FROM PIG TO RAT: SOME CHINESE NEW YEAR DAY REFLECTIONS

A COLD AND NOISY START

Pig to Rat hardly sounds like a terribly attractive transition but for the Chinese calendar the Year of the Rat is the energetic, optimistic beginning of a new cycle that docile, generous Pig has ended. The 12 year cycle of animals appears originally to have been built upon the fact that Jupiter has a twelve year run through the zodiacal signs but not the signs familiar to the western zodiac. The latter offers a set of images more empirically determined – the Chinese cycle has more to do with Buddhist myth and the animals that ran up to the Buddha of which rat was first. Considerations of the kosher variety don’t enter into this picture.

The Chinese hope that Rat year will be rat dynamic. Even here on Lamma Island the Rat came in with big noise. I had just begun at long last to read Ma Jian’s Red Dust but was also just about gratefully to drift off to sleep in warmth (it is still quite cold here following China’s Big Freeze) when the midnight fireworks started up and nearer than I expected. The noise was tremendous and there was no option but to wake up and watch. As opposed to last year it seemed the local show or one of them had been set up nearer to home here and just down by the nearby Temple and Kindergarten that are in a little square. The coloured sparks having flown high were nearly coming in the windows.

The question remains what will this year bring? I wouldn’t be asking the question on this Blog if it hadn’t happened that my intended subject for the month, a review of the implications of Joe Perez’s Soulfully Gay, is not possible because a consignment of books has got lost in the post which Alibris has just refunded. So I will go back to my last subject which was about prophecy and make two points, one in relation to astrology since I have mentioned the Chinese cycle, and one in relation to prophecy more generally. Actually in this instance I see a connection.

Numbers of the would- be prophets, i.e. charismatic ones I mostly criticized last article, have been assuring us that this year will be a year of surprises “suddenlies” and miracles in course of which America will have it rough. In all of this they could well be right, or at any rate the astrology they reject and despise pretty much confirms such ideas.

SOME AQUARIAN SURPRISES

There is an important solar eclipse today (and being new moon it’s the pretext of Chinese New Year) and a lunar eclipse in August. Both eclipses fall in Aquarius and Aquarius is the sign of precisely any surprises, “suddenlies” and miracles. Also this eclipse neatly falls conjunct the IC or Nadir of America’s chart (if one accepts as I believe one should that the Scorpio rising chart which supplies America an Aquarian IC). It is too suggestive and true to astrological rule that right in the shadow of this eclipse America suddenly suffers terrible tornadoes that have killed 57 people. The IC is about a nation’s land and weather so an aspect, particularly an eclipse, betokens things like sudden natural disasters and since tornadoes, though not common at this time of year are still relatively common in America, what has just happened looks like a warning of more disasters to come this year. Also what hits the IC opposes the MC (national leadership and destiny) so the surprisingly excitingly close race of the presidential candidates is an inevitability under the challenge of this eclipse.

However, the prophets also spoke of major deceptions this year. If they’re right the effect could be a good deal stronger than even they suppose because astrology can tell them something they don’t know.

Both Aquarian eclipses are relevant to the figure of late prophet, Jeane Dixon’s Antichrist, this February’s solar eclipse especially. If this person exists (and I could wonder if a better chart for a false Messiah could be found) it is conjuncting his natal sun/Jupiter conjunction. He simply must increase in authority over the coming year, and could maybe appear. This strange coincidence is paralleled by another. This same eclipse opposes exactly to the degree Lucifer in the chart of Jesus, a sort of challenge to evil to reveal itself. So…..to the extent the false Messiah is supremely the Man of the Lie, this year could to be a year of mounting deceptions of one kind or another.

Is it possible that those prophets who have said that this year will see prophecy coming from children (anoher surprise or the surprises?) are more right than they can imagine and that their own role will be a bit overshadowed or even replaced by children and others who didn’t expect to be prophets and weren’t expected by others to be such.

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES AND SUCKLINGS?

There’s a story out of South Africa about an eleven year old boy, the son of a glamorous former Mrs South Africa, who was caught in a terrible road accident in which he was severely injured, was three months in a coma and lost his sight. He came out of the coma and subsequently he believed Jesus came into his hospital ward and touched his eyes and told him he would be healed. His sight gradually returned. He began to write messages from Jesus. He even rebuked his shocked mother for not posting on messages to precise addresses of the parents of a couple of children he said he knew while in heaven during his coma and who were so happy in heaven they wanted the parents to know about this and Jesus. The story (see Retha McPherson) can be heard on a recent It’s Supernatural Net cast at
http://www.sidroth.org/site/PageServer?pagename=tv_archives

The main point however is that young Aldo, (unlike Dominionist inclined prophets I criticized last month) seems to be burdened with apocalypse. His mother even found him weeping in distress over a vision related to the parable of the ten bridesmaids, five of whom were wise and five of whom were foolish. Aldo says the wedding banquet will take place soon and many will be left outside, he’s seen the horrified frenzy of those left outside. Jesus has told him the present church is the book of Revelation’s Laodecia, i.e.self satisfied, materialistic and unprepared. Believe it or not, by way of vision this does seem pretty sophisticated for an eleven year old.

Even Aldo’s revelations somewhat dim before the stories and forecasts of Richard Madison, also recently archived for the It’s Supernatural Series. Madison’s story is just very special indeed and his prophecies are all part of it. He insists Israel will soon be attacked from the north by Iran and others supported by Russia this being in final fulfilment of certain prophecies of Ezekiel 38. Not in the archived material Madison is on recent record as also declaring the so called Rapture of believers will have taken place within 5 years from now. If that were valid it would go along with Aldo’s “very very soon” now as regards his persons who don’t make it to the wedding banquet.

Whatever one cares to make of all this vividly extreme visionary material it looks like '08 will have plenty of surprises for us all, and the eclipse has already brought even me one. A version of material related to this Blog has suddenly been accepted by a glossy magazine but any details regarding that can wait.