Tenebrae

Last night’s parting word from Fred.

I thought he was saying “tenements” at first; he’d been whispering it indistinctly earlier in the evening and I couldn’t work out what he meant.

I’d always known that Tenebrae was the office of the night, of the shadows, but it was only when I looked it up that I realised what he was trying to say.

Tenebrae is only held in the run-up to Easter; it’s part of the representation of the death of Christ.  The service goes from light to dark and during the course of it, the church is stripped bare and put into darkness.

All the normal trappings of religious worship are removed; the choir leave, the organ stops playing and the participants find themselves in a black silence, a representation of the Void.

I understand.

The last three weeks have removed all the trappings of what I thought were my normal life (odd for most, albeit normal for me).  Pretty much everything I knew and trusted has been taken away.  I am in the dark and utterly alone.

I know this as the Dark Night of the Soul; something that has to be borne and lived through in order to develop.

Mediumship is often only acquired through trauma and this is what I have had to live through to have it.  It’s actually something I had always wished for; I felt it would give me proof to blow away my scepticism.

I’d always been deeply envious of mediums; my psychic abilities, such as they were, were mere party tricks in comparison.  I was a pale imitation with random skills; the odd flash of insight, strange dream, “good moments” with the tarot cards.

Then Fred turned up; except he’s always been there, I just didn’t know it.  Spirit guides are for life, not just for Christmas (as they say) so he has been with me for every minute of my life.

In fact, I think I knew him when I was a child.  When I was tiny, I had the obligatory “imaginary friend” that all lonely children have.  For most though, their imaginary friend is the same sex as themselves.  Mine wasn’t; he was a little boy.

Was it you Fred, who now says odd words, names and sings down my ear?