THE ELIXIR OF LIFE

how near is this ocean of love, that a pang of separation has the power to send its waters rushing out from your eyes?

We are followers of that great Tradition which boasts only one dogma: Water is the Earth's ether.

With it, the multiplicity of life raises its limbs toward the cosmos, sustaining us invisibly.
Without it, life itself is unmasked – a fragile charlatan stripped naked, a temporary charade.
Before markets were invented, we understood thirst.
What were we without water?  Only the thirsty may grasp at that secret.
We wayfarers of the well do not remember a time – from conception to the great recycling – that life itself was not woven in the fabric of water.
To be sure, the mania of the markets, and the elaborate hoax of commodity has rendered us alien to ourselves, introspecting as it were from the outside in. We make efforts to conserve water, to protect water, to honour water, as though these were not homonyms for life itself.

Who has time for such verbose games?

We were the thirsty bedouins long before Descartes. Thoughtless we wandered, uttering that mantra of obeisance: Water is, therefore I am.
Slowly, we have fallen victim to this duality, this alienation from our very insides. Language is dangerous scribe, objectifying us from ourselves, rendering that which is inside and all around us to the outside.

Once we were in the womb, and now we are here – living water sculptures, animate matter tiptoeing in a sacred dance held in orbit by those primordial cousins: water, air. Woe that we have lost sight, and are losing our thirst.
Thirst is our teacher, guiding us in the remembrance of our origin. He asked:

'How was I to know that this boundless ocean was this?
Its depths constitute the earth, its vapours become the sky.'

One meniscus – a surfaced mirror staring back at me as I grasp to resolve that mystery. Maulana Rumi was a very literal man.
Shame that we do not take him at his word.

- AMIR AZIZ / TRANSMISSIONS FROM THE TEMPLE 

THE METAPHYSICS OF 'DARKNESS'

'THE BLACK LIGHT REVEALS THE VERY SECRET OF BEING' - HENRI CORBIN
 

THERE IS MUCH TALK THESE DAYS ABOUT 'DARK FASHION'. SOME HAVE GONE SO FAR AS TO LABEL THE CONTEMPORARY OBEISANCE TO MONOCHROMATICS AND MINIMALISM AS REPRESENTING A 'GOTHIC' TREND. 

SADLY, WORDS TODAY CARRY SO LITTLE OF THEIR ORIGINAL MEANING.  OURS IS A CIVILIZATION BUILT UPON THE FUNERAL PROCESSION OF ETYMOLOGY.  THE ADEPTS OF THE TEMPLE OF RUIN – AWARE OF THE MEANING AND ORIGIN OF SYMBOLS AND SIGNS – SEEK TO REINVIGORATE THE CONTEMPORARY UNDERSTANDING OF ART, FASHION, CULTURE WITH SOMETHING FROM TRADITION.

THERE IS A DUALISM THAT PERVADES OUR SENSES IN THE MODERN ERA WHICH WAS HASTILY PLANTED AND NURTURED BY THE SHRAPNEL PHILOSOPHERS LIKE RENE DESCARTES AND HIS ILK, MANY MOONS AGO.  DESCARTES FAMOUSLY SAID 'I THINK; THEREFORE, I AM' – ironically, speaking before thinking.

WE ASK YOU : WHEN YOU SEEK INSIDE, DO YOU FIND THOUGHT FIRST, OR BEING?  DID YOU COME INTO BEING BEFORE THINKING, OR THINK BEFORE COMING INTO BEING? IS NOT EMANATION PRIOR TO EXPLANATION? 

in our temple, BEING represents the DARKNESS – THE PLENUM FROM WHICH ALL LIGHT, ALL THOUGHT EMERGES.  being is the dark continent which few have dared voyage into directly, though our atmosphere is formed from its vapours.  sadly, WE HAVE BEEN PARALYZED TO FEAR THAT MOMENT WHEN THOUGHT VANISHES, SINCE BEYOND LIGHT, they tell us, HOW CAN WE NOT DREAD THE DARK?  THEREFORE WE DWELL IN A NARROW SCENE THAT PUSHES US FROM ONE STIMULATION TO ANOTHER, ONE DISTRACTION TO ITS NEXT, ALL TO AVOID THAT OMINOUS DREAD.  INDEED, OURS IS A WORLD WHICH PITS LIGHT AGAINST DARK, AS THOUGH THEY WERE ANTONYMS.

BUT BEHOLD: DARKNESS IS NOT THE OPPOSITE OF LIGHT NOR ITS ABSENCE.  IT IS ITS ORIGIN. THE LONG MARCH OF MODERN HISTORY HAS TURNED 'DARKNESS' INTO THE PERILOUS 'OTHER', THE DEMON WHICH WE RUN AND HIDE FROM ONLY TO FALL AGAIN IN ITS CLUTCHES.  THIS IS THE LILA OF KRISHNA, THE PLAY OF THE AGES.  WE ARE THE CHILDREN PLAYFULLY FORGETTING AS WE CIRCLE THIS CAROUSEL.

CONSIDER THAT WHEN THE FATHERS OF SCIENCE SOUGHT THE ORIGIN OF MATTER, THEY FOUND AN ATOM. CONVINCED OF ITS 'STUFF-NESS', THEY LOOKED CLOSER ONLY TO FIND THAT THE 'STUFF' OF THE ATOM WAS ALMOST ENTIRELY MADE OF EMPTY SPACE.  SOON, THEY FOUND A NUCLEUS AND WERE CONVINCED OF ITS 'STUFF-NESS'.  THEY LOOKED CLOSER ONLY TO FIND THAT THE 'STUFF' OF THE NUCLEUS WAS ALMOST ENTIRELY MADE OF EMPTY SPACE.  SOON THEY FOUND PROTONS, NEUTRONS, AND ELECTRONS AND AGAIN CONVINCED OF THEIR 'STUFF-NESS', THEY LOOKED CLOSER ONLY TO FIND THAT THIS 'STUFF' WAS ALMOST ENTIRELY MADE UP OF EMPTY SPACE.  TODAY WE HAVE POSITRONS AND QUARKS. TOMORROW YET ANOTHER NOMENCLATURE WILL ARISE. 

WE ASK YOU: WHAT IS SO EMPTY ABOUT THIS SPACE?  WHEN YOU LOOK UP IN THE NIGHT SKY, DO YOU SEE EMPTINESS OR A DARK FULLNESS WHICH BLANKETS YOURS SENSES? 

THE DARKER THE SKY, THE BRIGHTER THE LIGHTS WHICH TRAVEL THROUGH TIME TO MEET THEIR MAKER RESTING THERE, BEHIND YOUR EYES.

TRUE DARKNESS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT, BUT A COMPLETE REMEMBERING OF ORIGINS.  TRUE DARKNESS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH EVIL, AS ONTOLOGY IS NOT A MORAL MATTER.  TRUE DARKNESS CAN ONLY BE EXPERIENCED IN THE VASTNESS OF INNER SPACE, UNDISTURBED BY THOUGHT OR MORAL JUDGMENT. THE PURE SPACE OF BEING WHICH GIVES RISE TO ALL POSSIBILITIES IS THE 'STUFF' WE ARE AFTER. THIS DARKNESS CONTAINS ALL INFORMATION, ALL INSTRUCTION, ALL BLUEPRINTS FOR EVERY PERMUTATION AND EVERY COMBINATION.  DARKNESS IS THE SOIL FOR ALL LIFE AND EXPERIENCE.

verily, DARKNESS IS OUR ORIGIN AND OUR DESTINATION.  IN THIS SACRED CADRE, THE BLACK DIAMOND IS OUR CRYSTAL BALL.  REMOVE YOUR EYES SO THAT YOU MAY SEE WHAT LIES AHEAD...

- AMIR AZIZ / transmissions from the temple 

A Mecca for the Modern Mendicant

Welcome to the TEMPLE OF RUIN.  

Your arrival is an auspicious sign for the faithful.  Praises that you have cast off the weariness of the Path, and found refuge in the circle of the Initiates.  

Our collection is created for the wayfarer who understands the friendship of a expertly crafted talisman.  Putting aside vanity, we wayfarers entrust our bodies to minimal, elegant adornments which are heirlooms on our Path. 

OurS is an open secret society.  The price of admission is your head.