Tag: church

2023 – A Landmark Year? Be Ready

Photo by Alexas Fotos on Pexels.com

The past three years have been extraordinarily difficult for us, on many levels. I do not have to go into the details, the reader will be more than aware, whatever their standpoint.

Astrologically, 2023 promises change after a difficult start. Right now (early January), with Mercury and Mars retrograde in particular, it might feel that nothing is happening and than 2023 is continuing pretty much like 2022, in a kind of frustrating stalemate politically and economically, nevertheless with wild, hard to believe news stories dominating the headlines.

Retrograde Mercurys are notorious for making any kind of communication and travel difficult. With Mars retrograde in Mercury’s sign of Gemini until January 12, this only compounds the situation, creating a sense of inaction.

But once these two planets turn direct shortly, much of the underlying frustration will begin to clear, especially when the Sun moves into Aquarius around January 20 and Uranus turns direct in Taurus on January 22. A fundamental change of atmosphere will occur and we will see things more as they truly are; the deceptions we have had to live with for far too long.

And with Jupiter already beginning a new 12 year cycle by entering Aries, now is the time for opportunity in new beginnings of any kind. From May Jupiter enters Taurus to join revolutionary Uranus; there will be big financial opportunites and news from the late spring, which should see us finally begin to leave this planetary state of depression.

Add to this Pluto’s initial stint in Aquarius from March for a few months, before finally settling into the Waterbearer in early 2024, and we are going to witness a fundamental shift, as important as we saw in 2008 when Pluto entered Capricorn, which brought the so-called Credit Crunch and all the chaos thereof. This time however, in Aquarius, the changes are going to be more societal, among groups and in humanity in general. The people are not to stand for certain situations any longer; Pluto is a malefic, it undermines, trawls deep, and bring detritus to the surface in a major cleansing which is never easy, nor straightforward. At times its going to be pretty ugly.

Pluto is in Aquarius for around 20 years, and always marks a major shift for humanity. The last time this occurred there was the French Revolution (was that positive???) and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, for example.

What I have noticed is that in the 1530s to 1550s (when Pluto was in Aquarius the time before last) and towards the mid 1040s (when it was also in the Waterbearer), at the beginning of each of these phases Neptune was in watery Pisces. Now Pisces has strong associations with religion and Christianity in particular. I suggest that Pluto and Neptune are working in tandem.

During both of these periods there were major shifts in religion and belief and consequent changes in society. The 1050s brought the Great Schism, the split between the Churches of Rome and Byzantium, which also ushered in major societal and military actions, such as the Norman Conquest, blessed by the then Pope to bring England truly back into the re-energised Catholic fold. In the 1530s to 1550s, the Reformation brought huge chaos and change to the Church and society, plus major political and military conflict. The Dissolution of the Monasteries in England, for example, brought major societal upheaval.

So once again, in 2023/4, as Pluto enters Aquarius, Neptune is found in Pisces. The difference this time, I suggest, is that that all three of these so-called outer planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) are now known to humanity, and we are conscious of them. This may make it more positive than it might have been, but I predict that major, groundbreaking changes are about to occur to the Church in general, changing it forever. Will it even survive in its present form?

Are we, for instance, living in the times of the last ever Pope, as predicted by Saint Malachy? It could easily be. And if so, what comes afterwards?

Just as importantly, I predict that the way we see the world, the ‘universe’ and our accepted narratives of history, are all about to fundamentally alter as a result of changes in belief and perception; the blindfolds are about to be ripped away, perhaps quickly, but certainly over the next two decades. Seatbelts are advisable. Hold on tight.

Copyright Francis 2023

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‘A Line in the World’ (Pushkin Press) by Dorthe Nors – Book Review (NetGalley)

When I was small my grandma used to tell me ‘we are Danes.’

I was brought up on the opposite side of that wild expanse, the west side of the North Sea in eastern England. A thousand years ago much of the language, even culture in my part of the world was Danish, Viking, and it was called the Danelaw.

And there are still archaic words of old Norse in use today in our rapidly disappearing dialect. So maybe we are, in some ways, still Danes.

Perhaps that’s why, when I began to read this ARC, I immediately felt at home. Although Jutland’s west coast from Skagen to the German border is north and west facing, opposite to our own, the author’s loose, short sentenced yet lucid impressionistic streams of consciousness took me not only across the divide of the North Sea, but also into the past, my own childhood often spent at the windswept seaside and walking wrapped up in barren marshland where the sky towers above you.

In the flat lands of eastern England there is indeed a psychology at play, much like the writer explains; the quietude does not disguise or distract you from the demons inside like a city does. Here you are more with yourself, and it can be difficult, even depressing, particularly in the winter.

She says ‘Our brown calves are wet with cuckoo spit’, fairly typical of her language which is immediate and sensory, creating a timelessness where past and present merge together, much like the schism of land and sea. She says, throughout the book, that we are defined by schism and I think I know what she means. A country is defined by its border; our selves from one another. A home has its boundary, which is both porous and selective.

In this book the elements are like beings, sometimes friends, but always needing to be respected; the waves like mythological Valkyries: the Norse gods, like Odin, remain in the collective memory of Scandinavians – and isn’t Odin rather ‘Christ-like’, hanging from that ash tree, the Yggdrasil, even if he put himself up there? Yes, our ‘civilisation is a snapshot’; we try to understand, perhaps make a mark and then we are gone.

Like my own coastline, Jutland is bedecked with massive wind turbine farms, which to my eye, have become a blot on the seascape as well as the land. Clean energy is to be encouraged, naturally, but these structures which she describes as white trees with circular branches, only have a limited lifespan. Once defunct they will cause a massive landfill problem – and the wind doesn’t always blow either.

But I particularly like the way she talks of the past in the present tense in many places, so fitting for this every changing, yet eternal landscape, which has had so many shipwrecks (the Iron Coast) and natural disasters through storms.

I loved her tour of the churches too with the artist, the maker of sketches for this book. My own part of the world is noted for its churches too, but in a different way. And I was not aware that the Reformation in Denmark was slower to whitewash church frescoes than in England and Holland, all very fascinating.

I like the way she describes paths in the landscape as being like memories, connections in the brain, synapses perhaps, testimony to human interaction with the environment and shaping it organically.

Her descriptions of the Wadden Sea, the island life, the bird life, are all beautiful too. I very much relate to the area here being a haven for wading birds, pretty much like my own part of the world.

But ultimately it is Skagen, the very northern tip of Denmark where North Sea meets Baltic, the spiritual pinnacle of the Danish and Scandinavian experience. The schism of seas, between land and sea, our selves from one another: life and death.

Like many, I have only visited Copenhagen when in Denmark, but this great city is in no way representative of Denmark any more than London is of England.

One day, perhaps sooner than I envisage, I wish to visit Denmark again, Jutland in particular, and take that trip from Skagen to Esbjerg and beyond towards the Frisian islands. I think I owe it to myself. Thank you Dorthe Nors for enlightening me – I have never felt more like a Dane.


Copyright Francis 2022

One Minute Reflection – 23 September – ‘ … She did for the feet, what you refused to the Head.  — AnaStpaul (Reblog)

One Minute Reflection – 23 September – “The Month of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Cross” and the Mermorial of St Pope Linus (c 10 – c 76) Successor to St Peter – Osee 14:2-10, Luke 7:36-50 “She began to bathe His feet with her tears and wiped them […]

One Minute Reflection – 23 September – ‘ … She did for the feet, what you refused to the Head.  — AnaStpaul