Umbra Solis

Before getting totally lost into symbola and other bad energy and toxic stuff from hollywood (last scorsese film, that is fraudolent)… yesterday night I stepped into some notes from 2009 about exercises, rituals, and panic. The connection between the Officium Tenebrarum and AOS is fortuitous? Or not?

In Christian liturgy the Officium Tenebrarum was a group of three masses held on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the Holy Week preceding Easter Sunday.
Originally, the texts of Jeremiah used therein were psalms on the destruction of Jerusalem appearing in the New Testament. Practiced in Roman Catholic liturgy since the 8th Century, they became quite popular as masses in 17th century France under the name of Leçons de Ténèbres (lectures or lessons of darkness) or simply Tenebrae, and can be considered as an independent genre in French Baroque music.

The whole sequence was called Offices des Ténèbres. Its ceremony involved the extinguishing of all lights, with the exception of a single candle left alight and concealed behind the altar. At the end of the office the silence of the officiant was answered by the audience with screams and tumult, thus representing the disorder and confusion that appeared at the death of Christ. The last candle was then shown as evidence of the saviour’s resurrection.

Pickford Waller Ex-Libris by AOS, 1905

I believe in the flesh ‘as now’ and forever . . . for I am the Light, the Truth, the Law, the Way, and none shall come unto anything except through his flesh. Did I not show you the eclectic path between ecstasies; that precarious funambulatory way . . . . But you had no courage, were tired, and feared. THEN AWAKE! De-hypnotize yourselves from the poor reality you be-live and be-lie. For the great Noon- tide is here, the great bell has struck . . . Let others await involuntary immolation, the forced redemption so certain for many apostates to Life. Now, in this day, I ask you to search your memories, for great unities are near. The Inceptor of all memory is your Soul. Life is desire, Death is reformation . . . I am the resurrection . . . I, who transcend ecstasy by ecstasy, meditating Need Not Be in Self-love . . .

A.O.Spare