MAGIC WORDS This example of savoring the delicious word chocolate can be applied to any magic word.51 Take, for instance, hocus pocus, with its own "collision of hard and soft sounds" (from the long o to the short k) and its own pregnant silences between syllables and between words. This phrase comes into being on the whirling eddies of one's breath, with the hard hhh sound, and is propelled by the plosive p of pocus, blown like a kiss to a distant lover. Then the softly hissing s trails off into the unknown (see Figure 1). One can literally breathe life into words, for "Language . . . is the province of Air, and using . . . speech for magic is a very ancient practice." Figure 1. Breathing life into hocus pocus. 51 Magician Jared Markowitz uses chocolate itself as a magic word during card routines in which he makes a card placed in the middle of the deck suddenly appear at the top. 52 Deborah Lipp, The Way of Four: Create Elemental Balance in Your Life (2004)