AUMNIBUS
Jacek Yerka - Susan (1984)
Virus ante portas: the Covid-19 pandemic as a liminal hotspot
By Paul Stenner and David Kaposi
“ In the dominant imagination, the in-between period is not supposed to last because it is not supposed to exist. It is either supposed to be ultimately insignificant (a mere ‘pause’ before unchanged continuation) or swiftly assimilate to a radically different future—whether in an optimistic variant (an end to austerity?) or a pessimistic variant (a new authoritarian state of surveillance?). Both versions entail a neglect of the liminal phase and its role in human psychosocial transformations. They view change from the outside, as if those going through it from the inside did not have to grapple with the radical uncertainty and extract from it some new sense and new way of going on. In effect they neglect the fact that the future is necessarily something that has not yet happened and that we have a stake in determining both what we are aiming for and what we can practically do to actualise those aims. [...]
Of course, the present still exists, but it has the particular quality of lacking a clear future and indeed of having its old past called into question. Whilst dealing with the curious now of this liminal present, we are simultaneously in the process of imagining and articulating a new past and a new future for the present yet to come. [...]
Frederic Edwin Church - Moonlight, Church’s farm (ca. 1865)
No new future can be imagined unless the circular rumination of paralysis or the thoughtless action of polarisation are replaced by the understanding that our present liminal state is predicated on the past never becoming the future it was meant to be. There are no guarantees that the ‘emergence of the new’ will necessarily prepare the ground for its own recognition: it may, on the contrary, destroy that ground, leaving us stuck in the paradoxes of a liminal hotspot. [...]
The lockdown, to point to just one obvious aspect, will not simply go away now that it has entered our lives. The idea, which naturally dominated its early weeks, that it will one day be lifted strikes us as already coming from a different world. A previously more or less unknown entity has now entered our political, social and personal realities and is interacting with them in ways we have even not begun to understand. What it makes of us will depend upon what we will make of it, and this will require the blend of ideals and practicality that underpin creative thought and imaginative action."
Maurice Hagemans - Coucher de soleil sur l'étang avec cigognes (be. 1917)
Howard Russell Butler - Solar Eclipse (1925)
“There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery.”
― Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (1900)
JOURNAL
By Henry David Thoreau
II. CHAPTER VII
“Aug. 5. (1851) As the twilight deepens and the moonlight is more and more bright, I begin to distinguish myself, who I am and where; as my walls contract, I become more collected and composed, and sensible of my own existence, as when a lamp is brought into a dark apartment and I see who the company are. With the coolness and the mild silvery light, I recover some sanity, my thoughts are more distinct, moderated, and tempered. Reflection is more possible while the day goes by. The intense light of the sun unfits me for meditation, makes me wander in my thought; my life is too diffuse and dissipated; routine succeeds and prevails over us; the trivial has greater power then, and most at noonday, the most trivial hour of the twenty-four. I am sobered by the moonlight. I bethink myself. It is like a cup of cold water to a thirsty man. The moonlight is more favorable to meditation than sunlight.
The sun lights this world from without, shines in at a window, but the moon is like a lamp within an apartment. It shines for us. The stars themselves make a more visible, and hence a nearer and more domestic, roof at night. Nature broods us, and has not left our germs of thought to be hatched by the sun. We feel her heat and see her body darkening over us. Our thoughts are not dissipated, but come back to us like an echo. The different kinds of moonlight are infinite. This is not a eight for contrasts of light and shade, but a faint diffused light in which there is light enough to travel, and that is all ."
THE MOON : Secret messages, dreams, intuited information, obscure symbols and odd signs. All is not as it seems, and this is not a card for answers. It’s a card for weirdness, secrets and mystery. The Moon asks you to forget about what is rational, and to delves into life’s mysteries. This can be soulful, creative and profound work, or it can be simple and experimental.
The crayfish emerging from the pool represents thoughts and feelings rising from the depths of the subconscious. The dog represents the tamed, civilised mind, whilst the wolf represents the wild, instinctive self. Both are needed for the journey through moonlit territory. The two towers mark the gateway into the unknown.
“Deception” is one of the oldest interpretations of the Moon card because moonlight distorts one’s vision. The Moon then can represent lies and manipulation. We all wear masks, we all deceive and are deceived. The Moon shines its silvery light on those elements of ourselves, asking uncomfortable questions about what is true, and what isn’t. What we present, and the reality.
CREDITS
Aumnibus originally recorded during lockdown, on April 15th, 2020. First released as a hidden bonus track on the CD version of Last Incantations/Exil in 2021. Remixed in 2024 by Sébastien Dumontier, mastered by Laurent Roussel.
Classical & ambient guitars, acoustic bass guitar & Mellotron played by Finrod Artîwelë. Drums played by Lavinia Roussel.