silent breathing in their new truer forms.

As much as he loved watching—and aiding—the change, this part was his favorite. Even as he resumed his own glamour, looking once more like a normal human, he felt a thrill of satisfaction. Finally flicking the light switch on, he greeted his changed and blinking students with his broadest grin, "Thank you all for being so attentive. I hope you will remember what we did today, and use this technique as you go about your lives. While this is the only session of 'Intro to Meditation,' I do offer 'Advanced Meditation' courses for those of you who wish to continue honing the practice. I have sign-up forms for that and other classes on the chair by the door, and every one of you is welcome at the next session."

After gesturing at the stack of papers, he propped the door open. "Now, you've been sitting for a while—or lying down," he added, looking over at the mer-phin on her mat, "so I want you to be careful getting up."

He stood beside the open door and shook hands or hugged each student as they filed out. The goo woman left him a bit sticky and smelling of grape, but he didn't mind. The skeleton still had his pompadour, which gave him a rather suave look as his empty sockets and bare jaw still managed to smile at the human-guised fox. Next were the Holstein bull and dainty unicorness, who carried the mer-phin between them. The naga and giraffe man seemed to have hit it off and left holding hands. I can only imagine the fun they'd get up to, Ge Sar thought, wishing them well. The anthropomorphized gull and the dragon pool toy were chatting about setting up a pool party as they left, and soon the only other student in the room was the potted plant.

He sat on his chair, sunflower face practically radiating contentment as Ge Sar strode over. "Have you got someone to take you home?"

"Oh, yes," said the flower, "my boyfriend said he'll pick me up after work." He craned his stalk to look at the clock. "He should have been done at the nursery by now—he always brings me the best fertilizer." And as though summoned, a man in a dirt-smeared apron stepped through the door.

"Hey, Phoebus, you all set? I've got a new brand of mulch I'd love you to try for dinner."

"See? I tolja," the sunflower flapped his leaves like a child begging for a piggy-back ride.

Ge Sar stuck out a hand to shake the boyfriend's. "You're both welcome at my next class, if you want. I also offer a class for couples meditation, and I find it helps bring lovers into better synch with one another." Unsurprisingly, the gardener snagged a form for the couples class with his free hand as he carried his planted mate out the door.

Eyes looking particularly vulpine as he finished tidying up and locked the Quonset hut, Ge Sar smiled to himself. He'd noticed several other sheets missing from the stack for the couples session, and wondered just how many of today's students would be coming back. He did so love surprises, especially when his students surprised him themselves.